Emberward Patch Notes — September 11, 2025
Aggregated from Steam, cross-tracked with Battle.net coverage on GamePatchNote.
New Update!
FINALLY the achievements are out!
This patch was a ton of work, and I’m so happy it's finally done! Getting the achievement system finished feels like a huge step toward 1.0. Right now the game has 85 achievements. Aside from the ones you unlock just by progressing, I also added some that take a little creative thinking to figure out, plus a few ideas that came from players during Early Access. My goal with achievements is more about "encouraging players to do some weird stuff" rather than making them insanely hard (the most difficult one is likely the Infernal Shard 24 achievement). Kinda like extra challenges layered on top of the game.
Also, there are a few new towers added in this update! I used to be very cautious about towers that move enemies. Since maze-building is the core of the game, mechanics like that can easily break the balance. This time I'm trying something new: alongside adding those towers, I also added a build limit system to keep things fair. Let me know how it feels once you've tried them, and I'll be adjusting based on feedback!
As for the next update, I think it's going to be a regular content patch (need a little rest after working on this patch...). As always, there will be new content, and I'll also go back to polish and tweak some existing systems, as well as address some of the things suggested in the feedback.
That's all. Hope you all have a great time achievement hunting! 🏆
- Refi
New Features
Achievements System
Added 85 achievements!
2 of them are tied to unreleased characters and cannot be unlocked yet. The other 83 are unlockable.
About 30% are progress-type achievements. The one you've already met the requirements will auto-unlock when you launch the game.
The rest are mostly challenge-type achievements, including higher-difficulty challenges and tasks that need special approaches.
The Compendium now has an Achievements page. The Tower and Relic pages will also show relics you have used.
New Towers
Blackhole Tower (3x3+): Fires a mini black hole that pulls in monsters within its range.
Barrage Tower (1x5): Rapidly bombards a distant area.
Portal Tower (1x3): Teleports passing monsters back to where they were a few seconds ago.
Chainball Tower (1x2): Launches a massive chainball that knocks back enemies straight ahead and stuns them.
Golden Statue (Rework): Turns monsters into gold; attacking gilded enemies makes them drop extra coins.
A few of these new towers are especially powerful. To keep things balanced (otherwise you can win every game with a full line of portals), these towers have a build limit. Blackhole Tower, Portal Tower, and Golden Statue are limited to one on the field at a time.
Game Adjustments
Towers
Scrap Tower: The tower info panel now shows remaining ammo.
Golden Statue: The tower info panel now shows total coins earned.
Relics
Chaos Transmuter: Now only affects 1x1, 2x2, and 3x3 towers.
Other
Treasure chests that are obscured will now display a yellow outline and a see-through tint.
Leaderboard now clearly shows which character's leaderboard you're viewing.
The anomaly "At the start of each round, several 1x1 Lava tiles will fall from the sky." is removed from daily/weekly challenges.
Added more tower–relic combinations for daily/weekly challenges.
Balance Changes
Drill Tower: Removed from Endless Mode temporarily.
Well...I thought using the red upgrade to juggle the monsters was too exhausting and not worth it just to climb the leaderboard.... But I was wrong, I saw someone spend 8 HOURS doing that to get to the top of the leaderboard. I really respect that dedication, but it isn't a good thing for either the people doing it or those who choose not to.
So, for everyone's health, I'm removing it from Endless Mode for now and will bring it back after some adjustments!
Fireball Tower: Fire rate increased by 20%.
Magic Arrow Tower: Damage +20%.
Froststorm Tower: Build cost +15.
Thunder Tower: Build cost +15.
Starfall Tower: Build cost +15.
There's some feedback that 3x3 towers feel too powerful, but I think having strong damage output feels better for the 3x3s, so I'll try to increase cost adjustments about 10–15% first.
Crusher Bot:
Self-stun on wall impact increased from 3s → 5s.
The rate of rolling speed increase was reduced by 50%.
Crusher Bot is one of the few enemies that needs special maze layouts to deal with. These changes make its weakness stand out more.
Post-Patch Fixes
Fixed an issue where towers built before the game started were not sealed by the Ancient Flame.,
Fixed the bug where the Giant Dice Tower did not unlock the achievement after a reroll.,
Fixed the problem where the Barrage Tower's attack range did not update after removing the distance buff.,
Fixed an issue where the "Block Mesa" achievement incorrectly counted removed blocks when using the Joker.,
Changed the requirement for the "Elementalist" achievement: it is now "Complete a game on Normal difficulty or higher with only one element of towers (Fire, Ice, Electric, Poison, or Arcane) on the field for the entire run, and defeat the final boss."
When the anomaly "When medium or larger monsters die, they spawn three skeletons" is active, destroying an Ancient Defense Tower will no longer spawn skeletons.
Fixed an issue where the Starfall Tower could not attack Ancient Defense Towers that are positioned higher.
Utility tower will now display their elements in the tooltip.
