- PATCH 1.5 - SHARPER HORIZONS - 4 October 2025
NEW ARENA: JAGGED PEAKS Prepare to face off in a brand new arena with combat progressing over six varied zones. PERFORMANCE AND FIDELITY This patch delivers a massive leap in visual fidelity, featuring clearer rendering, improved framerates, and reduced noise. DLSS has been upgraded to version 4, providing substantially higher quality upscaling. TSR has also been upgraded for those without NVIDIA cards. Upgrades and tweaks to Lumen Global Illumination. FSR4 frame generation has been implemented, giving those without NVIDIA 4000+ series cards an option for higher frame rates. Implemented NVidia Reflex and AMD Antilag to ensure input is processed as quickly as possible. Implemented new techniques for reducing the blur created by Temporal Anti Aliasing (TAA). Added micro details to many of the biomes. Many other small tweaks based on extensive profiling. ADDITIONAL FEATURES AND IMPROVEMENT…
- The Black Pool Soundtrack Releases May 21st! - 4 April 2025
UPDATE: The Black Pool Soundtrack by Angles and Under Sanction is now available on Spotify, Apple Music, and all other major streaming services.LISTEN TO SUIT UP AND STARECASE Stream the singles Suit Up and Starecase:
- PATCH 1.4 - THE SLASHER - 4 February 2025
NEW ENEMY: SLASHER A new enemy is on the prowl. Beware, they like to get up close and personal. ADDITIONAL FLUX EVENTS Additional common flux events have been added, increasing variety. ELEMENT GUIDE One of the top requests from new players has been to add a way to reference the element descriptions outside of skill selection. An elemental guide has now been added to the in-game menu. ADDITIONAL FEATURES AND IMPROVEMENTS Reduced the brightness of lens flares. While shiny metal and flare are part of the overall aesthetic, some flares were too bright and distracting. Reworked Ascend (light jump) to be a charged secondary jump instead of replacing the base jump. The charged jump can now be triggered while in the air. Music: Updated and elaborated the random world track Making Contact. Updated Javelin to be easier to see in dark areas. Improved Torcher AI. Added wind power % to enemy health…
- PATCH 1.3 - SPEED AND PERFORMANCE - 29 November 2024
PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS The Black Pool patch 1.3 brings many performance improvements. Following the last big content patch, we devoted substantial time to evaluate and tune both CPU and GPU performance. A large focus of this effort was to ensure that biomes which were less performant were brought into parity with the rest of the game. Most notably, the forest environment has been optimized and greatly improved, and now has a low-end tree replacement system for players on low foliage settings. QUICK WIND REVAMPED Wind Blast has been reworked to be more fun and useful from the start. The wind projectile now moves at a constant blistering speed, a 225% increase. The projectile speed upgrade has been replaced with an upgrade to increase the blast splash radius—a more rewarding option. Some additional adjustments were made to reduce accidental self knockbacks when hitting targets in close…
- PATCH 1.2 - ARENA SURVIVORS - 23 October 2024
NEW GAME MODE: ARENA SURVIVORS The Black Pool patch 1.2 introduces an entirely new game mode: Arena Survivors— a fast and intense battle arena featuring rapid progression and randomized waves of increasingly more difficult enemies. It delivers a fun and highly replayable “survivors-like” spin on The Black Pool gameplay, and also provides a quick way to experiment with abilities and builds without the time commitment of a full playthrough. A successful Arena Survivors attempt will take around 30 minutes, compared to 90 minutes for the full game mode (now called The Journey Home). Four unique arenas have been developed for Arena Survivors, each presenting varied and evolving layouts, hazards, and challenges. ADDITIONAL FEATURES AND IMPROVEMENTS Endless Mode: Upon clearing level 30 in Arena Survivors, players can choose to keep playing endlessly. Attempt to set new records, go crazy with a…
- PATCH 1.2 DROPPING SOON! - 22 October 2024
Get ready—The Black Pool 1.2 is dropping soon. Patch 1.2 launches an entirely new Arena Survivors game mode, a brand new music track, and numerous new features, balance adjustments, and bug fixes!
