Emberward Patch Notes — April 16, 2026
Aggregated from Steam, cross-tracked with Battle.net coverage on GamePatchNote.
New update!
Another month just flew by!
In this patch, there are some big changes to Endless Mode. Previously, Endless Mode had random anomaly effects to ramp up the difficulty, so you had to adjust your strategy, towers, and relics around them. But from player feedback, a lot of people mentioned that those restrictive effects didn't feel great to play with. So this time I decided to try a different direction (...the exact opposite direction) and added powerful positive effects instead! Honestly, I think having both positive and negative effects could lead to more interesting strategy, but I wanted to hear your thoughts on a buffs-only version first. Let me know what you think after you try it!
After this update, I've decided to start focusing on 1.0! I've already been slowly working toward it over the past few months, but trying to keep regular updates going while also building all the features needed for 1.0 has made the development process a lot more complicated. So I'm going to focus on it fully for a while! This way I don't have to worry about updates going wrong, and I can have more time to work on new stuff. Since there's a lot to get through, there might not be any more updates before 1.0 releases. Just wanted to give you a heads-up in case anyone's worried. I'll make another post later and show you some of the progress!
That's it for now. Hope you enjoy this update!
(btw, I mentioned reworking old relics and towers last time, but it turned out to be a lot more work than expected, and I also had some new ideas I wanted to try first, so they're not in this update. Likely coming with 1.0 instead!)
- Refi
New Features
Endless Mode
Endless Mode now unlocks once Misty Forest has been cleared on any difficulty. However, which maps you can play still depends on the player's progress.
For example, if a player has only cleared Misty Forest, but today's Daily Challenge rolls a map from another region, they will not be able to enter it.
The event maps have also been slightly adjusted. Misty Graveyard now unlocks after clearing the third region. Wyrmfell Bridge and Snowridge Outpost still require clearing the fourth region to unlock, since they use monsters and mechanics from the fourth region.
New Endless Mode mechanic: Blessings
Each Endless Mode run now comes with blessing effects. These effects provide extremely powerful bonuses, so you'll need to think carefully about how to use them to build better defenses.
A few examples:
Blessing of fate: Start with 99 Gambler's Tokens.
Blessing of Death: Every 3 Block cards discarded grants you a forbidden card that instantly kills a monster.
Blessing of Wisdom: The first card you play each round will have a copy of it returned to your hand.
Daily / Weekly Challenges now come with 3 blessing effects.
Joker and Scrap Master can now be used in Endless Mode!
The "Random Endless Mode" option has been removed.
Added "Custom Game"
You can choose any map from regions you have already cleared. (Currently 80 maps!)
You can choose up to five blessing effects.
Other Game Adjustments
Added multiple save slots. You can now switch between three save files.
Since many people requested this feature for playing together with family members, there is no delete button on the save slot switching UI to avoid...tragic accidents (yup, been there). If you want to reset your save, the option is still at the very bottom of the settings page!
Added new options to the settings page:
Pause When in Background: The game will automatically pause when you switch to another window.
Idle Auto Pause: If there is no input for over 30 seconds, the game will automatically pause within the 30 seconds before battle begins.
Infernal Shards: After unlocking Tier 2 and Tier 3 shards at higher difficulties, they will now also be unlocked in lower difficulties.
The maximum game speed has been increased by 50%.
(Still testing! If this causes any issues, it may be changed back to the previous speed!)
Quests that ask you to "build X of a certain 1x1 tower" will no longer select Scrap Tower.
Towers
The balloons from Balloon Tower now become semi-transparent while the player is building, so they no longer block your view.
Fortress Towers can now also transmit electricity.
Adjusted the visual effects of Chainball Tower and Frost Tower.
When multiple players are tied on the leaderboard, ranking is now determined by total monsters killed. (Previously, Steam automatically sorted tied players by player ID.)
Slightly improved game startup speed.
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue with the sound effect when clicking on Bone Walls.
Fixed an issue in Sealed Citadel where the displayed attack range of some Ancient Defense Towers was incorrect.
Fixed an issue in Custom Game where clearing the stage could get stuck when all relics had been obtained.
Fixed an issue where quests could not be selected after obtaining all towers.
Post-launch update
\[2026/5/2]
Fixed an issue where auto-pause could also be triggered while opening a treasure chest.
Fixed an issue in Custom Endless Mode where players' highest records for each map sometimes failed to save.
Fixed an issue where discarding the rightmost card could cause an error when using a controller.
Updated the images displayed for certain maps in Custom Endless Mode.
\[2026/5/10]
Fixed an issue that could cause the difficulty of an ongoing game to change to Normal.
Fixed an issue where the relic "Explosive Demolition" did not correctly remove tower when its effect was triggered.
\[2026/5/25]
Fixed an issue where when playing as Estelle the Astromancer, the Block cards granted by Maze Blessing in Endless Mode did not have Astral Runes.
Fixed an issue in Endless Mode where players could get "Anarchy Core" relic from effects that grant a random relic.
