-fixed players could get incorrectly transported to Sam Quest location in Chapter Selecting mode -fixed incorrect treasure chest states in Chapter Selecting mode -increased aim-assist for Sam's action.
Greetings, dear Earth Borners! It’s been just over a month since Eastward was released on PC and Nintendo Switch and we wanted to update you on all the work we’ve been doing since then. Many of you might have reached the end of your journey already, and also been kicking evil demon butt in Earth Born, but rest assured we’ve been listening to your suggestions and feedback, and we optimized many key issues in this new update. Let’s get right to it!
New Features:
Chapter Selection has now been added to the Main Menu. Many players told us that they would like a second trip across the continent, so we’ve added a new option on the Main Menu which unlocks once you complete your first playthrough. This will allow you to select the Chapter you want to experience again or collect something you missed the first time around. You can now start a new journey from a specific Chapter, and have the option to carry over items and other content from your previous saves.
Run Earth Born directly from the Main Menu. We’ve added Earth Born to the main menu! After your first playthrough, you can continue to play Earth Born with the Pixball date of your current saves. Check out this additional option in the ‘Extras’ menu!
Fast Travel Function Unlocked. Here comes the Eastward express! We know that players have been busy exploring the world on foot. To help you on your current journey, or to revisit the beauty of the locales and towns in Eastward, we’ve set up Fast Travel points— once you trigger certain checkmarks in the story, these travel points will become unlocked. Whether you are a newcomer or an experienced adventurer, everyone should enjoy this quality of life improvement.
New Graphics Modes Available. We have been listening to player feedback about the game’s native resolution, which has one of our main focuses in this update. As we have promised, Eastward now has a “high resolution” UI available. In the Filter Mode option, three different modes are available, including a “Clear Mode” (with crisp unfiltered graphics) and a fun “CRT Mode” for retro gaming lovers.
The first time new players launch Eastward, they’ll be prompted to choose their preferred graphic mode; or this can be changed anytime can via in-game Settings. Here are preview images of the three different graphic styles.
(Clear Mode)
(Normal Mode)
(CRT Mode)
Alongside these new features, we’ve also fixed a number of issues reported by the community in this update, including the inability to collect all Pixballs, game crashes, lagging, and other bugs. If you encounter any problems while playing Eastward, please join the Chucklefish Discord channel or let us know on the steam forums.
Below is an extensive list of everything Pixpil have been working on - please be aware there may be some slight spoilers:
New Features:
Fast Travel on the map
A new option on the Main Menu after the first playthrough, which includes：
Chapter Selection: Start a new game from a specific Chapter with an empty save or a load data from a previous Chapter selection save.
Earth Born: Play directly from the menu, and collect data from your existing save
Play Credits
A Display Mode selection option appears at the first launch of the game
New filter mode (Available in Clear, CRT, and Normal)
Added mapping for the Right Analog Stick function
Added a map opening reminder at the beginning of the first Chapter
Bug Fixes:
Fix for John's raft becoming stuck when he crosses the gate and returns in a scene in the forest south of Greenberg
Fix for when the characters are on the edge of the manual lift and road, their positions can be wrong after players operate the device and switch characters quickly
Fix for characters being able to walk on the water
Fix for allowing characters to have a chance to go through walls in underground scenes
Fix to stop boxes from going into Sam's tunnel in the Eternal Tower
The Menu interface can be activated while the credits are being played at the end of the game
Fix for characters going through walls during the dual problem-solving level in the Quake Valley
Fix for issue where after all the stairs have gone up in the final maze of Charon and the CG, the central platform and the final stair are still down there
The characters cannot be discovered when they are blocked on the Monkey Car
Fix for when characters miss their attacks if they are too close to monsters
Fix for players being stuck at the end of turn after slaying monsters with Awakened Hunter equipped in Earth Born
Fix for issue where some players cannot collect all Pixballs
Fix for issue where Sonic Punk's energy is not reset in the Reset Room of the Infinity Building
Fix for issue where the character will be stuck after releasing Light Ball at the final moment of the countdown in the Reset Room of the Infinity Tower
Fix for issue where when several Black Beasts attack Sam in one frame, Sam will be captured by them at the same time
Fix for issue where when a Black Beast captures Sam and is slain by John in the same frame, Sam will not be released
Fix for issue where the raft starting from Greenburg cannot reach the shore
Fix for issue where when the connection status of the mobile platform and the ground changes in the Infinity Building, characters' positions go wrong when they cross the connection
Fix for when John places bombs in the Fan Area, the game will crash
Fix for when Sam's position going wrong on Wisdom Street in the Light City
Fix for when players switch scenes and open the Menu and use Sonic Punk, some interfaces cannot be activated. We have disabled all Menu-related functions except for System Settings during the scene switching
Fixed, the tips of the switch in the Easter Egg room are reversed incorrectly
Fixed, when at the final stage (protecting Beibei) of the film shooting on the Monkey Car, if several Frogs kill Beibei and John killing the final Frog occurs at the same time, the story cannot proceed
Fixed, The Candle Monsters in the Infinity Building have a chance to freeze
Fixed, game crash when resetting level at the first part of the Black Car Black Tide Chase, and added some auto-save points
Fixed, game crash when players switch characters during scene changes
Fixed, characters might disappear when being switched during scene changes.
