Multiplayer biff-‘em-up Absolver’s new expansion, titled Downfall, is available to download now. For free!

The actual release happened yesterday. It was accompanied by the above launch trailer, showcasing the new features alongside plentiful footage of masked martial artists stylishly beating the stuffing out of one-another.

Foremost amongst Downfall’s additions is its eponymous new game mode, which sees players descending into a new environment called the Adalian Mines. Here you must do battle with a Bad Fighting Man called Arcell and his legion of corrupted Prospects.

Unlike the vanilla game world, the mines are procedurally generated, with the notion that players will perform multiple runs to collect the game’s currency Gleam, and eventually become strong enough to confront Arcell himself. This can be done either solo or cooperatively, should you have friends who also enjoy virtual punching and kicking.

Meanwhile, Downfall adds a new fighting style called Faejin, based on Jeet Kune Do, the martial art developed by Bruce Lee. “The Faejin Combat Style blends defense and offense with percussive strikes and fluid power,” Sloclap wrote in Downfall’s announcement blog. “The new approach is a complex style for experienced Absolvers, featuring different defensive abilities that depend on both input and stances. Faejin will feature 26 attacks for bare hands and wargloves, alongside 15 sword attacks.”

Sound neat, although whether it will feature shin-kicking and eye-gouges, which were also part of Jeet Kune Do, Sloclap didn’t specify. Other new features include School Challenges, which lets players who have reached Disciple rank embark in school-specific one-on-one duels, and six full sets of new equipment for players to enrobe themselves with.

All told, Downfall looks to be a substantial addition to the original game. One of the main issues with Absolver was its small and limited world, so the inclusion of procedural challenges is a smart way to expand both the game’s scope and opportunities to experiment with new fighting styles. It’s also completely free, which helps. You can read the full patch notes here.

Absolver, the multiplayer martial arts romp, will be fattened up with an expansion later this month. Downfall introduces a new combat style, an additional game mode and school challenges; best of all, it’s free. 

The heart of the expansion is the Downfall game mode, tasking pugilists with delving into the Adalian Mine, alone or with pals, to defeat Arcell and his followers, a group of corrupted Prospects. By fighting through the mines, players will gain currency that can be turned into experience and gear. 

It sounds like it’s something you’ll be repeating quite a few times, doing runs to get powerful enough to take out the big boss, Arcell. Though the mines will change when you dive back in for more. 

Faejin is the new fighting style, inspired by Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do martial art and philosophy. Sloclap warns that it’s a tricky style to master. “Absolvers will need to balance the fluidly powered offense with different defensive abilities that shift with your stance."

Finally there are the school challenges, testing Absolver’s player clans and making members compete with each other on their way up the reworked leaderboards. Expect new equipment, too, including new sets, two prestige variants, weapons and masks. 

If you're thinking of picking the game up when the expansion drops, make sure to take a gander at our Absolver beginner's guide. 

Absolver: Downfall is due out on September 25. 

Absolver is an online RPG-action game, released last year, about martial artists named Prospects wandering the fictional world of Adal in an endless quest to prove their worthiness by beating each other up. It's currently on sale on Steam for half-price—that's $15/£12.50/€15—and even better, it's free to play for the weekend. 

Despite being a bit of a tough nut to crack, we liked Absolver quite a bit: Tyler said in his 78/100 review that "a great customizable fighting system and a cooperative spirit fill the empty spaces in a bleak open world." 

"Absolver's world could use a bit of levity, but the mood of most of its population is cooperative and friendly so far," he wrote. "When it comes to getting us to act like fighters who respect our fellow fighters, even despite the frustration of steep level and skill gaps, Absolver's strange synthesis of Journey and martial arts has succeeded." 

Absolver will be free to play on Steam until 10 am PT on August 6, while the sale price will be in place until the same time on August 10. Sloclap and Devolver Digital also teased "a fantastic, mysterious new expansion," set to come to the game in the fall, "that will introduce a whole new way to experience the world of Adai." 

Absolver's 1v1 brawling is a layer cake, each sheet tasty on its own without overpowering the others. At the bottom are individual moves—drunken twirls, powerful taekwondo kicks, all-or-nothing haymakers—that are chained together with one button. Sweet and simple. Above the moves, multiple dodging and parrying styles, and then a savory customization engine, where attacks can be chained across four stances. I've spent hours just trying out new combos that auto-cycle my stances, sometimes reserving one stance that I manually switch to when I think my opponent has my core moveset figured out. Instead of high kick, low punch, spin, they suddenly get sweeping kick, twirly dodge attack, jumpy kick. Delicious.

