Early Access 1.2: Nightmare Forge
DASHPUNCH Patch Notes — October 10, 2025
Aggregated from Steam, cross-tracked with Battle.net coverage on GamePatchNote.
Hello again! Been awhile!
It's a week or so late, but it's here! The Nightmare Forge update is now available for everyone on Steam to play, if they want. Scary! But such is the nature of game dev. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy it!
So what's in the Nightmare Forge update? Mostly everything that was in the last roadmap, although a ways in, some plans got rearranged as usual. In particular, the "New Pact Coin Use" ended up being WAY more in-depth than previously planned, so a few things were pushed back in exchange, a few plans scaled down, et cetera. I promise the new stuff is just as cool though! Anyway, I've once again update the roadmap, seen here:
On to the new content!
World 4: Splintered Underworld
A fourth world has been added to DASHPUNCH! The first since Early Access started, a fully-featured new area is now available to fight through. Once a hotspot for local Crow cults to enact their soul-harvesting rituals, the Underworld fortresses have been ravaged by the Tyrant Hand's influence. For those of you with the appropriate Chakras, this also means the Loop-Portal has been moved from the third boss to the fourth.
The Nightmare Forge:
Predictably, the big piece of new content in the Nightmare Forge update is, well, the Nightmare Forge itself! A mysterious arcane anvil found on every visit to the new fourth world, the Nightmare Forge can empower your items... permanently!
What's the catch, a hypothetical user may ask? A hefty sum of Pact Coins, for starters, but that's not all. The Underworld the forge resides in has been particularly overrun with the Tyrant Hand's corruption, coating the landscape with swathes of ice-blue frostfire that changes the nature of anything it touches; and the Forge is no exception. Depending on where the forge is found, it will offer one of two potential upgrades! While these are mutually-exclusive, items can be reforged for a much smaller cost, provided you take them to the opposite Forge.
When all is said and done, yes, this does mean an additional 114 all-new item effects have been added to the game! Power up old favorites, or make lesser-used items more rewarding to play with, the choice is yours!
Patch Notes:
- World 4: Splintered Underworld. Adds 9 new enemies, 1 boss, 1 achievement (+unlockable item)
- New Upgrade System: The Nightmare Forge. Spawns in World 4, in one of two varieties. Spend Pact Coins on any item to add a permanent effect depending on which Forge it is. These effects do not scale with item count. Adds 114 potential new effects.
- Adjusted incursion spawn tables
- Fixed some tracking issues with radial ground target attacks (rock tanks, etc)
- Fixed some visual bugs with certain broken wall tiles
Thanks for reading, and good luck in the Underworld!