Path of Cultivation

In development: Path of Cultivation is still in development. All screenshots on this page come from a demo (development) build: most scenes, enemies, NPCs and technique effects still use placeholder art (gray boxes and simple shapes), and the final game will replace all of it with hand-painted art in the same style as the key art, so please judge the visuals by the final release. The story trailer is a cinematic, not gameplay footage.

The Mortal Realm: Seven Regions, Forty Stages

Path of Cultivation follows one mortal's road to immortality. You are a youth from the martial hall of Qingxi Town: you drive the bandits from your home, live as a rogue cultivator, join a small sect, travel far and wide, serve in a great sect and found a sect of your own, then join every sect of the Mortal Realm to break the seal on the Heaven's Gate Secret Realm. The Mortal Realm spans seven regions, seven camps, forty stages and forty bosses, with forty-eight kinds of enemies that change from region to region, and the first clear of every stage tells part of the story. Camps and battlefields share one cycle of day and night that follows your play time; when night falls, lanterns and spirit light come on, and the world map clears its clouds as your journey reaches each new region. Beyond the Heaven's Gate Secret Realm, the Primordial Array Dais opens the Primordial Trial, which you can take on again and again, and at Spirit Transformation you will meet enemies and bosses found only there. The game supports keyboard and mouse or a controller, with three separate saves and automatic saving.

Roguelite Runs: One Map, One Boss

Every expedition is one run: a single map of nonstop battle, with enemies pouring in from every side. You move and dash out of danger while your attacks and techniques cast on their own. Aiming targets the nearest enemy by default, or you can aim with the mouse or the right stick. Defeating enemies raises your score; when it reaches the stage's goal, the boss arrives, and defeating it clears the stage, followed by fifteen seconds to gather the loot. Your level and techniques start over in every run, but your Cultivation, Spirit Stones and the gear, technique books and spirit herbs you bring back stay with you. Even a failed run only costs part of the items you picked up, depending on how much of the stage was left.

Growing in a Run: Pick One of Three

Pick up the experience enemies leave behind to level up. Each level-up offers three techniques: learn a new one or raise one you already have. You can hold up to six attack techniques and six passive techniques, drawn from twenty-four general attack techniques, twenty-one general passive techniques and the class techniques you have learned, and you can reroll or banish the offers you don't want a limited number of times. Chests on the battlefield grant one more pick. Clearing from range, overpowering up close or holding steady: every run builds a different set.

Enlightenment: Choose Your Talents

Each new major realm opens another row of three talents with the Enlightenment Mentor, covering attack, health, critical hits, cooldowns, attack area, spell range, movement speed, pickup radius, treasure find and more. Talent points come from your realms and from the first clears of a few key stages, but never enough to take every talent, so choose what suits your build. Preview a change before you apply it, and reset for free whenever you are in camp.

Bosses: Forty Stages, Forty Foes

As your score nears the goal, "The Boss Approaches" appears, and the boss enters with its name and opening words. From bandit chiefs, rogue cultivators and demon-beast kings to ancient artifact spirits and sect patriarchs, each of the forty bosses has two to five moves and one to three phases. Heavy moves are marked on the ground in advance, the health bar shows the phases, and each new phase brings new moves. Read the warning, dash clear, then close in while it recovers.

Cultivating Between Runs: Break Through

Cultivation gained on an expedition is never taken away, even when the run fails. Back in camp, gather enough to raise your realm with the Realm Steward: from Mortal (Mortal, Warrior, Grandmaster, Innate) through Qi Refining, Foundation Establishment, Core Formation and Nascent Soul to Spirit Transformation. Minor steps always succeed; crossing into a new major realm takes a breakthrough, and the materials of your realm raise its chance of success. A failed breakthrough costs part of the Cultivation and the materials you put in, but never your realm. Higher realms bring more attack, health and armor, and open more gear and techniques.

Techniques: Study and Class Arts

With the Technique Mentor, spend Cultivation to study techniques and raise their base effects for good, with no cap. Class techniques must first be found as technique books: the Sword Cultivator has twelve, each with an External Art, an Internal Art and a Mind Method of three layers each, learned in order from the first layer of the External Art. The deeper you go, the higher the damage, area, projectile count or number of ticks. Technique books drop in stages, with deeper layers in later stages, and the class techniques you learn (up to six) join the level-up offers in your runs.

Gear: Loot, Refining and Sets

Enemies and chests drop equipment, and the better the gear, the taller the beam of light that marks it on the ground. Equipment covers six slots (weapon, robe, crown, boots, jade pendant and ring) with eighteen base types, five rarities (Common, Uncommon, Rare, Set and Unique), five grades and nineteen kinds of random affixes. Thirty-six Unique items each carry an exclusive effect that can change how a technique plays, and ten sets grant bonuses at two, four and six pieces. Back in camp, the Artificer can enhance gear up to +10, reforge affix values, dismantle what you don't need into materials or sell it, while your bag, private storage and the storage shared by the whole save keep every piece.

Alchemy: A Furnace on Real Time

Battles drop spirit herbs from one year to ten thousand years old. With the Alchemist in any camp, put them in the furnace: each portion of herbs that is old enough in total becomes one pill, and higher realms let one furnace hold more portions. The furnace runs on real time, an hour for a Mortal and up to twenty-four hours at Spirit Transformation, and it keeps brewing while the game is closed. Pills come out at different tiers, and at low realms many turn out as waste pills. Take a pill for Cultivation or sell it for Spirit Stones; when one comes out above your realm, take it now, or keep it until after your next breakthrough for its full effect.

In Development

The Sword Cultivator is the class you can play for now. Final art, music and sound effects are in production and will replace the placeholders before release.