Then there are the dances around ledges, where opponents can be shoved or sometimes just psychologically pressured into slipping to their demise—also great, except when you get force pushed by one of Absolver's special moves.

Finally, with all the decorative edible bobbles at the top, Absolver is about fashion. I haven't concerned myself with style in any other game this year as much as I have in Absolver. Though I find the world drab, the characters are sharp dressers, and using masks to express personality without the need for eyebrow sliders is clever and effective. What's more, Absolver has tactical fashion. Clothes have stats, and affect how much damage you take and how much damage you can deliver depending on your fighting style. They tell you about the player you're up against, and what sort of moves they'll bring. Light, airy dress implies a speedy, dodging style. Or does it?

It's vital to time moves to chain them most effectively, but tricky button presses aren't Absolver's primary focus. Absolver is about misdirection and deceit through and through, from how you design your moveset, to which stances you prefer, to how you dress. Fighting games like Street Fighter deal in trickery, too, but more subtly and with more conditions—namely, perfect input execution—and I've rarely felt capable enough in them to compete against good players in a fun way.

In Absolver, on the other hand, I may have gotten my ass kicked regularly (and after some time away, I'm sure my play is now dreadful), but I was always keen to return with a redesigned fighting style and new plan—to adapt as a player but also as a character. It is perhaps in my head. A better player will beat me most of the time, but feeling like I have the opportunity to surprise them or fool them without perfecting inputs as a prerequisite kept me trying again and again. I only stopped playing Absolver because I had so many other games to get to this year. When a quiet moment presents itself, I will be back in the ring, trying out my drunken spins again.

One of the toughest things for new Absolver players to figure out is where to spend ability points. It isn't perfectly clear what's going to benefit you the most later, especially since you might switch fighting styles, and some attributes have diminishing returns after a certain level. Finally, we have a way to respec.

The Absolver 1.08 Halloween update is live now on Steam, and it adds a 'prestige' system which rewards level 60 players with 'crystals' they can use to reset attribute points. No need to start a new character from scratch if you're unhappy with your choices, then.

The update also adds six Halloween-themed masks, plus three regular masks, four new gear sets, and a rework to the loot system. Rather than receiving random drops in Combat Trials, players will be rewarded with tokens which can be redeemed for gear of varying rarity levels. Players can also now scrap inventory items they don't want to get rid of the clutter.

It's not a huge change, but developer Sloclap says it will "develop these new systems further in the weeks to come" with ways to change your gear's colors, acquire specific gear, change your character appearance, and get new emotes.

I'm a little disappointed by the idea of spending an in-game currency to get items, because I already liked Absolver's loot system, which was based entirely on random drops and made my loot feel special—but admittedly that had problems, too, as the RNG just did absolutely nothing for some players.

There are many more changes and fixes, and you can see them all in the patch notes. Absolver is currently 20 percent off during the Steam Halloween sale. Don't go looking for a big singleplayer campaign, but if you like tough 1v1 multiplayer fighting games I recommend it.

The slap has come to define Absolver. Technically called the Calbot, it's completely out of place in this game of fluid martial arts beatdowns and dances. Tyler called it "the most useless move in the game: a standing slap that's hard to land and does 15 damage (players have over a thousand HP). The first time I was slapped I was so thrown off I practically surrendered the fight."

Players love the slap precisely because it's out of place. Absolver is a game of masked mystic warriors in pursuit of excellence, so to see them resort to silent-movie slapstick is hilarious.   

But it almost wasn't in there. The slap was thrown in as a gag during development, and fortunately the developers thought it was as funny as players do. "Initially it was just a joke from one of our animators," Sloclap's creative lead Pierre de Margerie explains, "which ended up staying in the game as an Easter egg! It did create some pretty funny situations." 

Absolver's players have also embraced something else: codes of honor. In an online game without chat, where the only way to communicate is with a wheel of emotes, people are helping each other. Those who've finished its PvE mode and are marked by the cloaks they've earned seem particularly motivated to lend a hand. With them I've fought the NPC bosses called Marked Ones, and survived against overwhelming odds.

Players are also responding to Absolver's setting, with videos and Reddit posts where they try to explain its backstory (Pierre shoots down one of their theories, confirming that the mountain you teleport to Adal from is in the same dimension, and not in the past or future). He's been pleased to be sent fanfic written by a player too, though he does mention it was "only three paragraphs long," so maybe get on that, Absolver fans.

