Less than six weeks after launch, Caleb Draper’s Slash-Out: Fantasy Dueling received a major update on Monday, October 26th.
The new update features three big additions: Unlockable sword and shield skins, a character gallery with new art and bios, and a slew of new game over screens with tips.
Some skins are unlocked for progressing through the game normally, while some are locked behind achievements for defeating specific enemies without being downed. Sword and shield can be set independently and sets will be unlocked retroactively upon update for anyone who already met the unlock criteria in 1.0. As with the base game experience – some are serious and some are goofy. Players can change their loadout in the newly added Extras menu.
The character bios provide new art and background information that really fleshes out the setting for anyone who wants to engage with it. It also canonizes in-game that the player character is trans, something that was previously mentioned on socials but not yet in the game itself. A recent Bluesky post hints that information about “future quests” can be found in the bios as well.
Each enemy phase has a corresponding gameplay tip which offers advice on how to handle that section if you die. These tips can also be viewed through the extras menu if you’d like to see them again (or if you’re too good to die winky face).
The update release note also mentions the possibility of new fights being added. This, coupled with the tease of “future quests” make me wonder if we may see a mini-campaign addition in a later update.
