The giant Witchfire Reckoning update adds the melee brutality it's been missing, because its dev wants you to show off

The Witchfire Reckoning update brings melee weapons, a new vault, dangerous challenges, and Steam Deck verification to the dark fantasy FPS.

The new Witchfire Reckoning update has just landed, marking the second-to-last milestone on the dark fantasy FPS game's road to 1.0. There's a whole heap of additions to expand the progression and challenge, along with a range of powerful handheld weapons that let you get up close and personal. Ahead of the update, we spoke to The Astronauts CEO and founder Adrian Chmielarz about what the new melee options bring to the table, and why it's okay to shelve your lore bible for a bit and just hit things with a big morningstar.

With Chmielarz and several of his Astronauts colleagues known for their prior work on stylish, spectacle FPS games like Painkiller and Bulletstorm, Witchfire feels very much like the next step in that evolution. "It's the first shooter [of ours] that I would call an RPG shooter," Chmielarz muses. "We made a sort of boomer shooter with Painkiller, Bulletstorm was your sort of adventure shooter, this is an RPG shooter." Yet the newcomer has been suspiciously light on melee options, so the Reckoning introduces three: the Morgernstern, Ktar, and Buckler.

"The decision was very simple, it's like, 'Hey why can't I smack their face in with a big hammer?'" I really can't argue with Chmielarz there, but he does elaborate. "People were asking, and if we can, we will deliver. People are asking for co-op - that's not going to happen, because Witchfire is designed for single-player. But people are asking for melee weapons and we thought, 'This clearly fits, obviously we can do that.'

"We're not trying to compete against Dying Light or Dead Island, so you cannot replace your main weapon with a melee weapon," Chmielarz explains. It's just a replacement for your standard punch, which itself has been upgraded into a one-two combo with the inclusion of a juicy uppercut. "Instead of the fist, you can have a shield, or a morningstar. Then you have your attack and you have your special attack, and it's just pure fun.

"It's another sort of thing in your arsenal that supports the whole idea, the design core of Witchfire, to give the players a lot of autonomy, a lot of opportunities to show mastery and competence and have some [connection to] the form of the storytelling. It's just one more tool in your arsenal - a tool that, as it so happens, is also fucking fun to use." He chuckles.

While he's eager to talk about topics like immersion, treating your world seriously, and writing lore bibles (stay tuned to PCGamesN for more on that), Chmielarz is just as gleeful to say, "Hey isn't it fun? You basically bash skulls in with a giant thing. The duality of man, eh?" As an example, he notes that firing a weapon in Witchfire involves "maybe 30 things happening," and while most players won't consciously notice most of them, the important part is that "pressing the trigger is fun."

Melee is far from the only addition to look forward to in the Reckoning update, although the others are more related to progression and unlocks, so the developer is playing things a little more coy on specifics there. A new world corruption system (dubbed 'extraction 2.0' by The Astronauts) will make the world push back as you rob it of the eponymous Witchfire. This will gradually lead to tougher foes such as vicious Golems, more brutal encounters, and even natural phenomena that can impede your progression.

While one of the two planned vaults was shelved for the time being, it's only so the remaining one - Velmorne Vault - could get the attention needed to build it out into the game's "biggest and most expansive vault yet." You'll need to be well prepared to even get in. Elsewhere, you'll find Torments, pages from the Codex Maleficarum that can be studied to unlock "optional, very dangerous challenges" that will pay out with big rewards.

On the more beneficial side, Surges can occur as you gather orbs around the world or from fallen foes. These bursts of power come in several forms, each temporarily boosting your abilities in some manner. There are also three new firearms, two gear pieces, and three more Fallen Prayers to choose from. A shooting range has been introduced, along with a bestiary to collate all your defeated opponents, and unlocking enemies in the record will allow you to summon them for testing purposes.

Rounding out the patch are some welcome quality-of-life improvements, including a fix for the most common complaint among reviewers. Witchfire's screen shake has always been notoriously strong, so you're now able to disable it if you find it off-putting. There's also an arachnophobia filter and a font size setting. Finally, it's officially been Steam Deck verified, thanks to a dedicated performance profile for the Valve handheld.

The Witchfire Reckoning update is out now, and the game is 20% off through Thursday December 18, so expect to pay $31.99 / £26.80 if you buy it now. You can browse the details in full courtesy of The Astronauts.

As for what the future holds, Chmielarz is focused on Witchfire for now. "Ultimately, it's a big project. At first it was 12 of us, right now it's 26, but we outsource a lot, so it's a really big project." Given the opportunity, however, he says he would also like to work on an immersive sim. "Games like Deus Ex, for example, or maybe even Red Dead Redemption. Where, yes, there is a story to experience, but it's also an opportunity to basically just Matrix yourself, just spend some quality time in a different world."

Additional reporting by Lauren Bergin for PCGamesN.