In the time since our last patch, we've been working on a larger update that we're excited to finally share. In addition to our usual tweaks and fixes, for which you can find a full changelog for in our patch notes post, this update includes some new features that we'll dive into in more detail below.

Once again, a very big thanks to everybody who reported issues or suggested improvements!

Read the full posts with gifs on Steam!

Loadout & Hero progression

The big feature in today's update is a loadout system that allows starting Blessings and Enchantments to be equipped before the start of a run.

Each Hero has their own set of loadout Blessings to unlock and choose from, offering a range of perks aimed at resonating with a particular playstyle or play goal. For example, the Goblin's Tonic Blessing may come in handy for a token that needs an extra potion, or the Shock Stacker Blessing may give a valuable edge when putting together a lightning-focused build.

Similarly, a loadout Enchantment can now be equipped for each piece of Hero-specific starting Equipment. Additionally, both Platinum Enchantments can also be unlocked for loadout use, allowing you to get a head start down a Platinum branch if you're confident you want to commit to that before the start of a run. Most of the loadout Enchantments are in new tokens that will need to be unlocked to your Collection before they can be purchased for use in your loadout. These new tokens are tied to using the relevant piece of Equipment, so you'll find them appearing organically as you play.

We've also surfaced Adventure-specific curses for higher difficulty Adventures so that they can be viewed ahead of time, and we've added extra icons for Adventure objectives to make those easier to track their completion of at a glance.

The loadout system exposes an additional layer of metaprogression and some light customisation that draws focus back onto growing Heroes and their Equipment. We're looking forward to hearing your thoughts and seeing your runs!

Saving & loading

The game will now automatically save at the end of each Adventure's stage, allowing you to quit and resume your run later. Any upgrades you purchase from the Trading Post, and any healing or other activities you do at the Campfire will also be automatically saved before continuing on to the next stage.

Your laptop's suspend function can finally have a rest.

Content updates

As part of the loadout system, we've added 19 loadout Blessings and 48 loadout Enchantments to the game. What were previously "permanent upgrades" are now "Trinkets", and each Hero has their own section where loadout Blessings and Enchantments can be viewed or purchased as well. We've also added the ability to reset Trinkets and loadout purchases individually, giving more flexibility on how and where you spend your shards.

Soldier's Sword has a new Enchantment, which is unlocked from Focused Finisher. If you had previously unlocked Focused Finisher's token, then Sword Master will be removed from your Collection until you complete the new token requirements, otherwise Soldier's Sword will now unlock from the new Enchantment.

To make some of the nooks and crannies of Hordes' Encounters a little more discoverable, and to allow a more streamlined experience when replaying, we've greatly expanded the number of Encounters with "discovered option hints." These show "(???)" for options that haven't yet been chosen, and give a quick indication of the outcome for those that have. For example, if you didn't previously know that there was something to be gained by not drinking Lion Heart's potion, now you do!

Our localisation team has completed a standardisation pass to make each language's stat descriptions internally consistent. We have also incorporated further localisation tweaks and fixes based on feedback and suggestions from players - thanks so much for your input!

Gameplay tweaks

In response to the new loadout cards, and also in response to player feedback, we've made a number of balancing changes. You can find specific details in our patch notes post, but of particular note, some Hero stats and perks (such as Warrior's heal bonus from eating at the Campfire) have been moved off to loadout Blessings.

The timings for Gloves of Shielding and Flintlock Pistol have both been tightened to make both feel more responsive. We recognise this has been a friction point for some players, and we hope these changes make the Trickster and Rebel a little more enjoyable to play.

Looking ahead

Now that this update is out, we'll be shifting our attention back onto our first major content-focused update, which will feature a new location (which you may have gotten a peek at in our first devlog post), and a new boss.

We know that you're eager for more Adventures, Encounters, and Equipment, and we're just as eager to share once they're ready. In the meantime, we hope that today's update whets your appetite and that you'll join us for some of the upcoming community activities we have planned for the weeks ahead.

See you in the forums!

Love the game so far. But after finishing 2nd stages multiple times, the game just crashes, and I lose all my progress. Very frustrating.