- PATCH 1.1.0 - CHAOS - 19 July 2024
The Black Pool patch 1.1 delivers the top requested post-launch features from our Discord community, including a brand new element, multiplayer nametags, and player pings! NEW ELEMENT: CHAOS A new element has been discovered: Chaos. Adding 6 base abilities, 4 augments, 11 upgrades, and a new ring drop, the addition of Chaos brings the total number of unique abilities and augments in the game to 90! NAMETAGS Friends now have a nametag UI overlay to make them easier to locate. This can be disabled in Settings. VISUAL PING ALERTS Player ping functionality has been added to better coordinate attacks and quickly communicate with other players. Ping shares the Revive input binding. ADDITIONAL FEATURES AND IMPROVEMENTS Multiplayer: Added the option to password protect games when hosting. Added a new photosensitive mode in Settings that reduces flashes and suppresses HDR bloom and lens flares.…
- PATCH 1.0 - THE BLACK POOL GOES GOLD! - 19 June 2024
This patch we focused primarily on polish and smaller bug fixes in preparation for officially launching The Black Pool on Steam! It has been a long road to get here. Thank you to everyone who has supported the game to help us reach this huge milestone! FEATURES AND IMPROVEMENTS Following completion of World 4, the new music track Suit Up now plays while players select their kill bonus. New lighting effects in the Temple have also been added. Numerous Temple updates have been made to improve overall polish, including the addition of twelve new murals. The Device: When hovering over a Tier Up button, the new stat values for the next tier are now previewed and highlighted. BALANCE UPDATES Flux that falls into a respawn zone is now awarded automatically instead of being lost into the abyss. Increased responsiveness of quick attacks. Quick attacks are now effectively fired on the very next f…
- The Black Pool is launching out of early access! - 4 June 2024
We are thrilled to announce The Black Pool will be launching out of Early Access— version 1.0 of the game releases on June 19th! We entered Open Beta and Early Access a year ago. Through valuable community feedback, we have added a host of new content and features to the game, while addressing pain points, and optimizing performance. Some notable content added throughout our Early Access period: Addition of in-playthrough Flux collectible system and redeemable upgrades, with 6 unique Flux events. 14 new enemy types and 3 new boss sequences. Increased the number of player abilities in the game from 42 to 80. Created the augment system that allows radically modifying abilities in a fundamental way that the existing upgrade system could not. An additional elemental school of Void, consisting of 10 abilities. Two additional Biomes and dozens of new maps for existing biomes. Greatly improved…
- PATCH 0.9.3 - UBER PERFORMANCE - 2 June 2024
This patch, we focused on increasing graphics quality, performance, and overall polish. The Black Pool is also now available in 7 languages. FEATURES AND IMPROVEMENTS Added DLSS 3.7 super resolution support. Those with NVIDIA cards that support it can now take advantage of DLSS upscaling! Added DLSS Frame generation. Those with 40-series NVIDIA cards can also enable Frame Generation, which will grant a substantial framerate increase as well. Added a red vignette visual effect to better inform players when damage is taken. We would love to hear your feedback on this new feature. Added support for German, French, Japanese, Chinese, and Russian. If you would like to help with the game being available in your native language, please reach out on our Discord! Improvements to many sounds and visual effects. BALANCE UPDATES Grapple: Reduced base range by 12.5%. Magnus - Beta Sector: Some balan…
- PATCH 0.9.2 - BADDER BOSSES - 24 May 2024
BADDER BOSSES This patch introduces a new challenge mode: Badder Bosses, which adds new and unique challenge content to each boss, such as additional stages, new enemies, and different attack patterns. NEW FINAL TEMPLE OFFERING After selecting your six abilities, the final temple offering now presents three random drop bonus choices. These drop bonuses are reduced in strength compared to normal drops, but are automatically applied on every kill and assist. These kill bonuses add another aspect of strategy and improvisation to each playthrough. ADDITIONAL FEATURES AND IMPROVEMENTS New level (Gloom - Upsilon Sector) Gloom levels now have random weather variation. New details added in the final Forest level. Mechs have gained a new teleport ability which they may use strategically. Various audio improvements. BALANCE UPDATES Fireball: Reduced self amplified damage amount by 20%. Updated si…
- PATCH 0.9.1 - A MORE POWERFUL DEVICE - 13 May 2024
NEW MAGNUS LEVEL This patch introduces Magnus - Beta Sector, which holds some fun surprises and unique challenges. NEW DEVICE CHOICES Two new unlockable slots have been added to The Device. In addition, the STEEL OR GLASS and STRATEGIC DAMAGE slots were each given a 3rd option. ELEMENT UNLOCKING New players and new player slots now unlock 5 of the 8 known elements in a randomized order. This introduces elements and new abilities gradually, and provides an improved sense of progression and discovery for new players. ADDITIONAL FEATURES AND IMPROVEMENTS Quitting the game: There is now, officially, the option to quit and save progress from the start of the current level. Alternatively, you can abandon the run. Magnus - Alpha Sector: Fixed large lag spikes that could occur during platform raising and lowering. Updated visuals for player effect cards, making them easier to read. Added visual…
- PATCH 0.9.0 - NOW FEATURING 80 ABILITIES - 18 April 2024
STRONG AND AREA ATTACK AUGMENTS The Entity now offers augments for strong and area attacks! In total, this patch introduces 16 new augments, and 2 new base abilities. There are now 80 unique abilities and augments in the game, ensuring endless build combinations! NEW HEAVY MECH: BEETLE NEW CHARACTER ANIMATIONS Improved character animations for Levitate, Grapple, Fire Thrust, and Nether Pull. ADDITIONAL FEATURES AND IMPROVEMENTS The introductory text at the start of the game has been replaced with a short cinematic sequence. New Legendary Flux Event — It happens rarely, but it is very exciting when it does! Added a pair of destructible statues to the Temple that can be used for trying out abilities, and target practice. The hitpoints of the two statues are constant, acting as a baseline of comparison within and across playthroughs. Two new levels (Maroon Fields and Obsidian). Improved th…
