- HOME INVASION - 10 September 2026
Hi everyone, Between two updates on HYPNOS, it is with immense joy that we bring you some more news:BLACKSHARD will be released on PS5 and Xbox on 22 September!It’s been a long-running project, carried out in collaboration with our friends at Bromio, and it’s finally coming to an exciting conclusion. We can’t wait to let more people discover the game and to see it take over your living rooms. Here’s the trailer:For the latest newsletter about HYPNOS, click here:In the meantime, take care.
- IT'S WANDERING TIME - 9 May 2026
Well, here we are! The Dreamlands are now open, nestled in the shadow of the Holy Mountain. We’re excited, eager AND terrified. Just like with any launch, isn't it? It's been a hell of a busy time, but it was worth it. HYPNOS - STEAM PAGE We simply want to welcome you to the Early Access version of the game, and we’re committed to finishing and perfecting it to the best of our ability. We know where we’re going and how this story ends. I will share the full roadmap in the near future. This is an Early Access release, so you may well find yourself falling into bottomless pits, encountering bizarre bugs, and, above all, discovering mysterious paths that even we haven’t seen yet. It’s all part of the process, so do feel free to join the Discord to chat with the rest of the community and share your feedback! The Steam Community Hub will, of course, be very active, and I’ll do my best to res…
- HYPNOS - Demo Out Now - 23 February 2026
Today is the day! We are glad to share this first glimpse of the world of Hypnos with you. Welcome, make yourselves at home. We've been sweating bullets over this demo; showcasing a game like this is a perpetual balancing act. But Ashes, we are having a blast working on it! Sure, the segment of the game in this demo will change for the final release. Some areas are closed and some NPCs are missing, but you'll definitely enjoy exploring and interacting. The rest will come later, along with a few surprise systems. We can't wait! In the meantime, here's some information: It turns out that we won't be doing a Kickstarter after all. Why? It's just too much work, boss! We would rather focus on the project for now than spreading ourselves too thinly by attempting to run a campaign alongside it, which would inevitably be exhausting and exceed our capacity. While not as impressive as a successfu…
- HYPNOS - The Maze Chronicles - 14 January 2026
Hi everyone, The GRAND REVEAL is here! We kept our promise, we cooked and now is the time to unveil our 'new' project: the dreamlike big brother of BLACKSHARD. It is called: HYPNOS is a first-person adventure and exploration game set within a new megastructure described in the Maze Chronicles, a Black Shard of Onyx, hidden beneath the roots of the Forest of Destiny. The Enclave is at work, supported by Redlock Studio and once again featuring the talents of ALT236 and AL9000. “In the Dreamlands, all paths lead to the holy mountain of Kadath, where the gods dwell.Shadowed by the mountain is the Nameless City, built on the ruins of those who came before. There, Choron, a vagabond burdened by his past, searches for a faceless boy who haunts his dreams. To find the boy and unravel the threads of his own destiny, Choron must solve the city's mysteries, face the Monarchs who rule the far reach…
- A NEW DAWN - 11 January 2026
Hi everyone! Merry Christmas, happy holidays and a happy New Year to you all! It's a little late, but I've heard that we have until the end of the month. Yes, the world is going mad, I know. I'm going to leave that aside for now, and I hope you've had a chance to rest, because weeeee haven't, but it was for a good cause. We're just a few days away from making a big announcement, which will lead to lots of discussions and exchanges with you, as well as some unscrupulous proposals and surprises of all kinds. Thank you again for your continued support of BLACKSHARD. Your positive comments are a source of great comfort to us, as is the fact that the game continues to sell steadily. We would like to be completely transparent with you: we have now sold over 8,100 copies, which is modest compared to other games, but very encouraging given our limited communication channels at launch, the high…
- No-Self-Control UPDATE - 1 December 2025
It's true — winter has arrived, at least here. The developers' cave is fuelled by passion, coffee vapours and your constant support in the form of reviews full of love, poetry and eldritch horror. We're still here, so thank you. We haven't been slacking off, although I would have liked this update to be published sooner. However, we have to synchronise it with sales and visibility rounds, as well as combining several projects, to ensure the survival of the troops! But here we are, and that makes me happy. What's in this update, you ask? Those who have tested the BETA branch already have a pretty good idea, but they might still be surprised. - Switching to Unreal 5.6 resolves the save loading crash. - General optimisation improvements- Tweaks and repairs to the environment geometry and collisionsAaaaaaand...- Several new areas have been added to the Labyrinth, along with new NPCs, dialog…