Fixed, characters can walk through the three rising sluices in the Dam Mending Area.
Fixed, some frogs can become stuck in the air in Monkey Train
Fixed, in the Water Level mission of the Fan Area, if players place a controllable character in the water before the sluice goes up, the character will be drowned
Fixed, the switch in the Sewer Control Room on the left side of the Fan Area does not vibrate
Fixed, in Charon's scene, the rising barrier controlled by the Time Delay Switch has a chance to expel John out of the map
Fixed, when players have finished selecting specific food materials and spice for cooking and the check box remains on the selected spice, the food material will disappear after they open the Recipe interface and switch back
Fixed, the Map option will disappear in the Menu of Earth Born
Fixed, there are two Area Bombs that cannot be reached in the Black Car Maze
Correct some textual errors
Quality of Life Adjustments:
Adjusted the drop rate of the money/supplies for killing monsters
Increased the damage of guns
Improved UI hints in the driving mini-game
Adjusted the positions of the Vending Machine and the Stove in the Solomon's Grave on the Time Island
Added extra auto-save points between Chapter 6 and the final Chapter to avoid the loop caused by the failure in compulsory battles
Adjusted the difficulty of the chasing part of Chapter 8
Added more auto-save points in the main hall level of Chapter 8
Adjusted the scene on the third floor of the Eternal Tower so that characters will not stand out of the line after the Time Reversal
Adjusted the mass of John's bombs to solve the problem that he might get expelled out of the screen by the bombs on some linear maps
Added more narrative content in the Miasma chasing part of Chapter 8
Removed the collision between the Giant Black Creature and other monsters
Thank you again to everybody for their feedback, support and amazing fan art so far. It's been a brilliant month and we couldn't ask for a cooler community. Until next time, take care!
Hello again! Can you believe 2 weeks have flown by already? And WOW what an amazing 2 weeks it’s been. We’re absolutely thrilled with the community’s reception of Eastward and delighted that so many of you have already embarked on this weird and wonderful adventure with Sam and John. Thanks to each and every one of you who have supported the team at Pixpil and picked up a copy of Eastward - it means the world. Alright, gooey bit over.
Patches on the Horizon
We wanted to quickly address the current known bugs that the team is working on fixing. We appreciate those who took the time to send us reports, feedback and information on the Steam Forums, Discord, Reddit and everywhere else. Pixpil are currently working on a larger patch which will address a number of the bigger issues:
Launching & black screen issues
General data-leak crashes
Cursor getting stuck
Earthborn menu locks
Offline mode support
Rendering / fps issues with Xbox controllers
John & Sam entering ‘out-of-bounds’ areas
+ other reported higher priority bugs
Switch-specific Bug:
Friendly Spendie & King Krab shop softlocks
We’ve noticed a few players commenting about features which are already in the game, such as text speed options, so please check the in-game menu settings posting change requests! Several bugs and feature changes have already been resolved in post-launch patches, full Version History and patch notes can be found on the Official Eastward Wiki.
As we’re a small team we can’t always reply to every post, but we do read them all! If you’re a Nintendo Switch player, you may see patches release a few days later than on Steam due to the longer submission process, but rest assured they are in the works and on their way!
QoL Updates
Following some important bug fixes, we will be moving on to QoL (quality of life) updates. So far we’re looking at adding the following features based on your community feedback:
Higher resolution menu UI
Sharper resolution for enlarged scaling output
Fast-travelling in town areas (via the Map). Please note this will take some time to test to ensure players don’t miss important story triggers.
Chapter Select for New Game+ for players who want to get all optional elements!
Earthborn to be playable from the menu once player has completed the Main Story
PlayStation controller UI
Other minor tweaks such as more Salt drops
We can’t give an estimation of how long each of these features will take, as all will need thorough testing and localisation, but we will let you know how they’re coming along. If you have any other suggestions, please post them on the Steam Forums or the Eastward subreddit which we check regularly.
