Holocure Update 0.7 Expands the Holohouse Mode

After taking a brief detour to create an entirely seperate game (as one does), Kay Yu and friends have returned with a new update for bullet heaven/Survivors-like Holocure. While the update adds another two whole generations of Hololive Vtubers as characters, the real meat of Holocure Version 0.7 is the many additions to the Holohouse side-game.

But first, the new characters. Holocure Update 0.7 adds 9 vtubers from Hololive’s 3rd and 4th generations, including now the now graduated Kiryu Coco (though not the terminated Uruha Rushia). Each character has their own personal weapon and set of 3 skills, some of which are fairly simple to understand while others encourage a very different style of play or build. Tsunomaki Watame’s character, for example, lacks a lot of offensive power but one of her skill lets her defeat enemies by healing them. Or you could simply use her special, which fires an enormous laser, your choice.

There’s also a new stage, a new hard mode, and a few new weapons. Holocure‘s Stage 5, Fantasy Island, honestly took me a good while to crack even with a nearly maxed out upgrade collection. It’s a continuous vertical level with cannons to avoid and a lot of very tough enemies, some of which have extra projectile attacks. There’s also a really cool final boss at the end and the new Fan Letter system even incentivizes going back to fight it several times for a rare drop.

The new weapons and items are a bit more subdued and situational, though. The new weapon especially isn’t super powerful on its own, but combined into one of the new Collabs it can become really fearsome. The last big addition in Holocure 0.7 is the new support skills, which let players choose a utility ability to take in to the game like a heal or a net that catches experience. These are all really useful, however so far I’ve found the dodge to be far and away the most powerful so it will be interesting to see how the Holocure team balances and builds around the mechanic.

You might be forgiven for thinking that was all, but no, Holocure has more to give. Because multiple new areas have been added to the Holohouse mode, a chill sub-game added with the previous update. Instead of a small area with a house to decorate and small fishing and management minigames, there is now an expansive area to the south containing something like 10 or 11 new minigames. One is a simple crafter-gatherer game involving hitting things until resources fall out, then fashioning them into new tools or crafting items for commission via a different activity. Another is essentially a straight up remake of platformer Jump King, while a new Usada Pekora-themed casino has several games of both chance and skill. You can even train up your mascot workers to fight in the arena, for the most adorable bloodsport.

If I had to criticize it, I’d say some of the minigames are fairly simple or a bit too self contained. There are some bonuses that can be taken into the main bullet heaven mode, but they’re mostly quite small and not necessary if you want to skip them. But then that’s also a positive, since if you’re not as into the Holohouse side of the game you can safely ignore it.

I’d originally felt like the main game content felt a bit light, and that perhaps that was on account of how much was in the Holohouse side of the update, but checking back through previous patch notes and there’s just as much content in Holocure update 0.7 as usually comes with these large patches. My perception got skewed by just how much side content we got on top. It feels like Kay Yu and the Holocure team are not just getting better and more productive, but also more inventive and ambitious with what they want to try building within the game. If I were a studio looking for fresh talent I’d snap up these developers right away, but I hope we’ll get to see what else they can cook up with Holocure for just a little while longer.

Holocure is immediately available for PC via Steam and itch.io.