One of the surprise indie hits of the year leaves early access with a major update

Vampire Survivors studio Poncle said in September that the 1.0 release update, set to arrive on October 20, would be "a surprise and should hopefully offer a little something for everyone." Now the big day is here, and I think it's fair to say that the promise has been kept.

Today's 1.0 update didn't go through the usual public beta process in order to avoid spoilers, Poncle said, which means two things: First, if you run into "any problems, frustrations, or balancing issues," you're asked to please report them in either Discord or the Steam forums; and second, if you're concerned about spoilers yourself, you might want to stop reading now because update details are going to be posted below.

There'll be an ad below this, which should help protect from unintentional glances, but after that you're on your own.

We already know about some of this new content. Inverse Mode, for instance, which amps up gold reward and enemy health, and literally flips levels upside-down, looks "extremely evil" in the eyes of our resident Vampire Survivor Fraser, who worried last week that it's "going to be the end of me." There's also a new Twitch mode, which enables viewers to make level-up decisions, choose special commands, and vote on special events.

Poncle said in the announcement that even though Vampire Survivors is now in full release, they won't be done with it until "I—or you—get tired of it."

"We'll probably start developing something new in poncle, but support for VS will also carry on," they wrote. "As anticipated in the v1.0 announcement, we’ll need to do some QOL improvements on niche mechanics like Eggs and Limit Break, plus finishing the engine port. But brand new features are also in the works…

"A huge thank you once again to all the players who turned this little weekend project into an insane success!"

The full details of the Vampire Survivors 1.0 update are below:

New Content:

• 3 achievements to fix existing unlocks:
• Complete any 30 minutes stage with Gallo or Divano. [Unlocks: Bracelet]
• Discover every standard evolution and union. [Unlocks: Candybox]
• Evolve the Bracelet and then the Bi-Bracelet. [Unlocks: 500 gold]
• 4 new achievements (each unlocks a new stage, mode, or feature):
• Find all the relics from all stages.
• Obtain Gracia's Mirror.
• Obtain the Seventh Trumpet.
• See the final fireworks.
• 1 new event stage
• 1 new weapon
• New skins for: Pugnala, Giovanna, Poppea, Concetta, and Mask of the Red Death.
• New "Side B" soundtrack. Every Side B track unlocks together with the stage it belongs to.
• New option for "blast processed" sound effects.
• Added missing music tracks for Il Molise (and Boss Rash in 0.11.400)
• Added 11 languages: French, Italian, German, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Turkish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.
• Added Twitch integration: the chat makes decisions for you and triggers special events. Enable in Options by typing in the chat's name, no need to login or doing anything weird.

Inverse Mode:

• Stages layout is upside down (can be disabled in Options) plus minor visual changes depending on stage.
• Gold gains are increased by 200%. Luck bonus of 20%.
• Enemies start with +200% Max Health.
• Enemies gain 5% Max Health every minute and and 1% movement speed every 2 minutes (cumulative with the Bone Zone enemy bonuses).
• The merchant also sells: Skip, Banish, and Reroll (can carry up to 20) and 1 extra Arcana.

Endless Mode:

• The Reaper won't spawn at the final minute.
• Reaching the final minute of a stage will make the enemy waves to restart from minute 0, completing a "cycle".
• Enemies gain 100% of their base Max Health per cycle.
• Enemies spawn frequency and amount is increased by 50% per cycle.
• Enemies deal 25% more damage per cycle. The player's max damage cap is diminished by 1 per cycle.
• The merchant respawns on every cycle and sells "+1 Revival" instead of Golden Eggs.

Achievement Tweaks:

• Reduced level requirements for character achievements (reach LV 100 is now LV80, reach LV99 is now reach LV50)
• Mindbender now unlocks at 50 COLLECTION items instead of 100

Tweaks:

• New UI to show what relics are available in each stage
• New UI to show what stages have been cleared for each character (plus option to turn it off)
• New UI option to lock the selection of a music track so it persists between runs
• Each rank in Banish and Reroll now grants 2 of them instead of 1.
• Picking up an Orologion also slows down Gold Fever decay by 50%
• Lightning Ring and Thunderloop are now affected by Arcana II - Twilight Requiem
• Bracelet is now affected by arcana XIV - Jail of Crystal. Bi-Bracelet is also affected by Arcana II - Twilight Requiem. Tri-Bracelet is also affected by Arcana XIX - Heart of Fire
• Reduced Sketamari's HP recovery when absorbing other skeletons.
• Increased XP gain in the early minutes of the Dairy Plant.
• Increased base gold amount in treasure chests.
• "Recovery" stat now also affects the potency of health recovery pickups.
• Arcana II - Twilight Requiem's explosions damage is now affected by Curse.
• "quick start" now becomes available after unlocking the 5 main stages.
• Capped all Limit break bonuses other than Might (this in particular is very open to suggestions in case it makes sense to increase some caps)

And finally, for those of you who already have everything from the 0.11 release and want to get straight to the new stuff in 1.0, here's what you need to do:

• On opening the game, you should automatically get the new Achievement "The Eudaimonia Machine". If not, make sure you're not missing any relic from 0.11, then enter and exit a run. The achievement will unlock a new event stage.
• Enter the new stage "Eudaimonia M." and do stuff.
• Enter and exit any stage while using the option you have unlocked in step 2.
• Go back to "Eudaimonia M." and do stuff.
• Enter and exit any stage while using the option you have unlocked in step 4.
• Go back to "Eudaimonia M." and do stuff.