The First Berserker: Khazan (souls like - PC/Xbox/PS5)

MusicForFish

Ultra Maga Instinct
<Prior Amod>
35,976
140,358
What the heck is up with weapon scaling? Everything is B/C and my demo weapons are b+ and B and I never upgrade to any of these other weapons because my attack always goes lower.
You need to have another 2 pints to start seeing improvements.
 
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Chimney

Trakanon Raider
1,860
1,408
The demo weapons are def a bug that shouldn't have carried over though I wish they did something with them in general since the armor/weapons types didn't really matter. I just wore the deep shadow set the entire game on spear and recrafted it twice to catch up in levels.

Got the true ending and all achievements except for the very last jar since it's possibly bugged as the NPC disappears and I still want to farm some crap before I start a dual wield or sword play new game plus. Last fight was very fun, the third phase from true ending option was thankfully easier than the griping I was reading about. The game definitely dropped in difficulty for me around the 30 vit/end mark ~L50-60ish and I ended at 60/60/10/10/50. One shot every boss from Shactuka onwards aside from Hismar (3 tries cause it's a clunky af fight) and the last boss took me 9. They were all very cool though. I'd rate it easier than Sekiro, but a slightly harder time than I had in Lies of P. Story was OK, but very predictable and it looks like they left it open for a DLC. I'd put this in my top 5 for the genre and I hope they expand with other weapons and fix some crap like the hub. Scythe would be sick and sword/shield would also be cool. All told it was about 35 hours with no spoiling. Could probably boss rush it in 10-15 hours or less.

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Terial

Trakanon Raider
1,272
585
recently started, beat the Yeti boss and the next boss, Blade Phantom. (he was a pain). I suck at all thing parry, so I tend to do dodge builds, and that seems to be rough in this game. Parrying seems to be key and my timing is always off which makes me rage so hard. Blade Phantom took me like 30 attempts. Now i'm doing him again as a bonus fight and while he is slower, I still can't parry. Perhaps this game is not for people who can't parry.
 

Blueweed

Golden Baronet of the Realm
2,071
11,077
using GS, didnt parry much. just brink guard or guard. I feel the all parry skills kind of rng so I didn't invest in any. Dodge is secondary for me...

btw consumables are great against bosses. see anything hairy? just throw fire pots and flame weapon and watch them burn for example
 

Utnayan

F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3
<Gold Donor>
16,755
14,037
recently started, beat the Yeti boss and the next boss, Blade Phantom. (he was a pain). I suck at all thing parry, so I tend to do dodge builds, and that seems to be rough in this game. Parrying seems to be key and my timing is always off which makes me rage so hard. Blade Phantom took me like 30 attempts. Now i'm doing him again as a bonus fight and while he is slower, I still can't parry. Perhaps this game is not for people who can't parry.

Depends on the boss too. A lot of Brink Guard early on, but you will hit bosses here brink dodge is the way to go. I am running a great sword build - Just hit the quarry.

There was something SUPER cool that happened too that changed a boss fight.

In Skolfa cave when you fight Aratra, when exploring there are two areas where you can blow up the area to cause a rock landslide block. The second one fairly close to the boss, once you blow it up, when Alatra jumps up to be out of reach, instead of sending those spider minions which chase you and you have to dodge before they blow up with venom, don't spawn at all. It changed the boss fight and was super cool :) This is also where dodge and flank becomes way better than any brink guard used.
 

Chimney

Trakanon Raider
1,860
1,408
Just as an FYI another bug outside of the jar collection NPC disappearing is that the Master of Chaos armor scroll doesn't drop unless you beat the game on the basic ending first. I've killed the last boss 10 times now and people are reporting as many as 30+ kills and not seeing it. Only related thing is we all beat the game on true ending first ;[. Also allegedly you can't change from easy -> normal in NG+ which would be super shit for people that don't want to restart another save. Oh and you get transmog after beating the last boss, but it doesn't seem to appear until you actually start ng+ even though the blacksmith says to check it out. I hope they drop a patch for some of these soon.


recently started, beat the Yeti boss and the next boss, Blade Phantom. (he was a pain). I suck at all thing parry, so I tend to do dodge builds, and that seems to be rough in this game. Parrying seems to be key and my timing is always off which makes me rage so hard. Blade Phantom took me like 30 attempts. Now i'm doing him again as a bonus fight and while he is slower, I still can't parry. Perhaps this game is not for people who can't parry.

