Heya! Myriame here, producer on POSSESSOR(S), the one who has been writing those little patch notes these past few weeks. ☺️

First off, from the whole team, thank you for playing our game, collaborating on lobster locations, helping others within the Steam forum or our official Discord, and giving us feedback since launch!

For those unaware, we have lost most of our team before launch to layoffs, and all of the post-launch support has been made by a small skeleton crew. This was not easy, but I am personally very proud of the work we have achieved with the limited resources we had. The remaining crew went above and beyond to fix bugs and respond to feedback (and tolerating my annoying multiple times a day poke on Slack, going: IS THIS FIX YET??!?!??!!). But despite it all we have, I believe, addressed most of the reports we have received within the past few weeks.

I wanted to let you know that this patch is the second-to-last one we will be able to have out. We still have QoL things we want to get in, and a few more bug fixes planned for next week, but afterward, no more patches will be coming out for POSSESSOR(S). The remaining skeleton crew is either also being let go or moving to another project.

Again, thank you so much for your support, whether you were following along during production or joined in after we launched! We all wish to have launched this game under better circumstances, but it doesn’t negate the fact that we are very proud of it, and we hope you’ve enjoyed and continue to enjoy playing POSSESSOR(S). 🖤

ALRIGHT ENOUGH RAMBLING MYRIAME, here’s the patch notes:

Gameplay

• WE HAVE DONE IT. 🎉 Added a “Mini-Cheekers” (it is not really a mini version of Cheekers, but this is how we called it internally) close to the beginning of the Park. Mini-Cheekers will be selling a small number of health upgrades for the early game, as we have received a lot of feedback about folks missing Beverly/that she was coming too late for the amount of upgrades people were collecting before hitting the Mall.

• Fixed for Nightmare in Campus dropping two Super Gems instead of one (for those who enjoyed this exploit, very sorry)

• Fixed a duplicate item in Campus

• Fixed a few collision/geo issues, odd portal collision between regions, and walls without collisions across the world

• Added a shortcut in the Labs — this is a little fix for those who reported having to traverse the whole level to go back out was a very long trek!

  • Around the middle of the map, a one-way portal can be triggered to fast travel to the beginning of the Labs

  • It is blocked by a one-way gate, so once it is open, you can re-enter that room at any time

  • The shortcut is after a few encounters, but right before the most difficult chunk of the level

• We have fixed-ish Baby Squid and Squid getting out of the water

  • They are behaving better, but it is not a guaranteed fix. Turns out, Squids have a mind of their own; they can not be tamed

• Fixed Tygo becoming invisible sometimes on death/reload, as well as Tygo getting stuck when phase change is triggered mid-Gale attack

• Fixed a duplicate email found twice around the world

• Fixed a particular room in the Mall where enemies would stack in front of a door and make it difficult to get past them

• Fixed the Interact prompt that randomly does not show up on some locked doors

Visual

• Fixed the Whip point reappearing after dying & reloading into the game to Whip Walls that don’t exist anymore and just… floating.. being obnoxious

• Fixed \[REDACTED] splash SFX when entering the sequence at the Vault

Audio

• Fixed the Chroma Bank infinite audio loop if pausing the game as banking is happening

Controller

• Fixed the controller infinitely vibrating if the whip was being triggered/active at the exact moment Luca enters a Subway station (this is so specific, QA is amazing finding those things, truly 🙏🏻)

Small patch this week as it is a holiday in the US and the studio was closed (we still worked, because we love giving y’all COOL PATCHES)

Gameplay

• Update on our investigation about if Cheekers could pick up some of Beverly’s work and provide health/flasks upgrade for the early game 👀

  • Seems possible! 🎉 Would most likely be coming to next week’s patch after some additional testing!!

• Fixed Luca getting stuck after performing Dive Breaker on certain ground assets in the Park and Dockyard

• We’ve added additional Potency items to vendors to circumvent the “missing” items, preventing players from achieving the Maximum Dosage+Painkiller achievements.

  • Additional Potency items can be found in the Plaza and Streets vendors.