PC Gamer: I have to admit, I almost bounced right off Absolver. I restarted and managed to get into it this time, I started again as a Windfall character.

Pierre De Margerie: OK, good!

But the first time I played the absorbing class and I was terrible. But I did go back and I've managed to get better and started really enjoying it.

Nice! When did you pick it up again?

Last weekend. 

Cool. We did make a couple of changes, notably to how NPCs spawn and are spread in the different environments. We did see that when we released the game people got ganked by NPCs a bit too much and it made the experience pretty hard and not as fun as it can be, because although the game works well when you're one-versus-two—obviously you're locked on an opponent, the core is one-v-one—but it works well when you're one-versus-two. When you're one-versus-three and everybody beats you up in a second, well, you have ways of dealing with that but especially if you're a beginner it can be frustrating, because you get your ass kicked and feel like you can't do anything about it. 

The balance is important though, you want to have those moments when you're outnumbered and need somebody's help because that encourages people to work together. I've had a lot of fun with people leading me to Marked Ones, to where cairns are, helping me fight three or four people at once. 

Awesome. That's exactly what we're aiming for, which is that the encounters that you make in the world generate stories. It's true that if you weren't under pressure and challenged by the enemies you meet it would be less interesting to fight enemies. Myself I do that often, just stand there and watch, especially when I see it's a new player fighting NPCs, seeing if he or she handles themselves. And if I see that they're in difficulty then I jump in and come to the rescue. 

It's always great to see someone with the cloak. It's a great visual touch, if they jump in to help you out you know, OK, I'm going to follow this person. They've got the cloak: they know what they're doing. 

More things like that coming down the line! But the cloak, we wanted to have one strong visual indicator that if you had managed to reach the top of the Tower of Adal and become an Absolver then you could immediately show it to others. 

The code of honor that's emerging, how much did you plan for that and how much has just been a bonus? Someone will feel bad about the fact they won by pushing someone off a ledge and then they jump off in the next round as a way of saying 'Sorry!' Is that kind of thing what you were hoping would happen? 

We saw the beginnings of this during the beta. People were really respectful of each other, but we thought that it was probably because it was the beta. It was fans of the game and of the idea who had contacted us spontaneously and were in a way wanting to roleplay the Absolver experience. We thought the minute we release the game it's gonna be full of trolls and people beating you up all the time, etcetera.

Turns out that's not really the case. Especially in the beginning you had players who just beat everybody up that they encountered, but progressively it became more co-operative in the world and in combat trials. For instance, 90 percent of the games I do we bow to each other before we actually start fighting. That's something that happens spontaneously and I'm actually really happy about that because I don't see any other game out there where you've got taunts—you can taunt your opponent like 'come over here' or 'no, no, no' or that list of emotes—but what people use is the 'bow' emote. I really like that players have actually taken ownership of this martial arts, respectful, almost philosophical approach. 

The only emotes I ever need are the bow, the thumbs up, and the apology. For when I screw up. 

We've got more emotes coming also, down the line! But these few ones work well for sure.

What language do the characters in Absolver speak? Is it one of your own invention?

Characters speak Adalian, which remained the main language in most provinces, even after they became independant again after the fall of the Adal Empire: for example, both the Guides and Cargal and Kilnor, who come from the Tear, both speak Adalian.     

What's next for Absolver?

We're an an indie team, a small team, so we can't tackle everything at the same time. We need to focus on the priorites. We wanted from the beginning with Absolver, where the core gameplay is PvP melee combat, to make a game that was also about learning, teaching, meeting other players and creating relationships with them. We've sold around 250,000 copies at this stage—players like this idea. We'll start focusing on the core PvP so the upcoming updates focus on that.

We will do more PvE later but in the upcoming weeks and months there will be more one-v-one and three-v-three game modes, spectator mode is planned, and in an update soon—in a few weeks—we plan on releasing a prestige system which will give special rewards and incentives, high-level rewards to players who play combat trials and other things over and over. Exclusive gear, badges, etcetera. 

Also inventory salvage, because at the moment you accumulate a lot of elbow pads. That's coming.

I have a lot of pants.

You'll be able to salvage something out of them!

Good! Thanks for your time, Pierre. 