- The GRAND REVEAL (almost) - 27 October 2025
Hi everyone! I hope you are all well at the start of autumn. The season of rain, mist, dark romanticism and hot chocolate. Actually, there's no such thing as a season for hot chocolate.I am thrilled to announce that a great update will be released for BLACKSHARD in about 10 days. Here's what it features: - A switch to Unreal 5.6 to stabilise the game and fix the save/load crash issue.- A major overhaul of the game's optimisation.- Additional stuff hidden in the depths of the Labyrinth.Most of it is already available for testing on the Steam Beta branch. There's no need to rush if you want to enjoy it in its final form, but if you're experiencing crashes when loading saves and just want to check that everything runs smoothly with the upcoming update, feel free to test it! If you're one of those adventurers, please give us your feedback on Discord. Until the release, take care! See you so…
- News from the Enclave - 2 September 2025
We're back!It was far too hot here in France over the summer, and I personally struggled to keep up with work. Ideally, I would have liked to take a proper break, but that wasn't really possible. Despite this, we tried to regain some strength and made progress on several topics. Top of the list is the console version of BLACKSHARD!We're in talks with a new distribution partner, and we're planning a great marketing campaign to promote the game to a wider audience. I have worked with these people in the past, and I have complete trust in them. We're aiming for PlayStation and Xbox at least. Switch 2 would be ambitious, but I'm not getting ahead of myself. You'll have news soon. Next, we're changing the Unreal version for Blackshard, which is a significant endeavour, as you can imagine. We hope this will solve the problem of crashes when loading saves, which is really frustrating. Once aga…
- KEY REBIND UPDATE - 7 May 2025
Hi everyone! Finally some news. First of all, thanks again for all your enthusiasm for the game, all the screenshots you've posted, all the incredible theories and fantastic reviews. It's been a real joy to share this project with you. On the good news front, today's update includes: - A rebind menu for joystick and keyboard controls - An optimisation pass to reduce CPU VRAM saturation - A few tweaks here and there in the level art to fix some imperfections. This last point is a bit behind schedule, and I've still got a few things to do, because we spent a lot of time on this ***"#$£§(//***"!!@ of a crash. That's where it gets complicated. We've done a lot of invisible things to solve the problem, from tweaking, of course, to magic tricks to get through the save loading without crashing. We've tested a lot of solutions that work for some people. Your feedback has helped us more than you…
- News from the Devs - 30 April 2025
Hi everyone! I've been a bit quiet, but that's only because we've been very busy the last few days. We've finished the key remapping menu, it's been tested a few times and everything works fine now. We haven't released an update yet BECAUSE we're still working on the Unreal crash and the optimisation that goes with it. We don't want a new content update to cause any problem for more users, as it seems to have been the case previously. In short, this means that the next update will have to fix the crash so that we can be sure that the technical issue has been resolved once and for all. Then we can focus on the future of Blackshard and the Enclave. There will be more pleasant surprises to come. As for the rest, the vinyl is well on its way and there will surely be a short pre-orders window from the label Frozen Records, which we will share here! We will also announce the release date of t…
- HOTFIX 5 : Settings - 18 April 2025
Hi everyone! Thank you for your feedback on the new options menus, for all the new reviews that have been posted in the meantime, and for everyone joining Discord and getting involved. You people are awesome. Today's update: - FOV reset after using witnesses, loading, interactions: fixed - Vsync reset after respawn: fixed - Incomplete menu translations after language change if game is not restarted: fixed - We added a message about the Unreal crash at startup (for the simplest and most common solution only) Ornicar (Discord name) is currently working on the key rebinding menu and some other customization options. I am reworking and fixing some small details/weaknesses in the level art that break immersion in remote (or not) locations, as well as making some improvements to the sound loops and another optimization pass. And there are surprises in store. Free additional content incoming,…
- GRAPHIC SETTINGS & ACCESSIBILITY UPDATE - 16 April 2025