The game definitely rewards reflection (parry) and brink guarding the most, but any damage negation method is viable it's just not efficient and can cause a lot of fights to be harder than they should. Realistically you will need to be good at all 4 methods (guard/reflection/dodge/counter) as different fights will benefit more from each of them.


Depends on the boss too. A lot of Brink Guard early on, but you will hit bosses here brink dodge is the way to go. I am running a great sword build - Just hit the quarry.

There was something SUPER cool that happened too that changed a boss fight.

In Skolfa cave when you fight Aratra, when exploring there are two areas where you can blow up the area to cause a rock landslide block. The second one fairly close to the boss, once you blow it up, when Alatra jumps up to be out of reach, instead of sending those spider minions which chase you and you have to dodge before they blow up with venom, don't spawn at all. It changed the boss fight and was super cool :) This is also where dodge and flank becomes way better than any brink guard used.

I think there are 3 of those areas to blow up, but I didn't know that's what they prevented =]
 
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Springbok

Karen
<Gold Donor>
9,650
14,364
I mostly brink dodge with dual weild to reposition my whirlwinds. Lots of interesting builds so far, ranging from try hard difficult to master, to piss easy and anything in between. Nearing end, some banger bosses towards the end. As dual wield, my favorite fight so far is the water mage bitch... felt like an ER boss, but she'd be annoying as fuck if you didn't have a build that can move a ton.
 
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Chimney

Trakanon Raider
1,860
1,408
I started my NG+ with dual wield and god damn it wrecks. Running the epic bloodthirsty set with the legendary jar helm that gives you +10 will/-1 piece for set bonus. Phantom Blade Dance + Gale Doom with Swift Attacks / Whirlwind does absolutely insane stamina and health damage. I think it's around the 70-100k mark with one full combo but hard to count all the numbers that pop up. Also you got some more common talent unlocks for easier reflection and other shit. There are no soulstones or anything to recollect so if you do them all in your first play through you're good to go and can just pewpew through the game.
 
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Bloodrocuted

Trakanon Raider
276
397
Just as an FYI another bug outside of the jar collection NPC disappearing is that the Master of Chaos armor scroll doesn't drop unless you beat the game on the basic ending first. I've killed the last boss 10 times now and people are reporting as many as 30+ kills and not seeing it. Only related thing is we all beat the game on true ending first ;[. Also allegedly you can't change from easy -> normal in NG+ which would be super shit for people that don't want to restart another save. Oh and you get transmog after beating the last boss, but it doesn't seem to appear until you actually start ng+ even though the blacksmith says to check it out. I hope they drop a patch for some of these soon.




The game definitely rewards reflection (parry) and brink guarding the most, but any damage negation method is viable it's just not efficient and can cause a lot of fights to be harder than they should. Realistically you will need to be good at all 4 methods (guard/reflection/dodge/counter) as different fights will benefit more from each of them.




I think there are 3 of those areas to blow up, but I didn't know that's what they prevented =]
Hmm about to hit the ending, so guess I should do basic first as long as I'm planning on NG+ in order to get all the goods?
 

Chimney

Trakanon Raider
1,860
1,408
Hmm about to hit the ending, so guess I should do basic first as long as I'm planning on NG+ in order to get all the goods?

Maybe as idk when they are patching, but dev dropped a note about it and some other things they plan on changing which should fix a bunch of it.


Greetings again, Berserkers.

This is Junho Lee, Creative Director of The First Berserker: Khazan.

On March 27, 2025, The First Berserker: Khazan officially launched.
While I wrote a developer note filled with overwhelming emotion after our Early Access release, the official launch brought entirely different feelings.

