The Shaman's Ark — patch notes and updates
Stored observation / content update:
Dated developer announcements recorded from Steam. Open the source for the complete update.
| Update | Date | Excerpt / source |
|---|---|---|
| Update 1.4.3 — Smoother Boss Fights, Quick Retry, Mouse in Battle | 2026-10-22 | Hi, it's Andrey and Yana! This update is all about the boss fights. The first bosses now step into battle and back out of it smoothly, and they've become more alive and beautiful along the way. If a boss beats you, you won't have to walk all the way back: you'll wake up close by and can try again right away. You can now also fight with the mouse: just swipe toward the rune. Controllers got some love too, and lots of effects and small details across the game look and feel better than before. Thank you for playing, and good luck on the shaman's path! — Andrey & Yana (AmortizGames) |
| Update 1.4.2 — Fixes & Polish | 2026-07-17 | Hey everyone, A smaller one this time — smoothing over a few things that could trip you up, plus another pass on the writing. • Boat travel: fixed a bug where taking the boat could strand you out of bounds. You'll land back on solid ground every time now. • Boss soft-lock: fixed a lever in a boss arena that could lock you out of progressing if it was hit twice. • Landing indicator: the landing marker now reads correctly in late-game fights where gravity turns against you. • Terrain: distant terrain no longer visibly "pops" as you move through the world. • Localization: another polish pass — dozens of English lines rewritten for clarity, a loc |
| # Update 1.4 — Camera, Landing & Steam Deck | 2026-06-24 | Hey everyone, This one's mostly about how the game feels to move through. - **Camera:** no longer clips through walls, columns, mushrooms, or temple geometry, and won't shove in to face-level when you pass behind them. Object and character pop-in is gone, and it moves more smoothly when grazing terrain. - **Landing indicator:** jumping now shows where you'll touch down - and the marker turns red over dangerous spots. - **Aura effect:** added a new aura intersection visual. - **Steam Deck:** proper Steam Deck support, with a display, quality, and frame-rate profile tuned for the hardware. - **Japanese:** a polish pass on the Japanese localizat |
| # Update 1.3 — Japanese is Here, and the Ark is Growing | 2026-04-07 | Hey everyone,The Ark has reached new shores. **The Shaman's Ark is now fully localized in Japanese.**It represents careful work, and a decision we're proud we made. Japanese players have a deep, passionate community around atmospheric indie games, and they deserve a version of the Ark that feels like it was written for them, not translated at them. Every faction name, every piece of boss dialogue, every ambient story note — all of it went through multiple rounds of native review until it felt right. The Inverted Ones became 反転者たち. The Nest of the Seven Mouths became 七つの口の巣. The degraded, glitching speech of the lost became something that soun |
| Wendigo boss fixed in Hardcore mode! | 2025-11-21 | Huge thanks to everyone who reached out about the Wendigo bug: during the fight on Hardcore difficulty, the QTE segment could break, making the boss unbeatable.The issue is now resolved — enjoy the game! |
| Path of Pain and more! | 2025-10-08 | The main thing: a new game mode has been added - enemies are now faster and stronger!A new set of achievements for the Path of Pain has been added.By popular demand, the Cats that could previously be missed forever have moved to more accessible locations. Now all cats can be found in a single playthrough!Some bugs have been fixed.The balance has been slightly adjusted. |
| The Shaman's Ark has never been cheaper! | 2025-10-01 | Dear friends! Autumn has come — the season when it’s so nice to wrap yourself in something warm and die to bosses in Metroidvanias, fall into pits again and again, or get skewered by spikes and traps!All this awaits you in the lands of the Ark, so don’t miss your chance to grab the game with a whopping 40% discount! |
| Big Update Delayed Because of Silksong | 2025-08-29 | Dear friends! As you know, I’ve been working on a new hardcore mode for the game. There will be new achievements tied to this mode, and new opportunities to die painful deaths across the Ark! Just the way we love it!On top of that, I’ve made some adjustments to the regular content as well. For example, players really enjoyed searching for Cats, but many were frustrated that some Cats could be missed forever unless you started a new game. Well, that’s been fixed! Now you’ll be able to find all the Cats and unlock every ending in a single playthrough!My original plan was to release the big update and set up a major discount at the beginning of |
| Fixed QTE issues at very high speeds | 2025-08-14 | Some players reported that QTE battles against late-game bosses felt unfair. At first, I thought it was just my own terrible reaction time, but… I dug into it, investigated the issue, and found a problem with input detection when the runes in QTEs were moving too fast. Now all battles - especially the hardest ones - should feel much fairer. From now on, every mistake you make during a shamanic ritual is your honest mistake! |
| Quest fixes, new achievement | 2025-08-12 | Now you can't accidentally skip the quest with the recipe book. Removed the ability to skip the battle with the secret boss. Added a new achievement. Optimized memory cleaning, now there will be no short FPS drops during the battle. |
| QTE optimization patch | 2025-08-10 | Optimized scenes of combat rituals. This significantly reduces the load on the video card during QTE. |
| Character physics fix | 2025-08-10 | Fixed an issue where Shaman would twitch and bounce when hitting the ground at low fps |
| Optimization patch | 2025-08-09 | Optimization of 3D objects: added reduction in rendering quality at a large distance. Fixed several bugs. Added the ability to skip both cutscenes at the beginning of the game (but I do not recommend you do this, there is a plot!) |
| Bug fixes and gameplay experience improvements | 2025-08-02 | - Fixed several typos in the text - Fixed textures in trance - Fixed flies on the Fly Giver boss - Foundation for NG+ mode (it's in development, it's not in the game yet!) |
| New hardcore NG+ mode is now in development! | 2025-07-30 | Hey there! The game is out - but there’s still a lot I want to add! One of those things is the classic Soulslike feature: New Game Plus.I'm starting work on it now! NG+ will unlock after finishing the game with any ending, and it will be significantly more challenging than a regular playthrough. |
| The final version of the demo is out | 2025-03-26 | In the demo you will find: The beginning of the game's story; Training; A full-fledged location; And even a boss fight! And don't forget to add the game to your wishlist, because the release is coming soon! |
| New interface for Amulets | 2025-03-07 | Hi! We just finished a cool new interface for amulets! Now trying out different builds and tactics is not only useful, but also enjoyable! The release is coming soon, so feel free to add the game to your wishlist! |
| Two more big bosses are ready to kick your drum! | 2025-02-06 | I'm happy to announce that all bosses are ready at the moment except the final one. Release is coming very soon! |
| Almost finished the new boss! | 2024-10-24 | |
| Your feedback on demo | 2024-10-14 | Here you can leave your feedback on the demo. Good reviews will help me stay motivated and keep me warm this cold fall! Bad reviews will help make the game better at release! |
| A free demo version of the game is available on Steam! | 2024-10-12 | Dear friends! I'm happy to announce that the free demo of Shaman's Ark is now available on Steam! It will be available until the end of the Next fest (Oct 14 - Oct 21). Therefore, I invite you to explore the lands of the Ark! In the demo version you will find: 5 large story locations 2 initial bosses of the game several useful acquaintances with the inhabitants of the Ark Welcome to the Ark! |
| Free demo is coming soon | 2024-10-11 | Dear friends! A festival is starting soon, where you can play demo versions of many games. The Shaman's Ark will also take part in this festival. Soon a free demo version of the game will be available! |