Ashfire Keep 1.2.0 — Co-op, three new classes, three new maps, The Breach

1.2.0 is out. It is the biggest patch the game has had since release: seven weeks of work that change how it plays, not just how much there is to play.

If you already own the game, 1.2 and everything in it are free.

Co-op for up to 4

Online. Create a lobby among Steam friends, invite from the overlay, and whoever accepts joins straight in. Everyone marks themselves "ready" and the host starts when all are set. It is one shared run: the host runs the enemies, the keep, the supplies and the waves, and enemies chase anyone in the group.

On the same PC. Up to four on one machine, with controllers. Player 1 uses whatever they are already using, and a button on another controller adds someone new. It mixes with online too: two on your PC and two guests.

Every player picks their own class and their own upgrades — before, on the couch, only player 1 got cards. Defenses are built out of a shared supply bag, but each player sees their own list of what they have unlocked. Going down is not losing: you are back next wave.

The siege grows with the number of defenders: more enemies, not enemies that flatten the weakest player in the group.

Three new classes

Cleric (mace, durable melee), Barbarian (double-edged axe, slow and brutal hits, less health) and Necromancer (bone staff, fast projectiles and fragile, raises skeletons that fight beside you).

They are not handed to you: the Cleric unlocks by winning Forest Village, the Barbarian by winning Snowbound Outpost, and the Necromancer by downing all three bosses. If you had already done it, you will find them open.

Every class also has its own dodge now: the Ranger rolls, the Mage teleports, the Barbarian leaps, and the Necromancer falls apart into bones and pulls himself together a few steps away.

Three new maps, and each one is a step up

• Sunscar Canyon (18 waves): the desert necropolis. Loose sand that slows you, sandstorms, and the mummies of the first Guardians.
• Gloomspore Hollow (21 waves): the blooming cave. Tight chokepoints, glowing mushrooms, and spore pools that punish you.
• Greywall Hall (24 waves): the castle of the broken guard. The longest map, with archers in the galleries and gates that can all four open at once.

Maps no longer differ only in their enemies: each one is built for the weapon tier you win in the previous one, and they unlock in a chain. Snowbound Outpost no longer repeats the forest waves — it has its own.

The Breach

A sixth map with no end, beneath the keep. Ten-wave cycles with a different dominant enemy family each time, and always The Awakened. A miniboss on the fifth wave, a boss on the tenth, and from the sixth cycle on, two families and two bosses at once.

Your best run goes to the Steam worldwide leaderboards, solo and co-op. To open it you have to win all five maps on all four difficulties: it is the longest challenge in the game.

And on top of that

• 89 upgrades. Twelve per class, with evolutions. New mechanics: shields, critical hits and kill attribution.
• Six new traps: bear trap, tar, embers, spring, powder and rune. They combine — fire lights the tar, the spring throws an enemy back onto the spikes.
• Ten weapon tiers, refined with materials each map drops.
• More than 70 events that change with the map and the difficulty, now with their own art: tornadoes, electric storms that leave you stunned, total darkness, blood moons.
• Bosses with their own art and attacks, every heavy blow marked on the floor before it lands.
• An original soundtrack: a menu theme, one per map and one for every final boss.
• A fourth difficulty: Inferno.
• An interface rebuilt from top to bottom, an illustrated How to Play guide, and a compendium with the story and the bestiary.

About the price

For the next 15 days the game stays at its current price. After that, it goes up.

The full notes are on Steam.