The latest indie hit that recently exploded in popularity on Steam received a new update. Here’s what’s new in Megabonk.
Megabonk Patch 1.0.17 – What’s New?
The developer of Megabonk, an incredibly popular 3D roguelike survival game inspired by Vampire Survivors, is working hard on improving the game and introducing new features to make the entire experience even more enjoyable.
Evidently, it’s a labor of love and passion, so it’s only natural that the creator wants to make their game the best it could be. As such, we continue to see new updates, with the most recent one addressing some important feedback received from the community.
Megabonk 1.0.17 adds a new map overview feature, allowing players to see exactly which parts of the map they have already explored. It also allows players to adjust projectile opacity, which should help with reducing headaches in the endgame, where a lot of stuff is continuously flying in all directions.
Other changes include experimental DirectX 12 support, balance changes, bug fixes, and small leaderboard changes, with the possibility that each character will get its own leaderboard in the near future.
Map Overview
The most important addition of the new Megabonk roguelike update is undoubtedly the map overview. Press the “tab” key during the game to bring up a map that will show you which parts you’ve already visited; undiscovered parts will be covered in fog of war.
The new map takes away from the initial experience, where players were forced to learn how to navigate the map and memorize important places, but there’s no denying that the map makes playing much more convenient.
It also highlights all points of interest, such as shrines, making it extremely helpful not only in general play but also when attempting a challenge that requires you to charge all shrines on all stages in one playthrough. Before the map was added, it was very easy to miss some and fail the mission.
Projectile Settings – Adjustable Opacity
The endgame in Megabonk tends to be very chaotic, with dozens of projectiles being shot each second, creating a serious visual clutter. Now you can reduce it a bit by lowering projectile opacity. This way, you should be able to see everything clearly again, no matter how much stuff is happening on the screen.
Important Balance Changes
Games such as Megabonk are subject to constant balance changes, as it’s extremely difficult to nail the balance perfectly on your first try, and new, broken, unintended item and skill combinations are being discovered and used to cheese the game and trivialize any possible challenge, which is something you, as a developer, would like to avoid.
Here are some of the more interesting changes to items and character passives:
- Fox was found to be underperforming and now has its passive Luck per level increased from 1% to 2%.
- Birdo now gains 1% Airborne Damage per level.
- Robinette was smashing the meta, so her damage per gold held was scaled down in the endgame.
- Noelle gets 1% Size per level now, instead of Duration, and gets extra damage per frozen enemy.
- Scarf got boosted even further, now giving a whopping 50% damage bonus.
DX12 vs DX11 – Which One to Choose?
The new patch added DirectX 12 support to address certain game crashes. It’s worth noting that it’s just a band-aid fix and will need a more in-depth look at a later date. The priority was to stop crashes from occurring, but the game wasn’t made with DX12 in mind. Megabonk DX12 support was added in a rush and might cause other kinds of problems, such as breaking certain visual effects, including ambient occlusion and color grading.
If you don’t experience any crashes, it’s strongly recommended to stay on DX11.
Megabonk On GeForce NOW?
From the patch notes, we can also learn that the developer signed up for GeForce NOW and Steam Cloud Play, so we can probably expect to see Megabonk there in the near future. If you’re playing exclusively via GeForce NOW or your PC can’t handle Megabonk, you should be able to play the game soon by using NVIDIA’s cloud service.
Is Megabonk Getting a Halloween Event?
At the end of the patch notes for 1.0.17, the developer shared his thoughts about a possible upcoming Halloween event in Megabonk. However, considering that Megabonk is a small indie game developed by a single person, we shouldn’t set our expectations too high, and we shouldn’t blame the dev if there’s nothing prepared for this occasion. There is only so much you can do in a week’s time, especially when you’re making a game on your own.
Sources:
- https://steamdb.info/patchnotes/20456283/