Hi everyone! The big day has come, the full Graphics Settings and Accessibility menus are finally here! Here are some screenshots of what you can use from now on in the game. Thanks for your patience. We hope that more people will be able to access the game and enjoy it in the best conditions possible! Regarding the Unreal Crash, it's a hard one, investigation still in progress. We are left, for now, with these three interchangeable and/or complementary solutions: • Update the graphics card drivers • Reinstalling the game seems to be enough and does not lose the savegame (tested and approved in yesterday's stream) • Try Directx11 / 12, a bit more technical and less comfortable for the game's performance. The jump section on pyramidal plateforms at the edge of the Convergence Zone has been completely reworked! It was too difficult, too poorly lit and deceptive in relation to what I wante…
- CARCOSA Update - 8 April 2025
“I cannot forget Carcosa where black stars hang in the heavens; where the shadows of men's thoughts lengthen in the afternoon, when the twin suns sink into the lake of Hali; and my mind will bear for ever the memory of the Pallid Mask. I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with this beautiful, stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth—a world which now trembles before the King in Yellow.” ― Robert W. Chambers, The King in Yellow ; We Wait ; in the Promised Carcosa ; * Still working hard on the graphic and accessibility options menu! In the meantime, things have changed in various places.*
- Hotfix 4 - 7 April 2025
As promised, a hotfix! - Correction on glitching textures in various levels - Addition of a Witness in the lower area of the Tesseract, at the foot of a return path - Correction of the teleportation box to the Organon - Change in the passage between the Organon and the Crossroads: A state before and after the 'change' + some additions of walkable structures there - Various adjustments to decals that were drooling on certain surfaces - Fixes to some French translations I've also added witnesses in the Black Tower, and... reworked the lower area, 'cause I wasn't really satisfied as I saw you exploring it. I hope you will like it. Otherwise, the great work on accessibility and graphic options is going well :). Thanks to the brave players who found the DirectX11 fix, I have pinned it. You are heroes. I wanted to say something else, but I forgot. If I remember, I'll talk about it soon. Stay…
- BLACKSHARD is OUT - 7 April 2025
Hey everyone! BLACKSHARD is officially out! Since we never do anything by the book, we are posting this a few days after the release. Time is relative. Thanks to all of you who have already ventured into the labyrinth, and for the others: Come and see! Team news: we are all back, our fellow programmer is alive and well, even if we are trying to make it easy on him and coddle him so that he really recovers from his misadventures. Thanks for all the messages of sympathy, it means a lot. So we start the week with a small update coming this evening: - Correction on glitching textures in various levels - Addition of a Witness in the lower area of the Tesseract, at the foot of a return path - Correction of the teleportation box to the Organon - Change in the passage between the Organon and the Crossroads: A state before and after the 'change' + some additions of walkable structures there - Va…
- Hotfix 3 - 4 April 2025
- Minor tweaks to level art that was too rough around the edges - After a certain stage of the adventure, some witnesses are now buried under piles of rubble to avoid softlock in the Convergence Zone - Missing FR translation, fixed!
- Hotfix 2 - 4 April 2025
Small fix ! - Witness changes at Convergence Zone / endgame possible softlock fixed - Lore addition at Convergence Zone & Tesseract WARNING ABOUT THE END " SHATTERING": For some of you, removing the Core in the Convergence Zone causes Unreal crashes due to certain drivers. UPDATE YOUR GRAPHICS DRIVER SHOULD FIX IT But we have temporarily removed it just in case, until we can fix the problem for everyone. It's a bonus ending, it doesn't affect the experience, and it will be back for achievement seekers.
- First quick Hotfix! - 3 April 2025
First Hotfix! - Missing textures in various areas, fixed - Missing bricks in some walls of the Threshold, fixed - Collision problem in the Shattered Vault, fixed - Invisible asset in hidden areas (a small table), fixed - Texture of the Forge Gate, fixed! - French only dialogue in one of the endings, localized! - Sorhen's English dialogue corrected. - Lore addition at the edges of the world (Convergence Zone, ) - Witness moved at the top of the White Tower for softlock issue (temporary) Dev note for later : It's not that easy to make a patch note without spoiling the game like crazy. Thanks to everyone! Also, WARNING ABOUT THE END " SHATTERING": For some of you, removing the Core in the Convergence Zone causes Unreal crashes due to certain drivers. Update your drivers should fix it, but we have temporarily removed it just in case, until we can fix the problem for everyone. It's a bonus e…