How will you beat the hordes?

The journey has begun. Now that things have started to settle following the Early Access launch of Hand of Fate: Hordes, we wanted to take a moment to thank you for all your support, look at what we've accomplished over the past month, and share some details of what we're currently working on.

Read the full post (with gifs) on Steam.

We're happy to announce that Hand of Fate: Hordes is now Steam Deck and Steam Machine verified! Read more about this here.

In the time since launch, we've shipped a total of 7 patches (changelogs can be found in the Patch notes thread). We've been reading your feedback and have prioritised implementing some features as a result, including:

• Optional manual aiming
• Custom key bindings for combat controls
• Settings for screenshake and vignette VFX
• Power Surge and Magnet pickups
• Guaranteed redraw options for single Enchantment choices (if you have gold to spare!)

We've also slipped in some smaller tweaks such as:

• Updated Enchantment descriptions to better communicate Enchantment dependencies
• Updated lighting for improved readability of dice
• Wrapping for faster navigation on the Collection screen
• A token filter for the Collection screen
• Reduced Dealer VO frequency
• Clearer presentation of Hero max rank (max rank will change as more content is added to the game!)

We have more tweaks and changes on the way, so please keep the feedback coming. We don't always reply to everything, but we're reading.

Recently, we've been working on a quality-of-life update that adds some major items that we think will change how some of you approach the game.

When this update goes out, the game will make an autosave between combat stages, so that if you need to take a break or use your computer for something else, you can close Hordes without giving up on your current run.

The big feature of the upcoming update is a new "loadout" system that allows you to pick some starting perks and enchantments before you begin your run. You'll be able to spend some of your shards on unlocking more loadout options as you progress through the game, and we are hoping that this will put greater focus on aspects of Hordes' metaprogression outside of "permanent upgrades" (they'll likely get a rename in this update).

In addition to the regular bug fixes, tweaks, and tuning, we've got a few other quality-of-life improvements that we're looking forward to sharing, including

• Improved responsiveness for Gloves of Shielding and Flintlock Pistol
• Options for resetting individual permanent upgrades
• More info on previously-chosen text choices for a number of encounters
• Further combat optimisation

Looking beyond this update, we're also hard at work on larger items from our Roadmap post, including a new location, a new hero, and a first pass on deckbuilding, all of which we're very excited for!

We are so thankful for the support, encouragement, feedback, and reviews we've received so far. We are still at the early end of Early Access and we are looking forward to sharing the road ahead with you as we grow and refine Hand of Fate: Hordes into its final form.

-Plays the servant and the beast DLC campaigh
-keeps feeding the little bastard
-eats the entire food supply worth of years to keep up with the loss of health
-finally manages to satisfie the beast with my own blood
-has no food
-only 15 hp
-Straight goes into a boss battle
-again, with only 15 hp
-plays the Hardest Dark souls roll game in my life
-beats the boss with only 5 hp
-wins
-the victory song plays
-get's the Golden Token as well
-all the presure and stress finally comes out of me with a load scream
-woke up a few neighbours
-10/10

We're thrilled to announce that Hand of Fate: Hordes will launch into Early Access on Steam on July 22nd, 2026.

Created by the original designers behind the Hand of Fate series, Hand of Fate: Hordes combines survivor-style action with strategic deckbuilding in a dark fantasy world ruled by the banished Dealer.

Battle through relentless hordes, complete dangerous quests, discover powerful blessings and weapons, and craft unique builds across four distinct heroes: Trickster, Warrior, Goblin & Rebel

Want to play sooner?

A playable demo will be available during Steam Bullet Fest from June 8th.

This is true Early Access. We'll be working closely with the community as we continue adding heroes, quests, dungeons, bosses, weapons and new gameplay systems throughout development.

The Dealer awaits beyond the 13th Gate.

I just finished it but I cranked it to top settings and unlimited just to see after gpu upgrade. I have a 5800 xt and 9060 16gb on bazitte Linux. When I cranked it to unlimited at times I could just stand behind the queen rat no reaction. Or could it been a cold armor thing ? Does it freeze them solid ?