Another hotly requested update from the community is of course more localisation support for Eastward! Now that the game is out we will be reviewing the demand before we confirm which additional languages will be added. As Eastward is a story-based game, there’s a lot of text to be translated (approx 143,000 words) so please be patient as adding further language support may take some time to ensure high quality!
Finally, we wanted to briefly address the comments around the game’s resolution. While Eastward is a pixel art game, it’s not actually 2D at all, but in fact 3D with a 2D perspective! It’s how the Pixpil dev team has been able to achieve such a unique atmosphere, with the addition of shader textures and lighting systems in their custom engine. You might notice when you play layers of fog, or brilliant sunbeams casting down on the landscape at various points throughout the game day. Each pixel and bespoke lighting detail was handcrafted and took a lot of time to create, but we think our players appreciate the small things!
While Eastward is natively a 720p output, a baseline the dev team decided on early in the process, because of the intricate lighting techniques it can’t be simply ‘scaled up’ easily in a standard ratio like other pixel games. As mentioned we are also currently working on a patch to add a higher-res UI and a sharper resolution for larger outputs, which we hope will please the PC player community!
That’s all for now. If you haven’t already come and join the community discussion over on our Discord or Reddit, and follow us on Twitter for more Chucklefish gaming news.
-fix: incorrect physics setting in some scenes -fix: autosave near the Mayor's House may block the game -fix: the first Boss should not dealing damage when it's down -fix: In Earth Born, players could fail to revive dead characters -fix: In Earth Born, some message box could fail to close itself -fix: fix some visual glitches -tweak: small tweaks to the difficulty of the boss fight in chapter 8 -tweak: additional autosave after playing Earth Born and the Gacha machine -client: supports to some models of Switch Pro Controller
-fix：players could fail to open the door outside the mall level -fix：players could get blocked when loading from the savefile saved at Damcity outfield station. -fix：incorrect collision in some levels -fix：players could get across doors of some shut shops -fix：players can't acquire Sam's ability after finishing chapter 3 -fix：players can't modify keyboard/joystick configuration in title menu -fix：some incorrect autosave timepoints -fix：following character could move without running animation -fix：allow the game to start in offline mode
*BING BONG* Weeeeelcome aboard the Eastward Express! This is a multi-stop hype train that will take you all the way to the edges of our known universe. For your safety we would ask you to keep your arms and legs inside the carriage at all times, and please keep your belongings on your person, including any snacks, kitchen utensils, and Earth Born paraphernalia. Any unattended items will be devoured by the miasma. We hope you have a pleasant journey *BING BONG*
We are incredibly excited to finally share Pixpil’s Eastward with the world!
Out now on PC and Nintendo Switch, you can join Sam and John’s adventure through a society on the brink of collapse, filled with delightful towns, strange creatures and even stranger people! The population may be declining, but the world has never been more alive and in need of your help...
Check out the new Cinematic Launch trailer - including a teaser of our future collaboration with our friends at iam8bit on some physical products we know you’ve been asking for... More specific news on that soon!
Eastward will be available for $24.99 / £21.99 / 24.99eu (as well as other regional variations) and is playable in English, French, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. Eastward’s gameplay clocks in at around 30 hours (depending on how you play), and as such boasts a rather sizable amount of words, so we’ll be considering future languages for localisation based on post-release demand! You can find more information in last week’s FAQ post.
A super cute merchandise range from The Yetee is also available today, with 2x t-shirts featuring Sam and John (cooking & battle themed), as well as an adorable Sam enamel pin! But that’s not all, we’re also excited to reveal we’re working with the team at Fangamer, on an awesome Eastward collection coming this Autumn. We’re talking posters, t-shirts, pins, and ...more!?! You’re going to want to sign-up for notifications over on the Fangamer page asap to find out as soon as it drops.
You might also notice we have a fancy new Eastward website, on which lurks some easter eggs and secret prizes to be discovered - take a look over at https://eastwardgame.com/!
Lastly, if you’re as excited about Eastward as we are, come and join the community discussion over on our Discord or Reddit, and follow us on Twitter for more Chucklefish gaming news.
Until then thank you, take care, eat snacks and enjoy Eastward! <3
Thank You to our community for all the lovely Fan Art!
- Resolved an issue where joystick input would be lost when transitioning from one scene to the other, causing the player to stop moving when they enter new scenes. - Turned off the Chromatic Filter effect in the title menu.
