Post-Launch Update: Addressing Player Feedback

Hey Parasites!

Pathogenic just passed 100k copies sold! Thank you so much for your support that helped us reach this massive milestone in less than a week after launch. Now for the more important thing of today: Pathogenic just got a new update with a series of rebalancing, optimizations and fixes!

Balancing

We've heard your feedback about the Lungs difficulty scaling. While it will remain as a harder late-game level, we have adjusted some of the enemies to make them less unpredictable. Dash attacks are now more telegraphed for the pathogens to evade, and the alveolar macrophages are receiving fewer buffs from their T-cells support.

Traits also received a couple changes to make your runs less chaotic. Cancerous trait now transfers to the newly cloned organelle, meaning that the original organelle will lose the trait and the stat boost. There will only be one cancerous organelle at a time, unless you decide to pick up another one from the wild. Also, Ephemeral organelles can now be recycled for resources if they are barely used.

Solo Diatom

We know not everyone wants to team up for infection, and some prefer to fly solo. The Diatom can now be played as a single player by clicking X on the pathogen selection screen to start the game. After waiting a short time in-game with no input from a second set of controls, the Diatom will enter single-player mode where one player can control both halves of the pathogen.

Secret Level Puzzle

For players who want to jump straight into action, you can choose to skip the puzzle and go directly into the Secret Level. We've heard a lot of feedback around getting to the secret level so we've added an option in the difficulty settings for those looking for more combat and less puzzle-solving. Though beware, only those who defeated the Secret Level boss can earn access to its domain.

Before we go, just want to say a big thank you to everyone who shared their feedback on our Discord and on Steam. The dev team is hard at work on evolving Pathogenic and addressing any reported issues, so keep your feedback coming. Follow us on our socials (YouTube, Twitter, TikTok) for more news (and sometimes funny bits) of our game, and for the full patch notes, please see below!

Full Patch Notes

Content

• 20 new Lungs rooms (10 medium, 10 hard)

Balance

• Lungs enemy balance pass — slightly nerfed alveolar macrophages, fungal spores, bacteria variants
• Added more telegraphing time for dash attacks
• T-cell buff no longer improves speed of alveolar macrophages
• Liver, Lung and Heart room polish
• Cancerous now transfers the prefix to the consumed organelle instead of copying it
• Ephemeral organelles now have a recycle reward if recycled above 9 rooms left
• Sinoatrial node now shows a beat cursor progress indicator and aim hint
• Slightly reduced B-cell HP
• Explosive barrels can't be made to explode immediately by more damage anymore during its fuse animation
• Oxidator now deals double the burn amount

Gameplay & UI

• Lung area is now darker for better visibility
• Explosions now damage breakable walls
• Co-op player input/behavior improvements
• Click the X button during player selection to select it with 1 player
• After 15 seconds of no input from the other input device, the controls switch to single-player mode where a single input device controls both halves
• Added a camera zoom slider
• Added an option to skip the Secret Level puzzle, appears after the Secret Level boss has been defeated

Fixes & Stability

• Fixed startup video decoding crash by falling back to disabled videos on the next startup
• Fixed some physics crashes
• Fixed unresponsive controller bug
• Fixed permanent mute on Bluetooth devices
• Improved save recovery
• Placing a Nanobot block no longer makes the weapons attack
• Health pickups no longer turn into armor on save+continue with the Nanobot
• Improved switching between mouse and controller control modes
• Localization improvements