Vindictus: Defying Fate, the action-heavy spiritual successor to Vindictus, has officially wrapped up its Steam Next Fest alpha test, and developer Nexon isn’t pulling any punches when it comes to player stats or incoming changes. The alpha ran from June 8–16 and drew more than 426,000 players, earning a spot among Steam Next Fest’s 50 most-played demos.
Across its short but intense testing window, players logged over 1.15 million hours of monster slaying across 189 countries. Unsurprisingly, many of them didn’t make it out alive—more than 7.2 million player defeats were recorded, with 37,987 of those coming courtesy of everyone’s new worst enemy: rolling logs.
Alpha Test Highlights
The dev team released a fun breakdown of key stats:
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- Total Monsters Defeated: 42.6 million
- Most Played Character: Delia
- Top Follower Chosen: Fiona
- Deadliest Boss: Gnoll Chieftain Crimsongale
- Most Defeated Enemies: White Tyrant (351k+) and Blood Lord (154k+)
- Total Playtime: 1,151,621 hours (or over 131 years)
To celebrate, Nexon hosted a two-hour gameplay preview stream with commentary from the game’s combat and monster designers, giving fans a closer look at what’s coming next.
What’s Changing?
The dev team issued a transparent development letter responding to the biggest points of player feedback:
- Performance Optimization: Alpha builds struggled with framerate and input delays. Improving stability and optimization is now a “top priority.”
- Combat Rework: Many players called the combat restrictive. In response, Nexon is speeding up attack animations, improving fluidity, and enabling more expressive combo chaining mid-interruption.
- Hit Feedback: Better camera shakes, hit effects, recoil, and sound design are in the works to improve the weight and feel of every blow.
The team emphasized a commitment to “player-driven improvement” as they head toward the next round of testing.
What’s Next for Defying Fate?
More updates are coming soon, but for now, players can wishlist the game on Steam and follow its development through X (formerly Twitter), Discord, YouTube, and the official website. You can also read the full developer letter here.