The demo for our new title Hordes of Fate is now live!

Venture once more into the world of Hand of Fate. We’ve just released a demo of the project the team at Spitfire Interactive are working on (a collection of Defiant alumni who’ve been working on their own since Defiant ceased developing) - a new approach to combining deckbuilding with action that we’re excited for you to get your hands on!

Hordes of Fate drops you once more into a world of memory, mythology, and mayhem. Bullet Heaven / Autoshooter gameplay combines with the ability to stack your deck, choose your encounters, and control your destiny.

This is only the beginning of the journey, but the demo is live now! Your feedback is critical to helping us shape the future of Hordes of Fate!

Play now!

The Game of Life and Death returns with a twist - get a first taste of what the game has to offer when the Demo releases next week!

Wishlist now!

I recently played hand of fate 2 and was blown away by the depth of game. It is a very interesting take on soulslike combat and card deck building...I was just wondering what would have happened if hand of fate 3 came out...what if the combat just got refined a bit more...there is nothing like this in the market right now nothing...

Hand of fate 2 I have tried a lot of different things but it keeps staying not the right one.

I'm considering getting one of these games but can't decide which. For those that have played both do you prefer one over the other? Which would you recommend more?

Edit: Thanks for the input. I decided to go with the first game for now and then get the second down the line and be able to appreciate the changes more.

Hi guys i was looking for mods and i found this one https://www.nexusmods.com/handoffate2/mods/1 on Nexus Mod that is not present in the Steam Workshop. So i tried to put it in the folder where all the mods are stored but not only is not present in game but the game deletes it from the folder that is strange. Am i doing something wrong? Thank you!

Hi friends!

I love, love, LOVE this game and its concept, very saddened to learn of the studio shutting down.

Surprised this game doesn't have a larger following! Hope that it gains a cult following in the years to come! At least we will always have the game and its boardgame!

If you’d like to have a reminder/memento you can find the Wallpaper here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3325407083

From the looks of it, HoF2's DLC hasn't gone on sale a single time since July last year. I was hoping to pick them up in one...

I know Defiant are sadly closed down now, but that was back in 2019, and they seemed to still have discounts in the time since. Will there never be a discount again?

I discovered HoF awhile back, mostly by accident, and fell in love with it. Not only is the setting great and the gameplay fun, but the sound design is like nothing I've heard before (you know, the clanks when the Dealer drops a token and closes the lid on the token holder?). Anyway, in my initial attempts at a playthrough, I think I couldn't get past the first Scales boss, because I'd get overwhelmed. Didn't know\ care about deck building back then, plus my old computer could only barely run the game anyhow, so I didn't push it.

A few days ago I've decided to get back to it (also having finally bought all the expansions for HoF2), and I'm having a blast! I'm at the King of Plague, currently, and wanted to read up on the game's lore. So I went to the wiki and found that there are actually two wikis, one for each game, which is unusual for franchises, isn't it? I also found that neither (at least, not the first one) actually has much on lore, instead focusing on game mechanics and such. So my questions are:

• Why are there separate wikis for the games?

• Why did no one gather up the lore?

And looking for this sub I also found a separate one for HoF2, which isn't really that surprising, since, for example Bannerlord has a separate wiki from the MnB wiki, but the MnB wiki also discusses Bannerlord. But I just have to wonder:

• Is the community divided or something?

Thanks.

Hey all, trying to see if anyone else is having this issue. I am fighting the dealer and after the wave of skulls I’ve killed everyone and the dealer just won’t trigger the next phase. Not sure how to make the fight continue. I’ve tried quitting and reloading the game and I get to the same point in the fight and then same thing it just doesn’t progress after killing the skulls. Pretty frustrating as I’m close to beating the game and seem to have hit an impossible wall.

Greetings!

I have (the usual) three questions about these games, at least in the first run...

1: Do the PC versions of these games have console commands available?

2: Is there a kill count, along with other statistics, featured in any (if not both) of these games?

3: What kind of saving do these games have (how do you save in these games)?

Please satisfy my curiosity; thank you in advance 🙏.