- PATCH 0.8.2 - THREE ABILITIES TO START - 25 February 2024
THREE ABILITIES TO START Players now start with three abilities, choosing from each of the offered starting elements. Previously, combat in the first world could feel limited with only two abilities. This makes the first levels feel more engaging from the start, and also requires players to improvise with their builds a little bit more. PATCHWORK A point of frustration for players has been falling into crevices while in combat. We have painstakingly gone through all of the biomes and smoothed out many of these problem areas. While we want there to be environmental obstacles to contend with, the worst offenders have been greatly improved. If you run across an area that feels “bad”, let us know! ADDITIONAL FEATURES AND IMPROVEMENTS Player starting jump hang time has been reduced to feel a bit less “floaty”. Levels now have enemies spawned at the start, helping the worlds feel more populat…
- PATCH 0.8.1 - HEALTH BARS AND DROPS - 17 February 2024
ENEMY HEALTH BARS This patch, we have delivered one of our most requested features: enemy health bars. In addition to displaying the rank and hit points for medium and heavy enemies, all currently applied elemental effects are now visualized as colored bars. These bars provide greater clarity to elemental effects— how long they last, how much effect has been applied, and crucially, when the thresholds are about to be reached for time-limited effects such as frozen, blind, and brittle. Relevant numbers are also displayed, such as total damage amplification from decay, or the current damage over time amount from fire. EVENT BARS Bosses, flux events, and hold points now display event progress bars. ENEMY DROPS Enemies now have a chance to drop short term power-ups on death. These power-ups include: increased movement speed, next attack does double damage, a shield that absorbs 50% damage,…
- SMALL FIX PATCH 0.8.0.1 - SOME UPDATES - 26 January 2024
Fix for a rare multiplayer issue where a client could not see the offered elemental upgrade. This was a rather rare issue which was problematic to reproduce, so we could not 100% verify it has been fixed. Please let us know if you run into this issue after this patch! Light Fissure: Fix for not damaging stationary targets. Lingering Death: Reduced the damage/effect over time by 50%. Also fixed clouds redirecting Boulder Toss. Triple Shot: Reduced spread from 10 degrees to 7.5 degrees. Phantom Leap: Fix to prevent teleporting through walls above the player. Updated some stationary enemies to not slowly creep away when hit by wind force on clients in multiplayer. Audio will now remain active when the game window loses focus. Molten Pillars Boss: Plugged hole by the upgrades where players could fall through. Shattered Crater Boss: Fixed issue where some of the boss attacks would fire backw…
- PATCH 0.8.0 - INTRODUCING AUGMENTS - 22 January 2024
QUICK ATTACK AUGMENTS The Entity now offers augments for quick attacks. Unlike upgrades, augments completely alter abilities with new mechanics and effects. Each quick attack has 2 unique augments. Augments remain compatible with any upgrades you have selected. In total, this patch introduces 16 new abilities, bringing the number of quick attacks in the game from 8 to 24! HIGH RANK ENEMY ABILITIES Rank 4 and 5 enemies are now randomly granted one of three additional abilities: hex shield, barrage, or laser blocker. TEMPLE DEVELOPMENT The Temple courtyard has been further developed with new structures, details, and lore elements— with more to come. Additionally, a new Temple music track “Onset” has been added. ADDITIONAL FEATURES AND IMPROVEMENTS Improved Mobility: By popular demand, the base dash, and all other dashes can now be activated in the air. This change improves early game mobi…
- PATCH 0.7.2 - PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS & FIXES - 22 December 2023
While we have been working hard on a large content patch for January with some very exciting new features, we have addressed several performance issues and fixed some outstanding bugs. We decided to gather those up to push in a patch now, rather than waiting a few more weeks for the big content patch. BUG FIXES AND IMPROVEMENTS Skylands & The Forest performance improvements. Reworked the foliage system to be more performant and to better scale on medium and low settings. Some cards were really struggling with foliage (such as the 1660). This update should dramatically improve frame rates for these biomes. We don’t have access to all video cards to test on, so please, share if there are any areas that are performing poorly for you! Molten Pillars: Previously, at night, certain lighting conditions and combinations of shadow quality settings could be very dark. These conditions have been m…
- HOTFIX 0.7.1F - DECAY JUMP HOTFIX - 13 December 2023
Hotfix to resolve an issue where a player could get locked out of casting abilities between the point of doing a decay jump and the decay double jump.
- PATCH 0.7.1 - STOMPER HAS ENTERED THE CHAT - 9 December 2023
NEW BOSS: JAGGED PEAKS A massive new boss has come to the Jagged Peaks. Every world now has its own unique boss, totaling 10 unique boss encounters in the game! NEW ABILITY SUMMARY SCREEN By popular demand, we have added an ability summary screen. Now at any time during the game, you can review the details of the abilities and upgrades you have selected. DAMAGE NUMBERS REWORKED The damage number display system has been completely reworked. Our goal was to increase legibility, while minimizing the visual impact and over stimulation of information. Higher damage numbers are now displayed larger and for a longer duration, making them much easier to read while in combat. BALANCE UPDATES Shortened light’s blind effect versus bosses, lasting ⅓ as long. Previously a fully upgraded blind effect could essentially blind-lock bosses. Strong light now scales up in damage when charged, in addition t…