• Fixed a bug where Luca gets locked into idle after very specifically jumping from a ladder and throwing the whip at the exact same time

  • Highly specific but uh, yeah it’s fixed now aha

• Fixed (again!) Luca getting her head stuck under a slide gap in the Streets (stop!! doing this!!)

• Fixed an invisible ladder in the Streets

• Fixed the affix Regenerative Blood being found in two different places in the world

Gameplay

• Potential fix for the issue where players could get stuck on the loading screen when starting a new game

  • This one was very hard to reproduce and verify. If you are still experiencing this issue, please report it to our Discord bug submission channel. Any assistance is appreciated!

• Fixed a few out-of-bounds issues in the Streets

• Fixed triggering the Benchwarmer boss fight by using Wall Run from the room below it

• Fixed a few lingering Interact prompts that would bring Luca out of bounds

• Fixed a lingering Interact prompt in the Salvager boss fight arena

• Fixed an inaccessible room in Sunken City

  • A ladder was supposed to be flagged as always activated, but it was not. We did enjoy seeing all your very creative ways to access it, though!! Good jorbs.

• Added a checkpoint before the Nightmare boss fight in the Campus

• Fixed a little freebie item from a Vendor

• Fixed a dupe exploit for a Super Gem

• Economy: bumped up enemy Chroma drops, dropped costs of some items in Vendor shops

• Investigating if Cheekers could pick up some of Beverly’s work and provide health/flasks upgrade for the early game (no promises on this one! It is a hard one to pull off!)

Visual

• Removed the decorative lobsters in the Aquarium as they were confusing (oops)

Combat

• Many fixes went in for the Benchwarmer fight

• Can no longer whip Cone Hulk when it's hidden (spoilers!!)

• Fixed an exploit for the final boss fight

• Fixed the infinite parry exploit with Coach Fredrick

  • This was a very fun one, though, so we kept some part of it in aha

UI

• We are investigating adding which Key is required while hovering on a Locked Door icon on the map

Step into the minds of our level design team as we explore the creative philosophies and guiding principles behind the worlds they build. In this blog, we ask our designers how they craft spaces that challenge, inspire, and immerse players at every turn.

Making memorable, interesting, large-scale 3D spaces was almost second nature for us by the time Solar Ash shipped. When we started out working on Possessor(s), we continued our momentum from Solar Ash and built large 3D spaces where the “game plane” (the playable area of the 3D world where the player character is) was just a slice through memorable, expansive 3D spaces in the style of a Solar Ash level. We avoided having too much of the world aligned to the game plane, favoring spaces that were rotated at odd angles so that the player wouldn’t be able to see the grid/”gaminess”. This resulted in a very unique, naturalistic feel to our levels. However, it also resulted in poor gameplay readability. It was hard to tell how far platforms were from each other, and some objects that were close to the game plane but didn’t intersect would appear to be meaningful platforms. Players couldn’t tell where the limits of the playable space were, so the game wasn’t comfortable to navigate.

After a lot (A LOT) of iteration, we landed on a balance between the grounded, naturalistic spaces we were building early in pre-production and the excellent gameplay clarity that’s characteristic of the side-scroller genre.” - June Patterson, Possessor(s) Co-Director

Looking at the world itself and how it ties into this theme is crucial. We’re creating a playground where the spaces, the characters, and their connections all feed into the levels. Lore tidbits, cutscenes, and environmental storytelling help reinforce that. A big focus for me has been weaving platforming and combat encounters seamlessly into this experience.” - Mars Ashton, Senior Designer

Instead of starting with rigid tile-based layouts, we jumped in and got super loosey-goosey with it. Early on, we were just building these believable spaces in a world that’s been ripped apart. A lot of trial and error—Jordan, June and I would build levels, play through them, and figure out what worked and what challenges came up.” - Mars Ashton, Senior Designer

“Since Possessor(s) is the combination of 2D and 3D elements, it took a while to figure out that balance. - Jordan Fanaris, Level Designer

