Absolum was already a highly replayable rogue-lite, blending classic beat ‘em up action with modern run-based design sensibilities. For a subset of us at Quest Daily, it was one of our favourite games of 2025. Now, with the Threads of Fate 1.1 update, the development team have blown out what was already a huge amount of content, rewarding skilled players with extra challenges and adding randomised modifiers to unsettle stale play styles.
Corrupted Regions
The first thing that stuck out to me was that the game now randomly converts certain levels into ‘corrupted regions’. These are tougher areas, filled with rifts teleporting other continent’s enemies into the battle. You’ll find yourself in a constant state of chaos as late-game monsters suddenly devastate early ‘cakewalk’ levels.
The map marks these regions, meaning you can choose to avoid them, and I’m not embarrassed to say I often ran screaming from them. But for players who have done everything on offer in Absolum, the corrupted regions offer a satisfying challenge.
READ MORE: Review | Absolum: ‘Run It Back’ (PS5)
Mystic Ordeals
The biggest change for endgame players is the addition of Mystic Ordeals. These are pre-set groups of modifiers you can apply to a run for an extra challenge. Examples include making your counters stronger but all other damage far weaker, or introducing friendly fire into a co-op run.
While it sometimes feels like a fan-made ROM hack, the combination of modifiers are well thought-out. The Mystic Ordeal that triples the number of enemies also triples the mounts you run into, as well as adjusting the economy to account for your massive increase in gold collected. Players can also create and share their own Mystic Ordeals, meaning you can expose your mates to your devilish creations. These new game modes force experimentation to your approach to combat, greatly freshening up Absolum for veterans of the game.
There are many smaller additions to the game that enhance the experience too. For co-op players, there are new skins and emotes to change the way you communicate with allies. Mounts now have Elite forms, which create a greater level of devastation when you stumble across them. And there’s plenty of small quality-of-life features, including settings for uncapped frame rates and on-screen damage numbers, as well as lavish title cards when you enter a new environment.
An Absolum-ly Fabulous Upgrade
Absolum already felt like it had a near endless amount of content. That being said, the Threads of Fate update adds a tonne of variance to an admittedly repetitive gameplay structure to make every moment feel novel again. Particularly for endgame players, the update raises the difficulty level with plenty of new challenges for masochistic veterans.
The Threads of Fate update for Absolum is available now for free on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.
A code for the Absolum Threads of Fate update was supplied to Quest Daily for the purposes of this article.