On launch day, I stopped by a local game store on my way to the office, pretending to be a customer just to see our title displayed on the shelves.
The worry, “What if no one buys our game...” briefly crossed my mind, but seeing more than five people purchase Khazan despite the early hour will remain an unforgettable memory for me.

I’m truly grateful for your support and love. I sincerely hope that playing Khazan brings joy to many of you, and I promise we'll work hard to make it an even better game through continuous updates.

Following Early Access and since the official release, many of you have left valuable reviews and opinions. We're doing our utmost to carefully listen to each voice from those who have shown interest and love for Khazan, played passionately, and taken precious time to provide feedback.

We humbly accept that we may not be able to meet all expectations, but at the very least, we believe that we owe you a clear explanation of why we made certain choices and what we aim to achieve. Thus, I’d like to take a moment to share more detailed explanations about our previous patch.


Boss Balance Adjustments

The first topic we’d like to address is the boss balance adjustments.

After the first balance patch went live, we had a flood of feedback in various forms. Some even suggested that defeating Viper and Maluca before the nerf was an exclusive perk only available to Deluxe Edition owners—but I assure you, that was never our intention.

While these changes might appear to make things easier from a simple "nerf" perspective, many players who started after the official release are still facing significant challenges – perhaps even more so than those who cleared the bosses before the adjustments. Let me explain a little further on this topic.

Viper

As for the actual adjustments made to Viper, we specifically reduced attack damage, stamina, and HP by approximately 12%. We did not make any changes to its still or AI behavior.

Viper is one of the bosses we feel most confident about in terms of completeness. It is a prototype monster created during the early stages of Khazan project, and we went through countless iterations to refine it until we were satisfied with the final result.

Normally we investigate how players experience the game from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives, and in this case, we evaluated the difficulty by comparing those who played with Deluxe Edition exclusive set to those who didn’t.

As you would know, the Deluxe exclusive set offers a strong performance, and having it equipped gives a significant advantage in combat. Our concern was that once the official release opened, many players would be starting the game without this set. If we had left the difficulty as it was, these players would have faced a much steeper challenge.

While this wasn’t our sole intention, we did intend early access players to have a smoother experience with the set. However, after inspecting gameplay data, we noticed that Standard Edition players starting fresh at full launch were consistently facing a much tougher challenge – which we didn’t believe was fair. This was the core reason why we chose to slightly adjust attack damage, stamina, and HP. Even after the adjustment, our data still shows that many players are continuing to face challenges in Normal difficulty.

Maluca

Maluca’s case is a little different. Most players weren’t using the Deluxe exclusive set when facing Maluca, so we reduced attack damage and stamina by around 8%. We believe that one of the main reasons players enjoy Khazan boss fights is the action-based progression – figuring out patterns and reacting more skillfully with each battle.

Of course, stats matter. However, the reason behind the adjustment is the same as what I’ve mentioned in our previous Dev Note.

If you are still thinking, “Maluca is way easier after nerf.”, you might not be wrong.

Here’s a quick example.
After the online demo opened, many players mentioned that the demo felt easier than the TCBT – even though the balance was almost identical.
Players who participated in the TCBT already had experience, and Khazan’s boss designs reward this kind of repeated learning so that you can defeat the boss easier next time.
Even if we raise the stats again, players who already defeated the boss may not notice this. Please note that for new players, however, this challenge could be overwhelming.

We’re not trying to defend every decision we make. Instead, we would like to thank everyone.
We received so much genuine feedback on nerfs – concerned, constructive and clearly coming from a place of love for the game. Those voices helped guide our decisions, so thank you.

Some of our players have asked: “Can we roll back to pre-nerf?”

As we emphasized above, the changes were purely statistical. If you’d like to replicate the challenge before the nerf, try unequipping a few pieces of the set or lowering your level. In the case of Viper, just taking off the Deluxe exclusive set will make the battle much tougher.

Our one last note: We have no plans to nerf any other bosses in the future.