I have a mask in Absolver that’s shaped like a hand. The Hand of Marek is stupid—big on cut protection even though few use swords, and impractically heavy for my fighting style—but I wear it anyway because I’ve never seen anyone else wearing it (and because I enjoy My Hero Academia). It’s the only bit of game loot I’ve really cared about in a long time. I didn’t pay for it. It wasn’t announced as a pre-order bonus. It just appeared in my inventory after a fight.

The face hand is special because I didn’t know it existed before I found it. Part of that is playing Absolver at launch, but not all of it. New Overwatch skins are announced, previewed, given a release date—you’ll never surprise me with one. If you’re wearing PlayerUnknown’s Bandana in PUBG, I’ll assume you’re rich, because they’re for sale on the Steam Marketplace starting at $672. And if I see you wandering Destiny 2 with a Coldheart Exotic Trace Rifle come October, I’ll know you pre-ordered. Ah, the exotic ‘pre-order.’

All my Absolver mask really says about me is that I was lucky. Maybe lots of people have the Hand of Marek—I don’t know—but whatever the drop rate is, the RNG seems to have favored me. And I praise the sun for it.

Absolver’s particular random loot system could be a little more generous. I’ve seen people on Reddit report that nothing interesting has dropped for them even after reaching double my rank in the 1v1 trials. Pure RNG is always going to burn someone. But that flaw aside, the joy of Absolver’s loot is that I have no idea what’s out there, or if I'll ever get anything good after this stupid hand. Yeah, it’s all been cataloged on the wiki—which I’ve avoided—but if developer Sloclap sneaked a new mask in during an update and didn’t tell anyone, we wouldn’t know about it until it was discovered. And that’s possible because Absolver’s loot doesn’t come in boxes you pay for. For the biggest games, mystery is being replaced with marketing.

The secret slap

The secrecy in Absolver even extends to moves. If you haven’t seen me going on about it yet, Absolver is a brawler in which you can customize your fighting moveset and learn new attacks from NPCs and other players. The other week the community went wild for the Calbot Slap. The attack must be learned from one NPC who rarely spawns, and it’s the most useless move in the game: a standing slap that’s hard to land and does 15 damage (players have over a thousand HP). The first time I was slapped I was so thrown off I practically surrendered the fight. Later, PC Gamer Club member Apollo Trollo taught it to me.

Had the slap been a pre-order bonus, it wouldn’t have been funny or startling. It would’ve been a dick move to even use it. Yeah, we know you pre-ordered and got the slap. Good job. But because Absolver made it an Easter egg, taking a firm open hand to the cheek became a community in-joke. The other day I played someone who was obviously going to beat me, so when we got to the third round, I started slapping. It was the only move I threw, and being a good sport he even let me land a few. Brutally losing doesn’t feel nearly as bad after smacking your opponent’s cheek red first.

There’s nothing cool about pre-ordering, so no matter how badass any pre-order bonus gun looks, I’ll never enjoy having it as much as I enjoy my weird hand mask. And the slap, since I had to learn it from a friend.

It’s not even all that cool to own an item you earned by climbing up some known achievement ladder. In Absolver, for instance, every player who beats the barebones story earns a special cloak. And while it has decent stats, Apollo and I were joking about the cloak last week, and have determined that anyone who’s wearing it either just beat the game and is proud—endearing, but not cool—or is pretending they just beat the game to throw off opponents. (Which is sort of cool, to be fair.)

I’m not about to challenge the entire idea of character progression, which is fun in Absolver, too. I like working toward stuff. But when everyone else is working toward the same thing, the loot that’s really special comes as a surprise—whether it’s in a secret location, or just won in the RNG lottery. 

As Tim recounted to me, when the mighty Gjallarhorn went up for sale in Destiny, those who had ‘earned’ it as a drop were mad that people could pay for it with in-game currency—even though those people earned that currency, too. Maybe it was a little irrational, but there’s a truth to it: loot is best when it’s special. Put it on the market and it's just another commodity. But make its drop rate a mystery and it's a story.

Absolver’s not the only game to treat its loot so preciously—and to be fair to games like Overwatch, Absolver’s loot isn’t just cosmetic, so it serves a different purpose. But along those lines, what a downer the marketplace was in Diablo 3 when it launched. It wasn’t fun knowing everything that was out there, and how much money I could pay to have it.

The best loot makes you feel like you have something other people don’t have, something that they might never have, something unique, even though it isn’t really. By being so opaque about it, Absolver makes the best stuff feel special. But if The Hand of Marek were 69 cents on the Steam Marketplace, or found in paid-for loot boxes, I wouldn’t give a crap about it.