First, we had no rooms. Every zone was a single contiguous space. This made navigation very difficult. Clear room boundaries and transitions between rooms are essential to players understanding the space and being able to confidently explore. Room transitions specifically allow the player to empty their mind of what they were focused on in the previous room and start taking in new information fresh. We struggled with giant continuous spaces because it felt like everything was relevant all the time — the player was constantly accruing new seemingly relevant information without ever having a mental break, and eventually, players gave up on making intentional navigation decisions." - June Patterson, Co-DirectorWe hope you've enjoyed this small dive into development - Possessor(s) is OUT NOW!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2132890/Possessors/

Gameplay

• Fixed a few Campus bookshelves that were refusing to either be pulled or pushed, as well as verifying every single one of them. Those pesky bookshelves.

• Fixed a save issue where, if forcefully closing the game during the cutscene or conversation before the General’s fight in Aquarium, it would skip it completely, making the Eye inaccessible.

• Fixed an issue where it was possible to go out of bounds while dashing during a Flashback in the Inverted Plaza.

• Fixed two specific locations in the Park where Luca could get her head stuck in a wall from a bouncy tree leaf.

• Fixed a location where Slide was needed to proceed in Buried Streets, but if wiggling Luca well enough in there would result in her getting stuck.

• Added a ladder in the Sunken City, where a transition between two rooms wasn’t smooth. 🪜

• Fixed the issue where, if Nightmare Luca in the Campus is defeated on one of the pillars, her item drops would be out of reach.

• Adjusted the position of a few Peculiar Films to avoid confusion between the main and side quests of Professor Foss.

Affixes

• Fixed the issue where having the Detachable Tail affix would heal Luca when being struck by the Kabuto projectiles (sowwyyyy).

Visual

• Added the whip point to the tentacle walls for improved clarity on how to use them.

• Fixed an issue where a certain NPC sprite would not be present in the room during a conversation in Inverted Plaza. (👻)

• Fixed the Document Shredder sprite becoming invisible after leaving the Campus. (👻)

Combat

• Fixed the Benchwarmer behaving erratically and becoming stuck after using one of their abilities.

• Small balances on the Rusted Dockyard’s General.

UI

• Fixed an Interact prompt briefly appearing in the General’s fight room in Inverted Plaza (no one probably noticed, but we did, and we were very annoyed by it aha).

• Updated the [c]ItemPickup[/c] layouts to dynamically scale down if text gets too tall.

Like a thrifted denim jacket, Possessor(s) is getting a patch on day one. Here's everything we've improved:

UI

• Fixed an issue where Rhem’s “I want to talk” indicator would persist even though he didn’t want to talk

• Fixed an issue where notifications for dropped items would display more than once

• Fixed an issue where the player had to get uncomfortably close to Foss to have a chat

Visual

• Adjusted lighting/deco throughout many areas of the game to avoid visual oddities, inconsistencies, or intrusive elements

• Adjusted collision throughout many areas of the game to avoid minor issues, unnecessary bumps, and out-of-bounds situations

• Improved camera use and positioning throughout many areas of the game

• Fixed a few issues with certain areas of the game, causing characters and objects to disappear

• Improved the clarity of graphical logos representing teams, very important to the shipping and development of this game - Heart Machine and Devolver

• Fixed an issue where certain HUD elements would no longer hide when it was appropriate

• Fixed an issue where Baseball projectile VFX would not show in \[REDACTED]

Combat

• Adjusted combat behaviors for some enemies and bosses, namely the lazy Kabuto

• Adjusted some enemy arrangements for encounters

• Fixed an issue that caused Explosive Barrels to be Non-Explosive (oops)

• Fixed an issue that would cause the Rat King’s projectiles to push Luca through walls

• Fixed Foxes being able to move heavy boxes

• Fixed Cone Hulks not properly hiding in their cones

Navigation

• Fixed several instances where the player could not transition between several rooms as intended

• Introduced the ability to be crushed by elevators (why are you there to begin with?)