Next Update Plans

1. Increased Drop Rates for Set Equipment Materials

Our original intention was for players to complete a set from defeating the boss five times and making purchases from Danjin. However, due to the design, which makes it hard to meet the Danjin conditions in the early stages of gameplay, obtaining materials was more tiring than we expected. Thus, we’re significantly increasing material drop rates from bosses.

2. Stat Scaling of Online Demo Weapons

Due to additional balance patches after the demo, there are some differences between the online demo and the full release build.
Especially, some weapons obtainable in the demo have high base stats – yet they are not the best weapon you can obtain in your first full playthrough.
Their stats fall significantly behind sets that can be obtained mid-to-late gameplay, which have extra options.
We debated whether to change the stats of the weapons from the demo. In the end, we decided to leave them as a thank you gift to players who enjoyed the demo.

3. Build Number Removed from Gameplay Screen

While the build number in the lower left of the screen was helpful for us to review your reports, there was some feedback that it broke immersion and occasionally caused issues on OLED monitors.

The build number will be removed from the gameplay screen in our next update and will only be displayed on the title screen and other select areas.

4. Difficulty Adjustment for Later Part of Game Content

We recently realized that we should have reevaluated the difficulty for later part of the game before early access started.
The dev team ran numerous internal tests, to a point where we became extremely familiar with the game.
This led us to underestimate how steep the challenge curve might feel to players new to our game.

We emphasized and deeply considered your feedback on the level design from the later part of the game. We will be adjusting areas that felt unfairly difficult, frustrating, or overly fatiguing.
Please check the patch notes for full details once it’s up, and we welcome your feedback after replaying the updated content.

5. Improvement to the Change Attributes System

We’ve included bug fixes on the Change Attributes system and applied some UX improvements to streamline the experience.


Also Sharing Some Sneak Peek on Future Update Plans:

We’re currently preparing patches based on your feedback.

Our top priority is to address the issues that are negatively impacting your gameplay experience. While some of these fixes may take time to implement, we’re doing our best to deliver them as quickly as possible.
Making appearance change available from the very first playthrough
Preparing new Gear Preset and Skill Preset systems
Allowing players to freely switch difficulty back from Easy to Normal mid-game
Investigating platform-specific issues with achievements


We’ve also received reports that the Netherworld Energy (healing potion) may sometimes disappear from quick slots.
While we’re working on a permanent fix, we’ve applied a temporary solution that will restore the item when you restart a mission or re-enter the game.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience, and we’ll do everything we can to fully resolve the issue as soon as possible.


As we wrap up this Dev Note, I’d like to once again express my heartfelt gratitude.

We couldn’t include each and every detail in this Dev Note, but around 400 improvements and bug fixes are included in our next update. We’ve just completed the QA process and preparing platform review.
For details on the update, please check our patch notes which will be uploaded along with the update build.

While we know there’s still room for improvement, we promise to continue updating The First Berserker: Khazan and moving it closer to the complete experience we envision.
Thanks to all of you who’ve joined us on this journey, we continue to develop the game each day with joy and purpose.

If you have any thoughts or feedback while playing, please don’t hesitate to share them in our official Discord channel.
We also welcome your input on the updates. While the volume of feedback has been greater than we anticipated — and there have been moments when we couldn’t respond as quickly as we’d like — please know that we’re reading everything carefully and taking your voices seriously.
Everyone on the dev team remains committed to making Khazan a better game, step by step.

To those who’ve shared words of encouragement, and to those who’ve offered honest criticism — we are deeply grateful. We’ll carry that feedback with us as we continue to build the content ahead, and we sincerely hope you enjoy what’s to come.

Thank you again, from the bottom of our hearts, to everyone who has shown interest and support for The First Berserker: Khazan.

From Junho Lee, Creative Director


PS. There were so many fixes and improvements in this update that we may have missed mentioning a few important ones.
The issue where the Danjin’s shop could not be accessed after collecting all of Danjin’s jars will be fixed in this update.
The issue where players were unable to obtain the recipe after clearing Ozma will be resolved soon. (We ask for your understanding, as it has been slightly delayed due to additional work required to provide the recipe to players who have already cleared the boss.)
 
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