Performance

• Made numerous adjustments throughout the game to improve performance

Narrative

• Adjusted several scenes to polish and improve story sequences

• Fixed an issue that would cause some NPCs to offer dialogue despite leaving the area

• Fixed an issue where NPCs would disappear when they should be present

Audio

• Fixed an issue where a Merchant’s background music was playing in the wrong room

Localization

• Fixed an issue with missing instances of localized text

Also to note on cross-saves - Hey everyone! We recently found out that some saves from the Summer Games Fest demo might carry over into the full release. Since we’ve made a ton of changes since then, those old saves could cause issues with story progression or data. To be safe, we recommend deleting any demo saves that might have transferred—plus, we’ve updated the intro and added new stuff you won’t want to miss!

Heart Machine, the acclaimed studio behind Hyper Light Drifter and Solar Ash, in partnership with Devolver Digital, is proud to announce that Possessor(s) is available now on PC.

Set in the sprawling ruins of Sanzu City, Possessor(s) follows Luca, a high-schooler whose life is shattered by an interdimensional catastrophe. Gravely injured, she forms an uneasy pact with Rhem, a powerful demon in need of a host. Together, they’ll fight to survive, uncover the truth behind the disaster, and confront the horrors lurking within the city’s fractured heart.

Blending the precision combat of platform fighters with the exploration of Metroidvanias, Possessor(s) delivers stylish, combo-driven action and deep traversal mechanics across a richly detailed, interconnected world. Players will explore devastated skyscrapers, flooded aquariums, and other haunting environments—all beautifully realized with hand-drawn characters over striking 3D backdrops.

The wait is over. Today, you meet Luca & Rhem.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2132890/Possessors/--- Also let us share what bundles we have running! These bundles offer an extra 10%-20% on top of the launch discount for owners of those titles.

Heart Machine Collection

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/62794/Heart_Machine_Collection/
Possessor(s) x Salt and Sanctuary

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/62453/Possessors_x_Salt_and_Sanctuary/ Possessor(s) x Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/62350/Possessors_x_Bo_Path_of_the_Teal_Lotus/

Hey folks! With Possessor(s) dropping TOMORROW, let’s go over everything you need to know to prepare for launch. We’re going to address the common questions we’ve seen via social media and Steam Forums. Here we go!

Possessor(s) is a stylish search-action game (a “Metroidvania” if you’re a fan of mashing-together proper nouns) featuring combo-heavy combat all wrapped up in a touching demon/human-relations narrative.

Play as Luca, a typical teenager whose entire life hangs by a thread after a cataclysmic demonic event. On death’s door, Luca is possessed by a friendly(?) demon named Rhem who together venture out into a broken world full of possessed entities, crumbled buildings, and corporate conspiracy.

Possessor(s) will release at $17.99 USD (or equivalent).

An average playthrough of Possessor(s) will take 20 hours. If you’re looking to grab every collectible and see everything there is to see, you might play closer to 30 hours.

Possessor(s) releases on November 11th, 2025 for PC & PlayStation 5. As for the specific time of release, several variables are at play so we can’t commit to an exact time. Generally, storefronts update at 1PM Eastern Time/10AM Pacific Time.

At launch, Possessor(s) will run on Steam Deck as a “Steam Deck Compatible” game. We are currently working to hit Valve’s targets to label Possessor(s) as a “Steam Deck Verified” game. Our estimate is that we’ll have this cleared up shortly after launch.

Possessor(s) currently plays nicely on Steam Deck, so if you primarily play on the Deck, you can jump right in.

❤️❤️❤️

To everyone who sent us positive posts, comments, and helped us cross the 100,000 WISHLIST MARK(!!!): THANK YOU! Possessor(s) is right around the corner, and we can’t wait for you to jump into its world. We hope you enjoy!

When every living host in Sanzu City has already been taken, demons must turn to whatever’s left — the inanimate detritus of human life. In this animated short, a stray demon possesses a copy machine... and is forced to adapt, survive, and potentially print.

We are just ONE MORE WEEK out from launch and players will be able to dive into Sanzu City!

👹Wishlist now