Greetings once again, you crazy medieval adventurers!
It's been a little while since our last content update, but today we're coming to you with the next one and we're calling it 1.0! So, does this mean that we're done with the game?! To be honest, we don't see it that way - we see there's still a lot of room for more updates to come! But it's time to transition the game out of early access.
Thinking back to our early access release in March 2023, the game included content-wise the main quest with the necromancer and... well, that was it for the most part. Since then, we've added much content in an effort to make the world not feel so empty, but worth exploring.
In that vein, today's update will also expand upon the world, but it will also contain additions to a wide range of areas in the game.
This update should not break any old save files, which we've always felt is important for the kind of game we've been developing.
So, there's a lot to cover, but here's a quick breakdown of everything new coming in today's update:
- A new adventure to go along with Greywall and the main (necromancer) quests, this one begins with discovering a threat to Haywind (a chain of ~10 small to medium-sized quests).
- A new endgame focused mountain zone (that increases the game world by about 20% ish).
- The level cap for all skills raised to 100, and new crafting recipes, milestones and higher level monsters to go along with that.
- Inventory improvements, larger inventory size, universal bags.
- Visual improvements.
- Other QoL improvements and fixes.
New zone: Amarien's Mountains
After completing some new quests, you will unlock access to a new mountainous area, where new quests, scenery, enemies and harvestables await you! Beware, the enemies will also be beefier, so the additional skill levels from 50 -> 100 should come in handy.
The new items you're able to craft from the materials you find will also naturally make you stronger. While you're out there exploring, so far from home, only some of the ancient portals you find can teleport you back to safety.
If you're not careful, the wandering barbarian ambushers might come for your hide...
Map of the new mountain zone...:
Cozy mountain village, for your banking and shopping needs...:
Dangers out in the wilderness...:
As you travel deeper in...
And deeper...
The danger grows!
New Quests
Unlocking the mountains will involve picking up the journey from the (previously very incomplete) quest named Something Suspicious, which is gained by visiting Haywind town hall. An old friend from the early crypts will also join along for this adventure...
If you're playing on a save where you've already completed this quest, talking to the quest giver at Haywind town hall should start it again from the beginning (as some changes and rewrites to it have been made).
The quests that follow will lead into the mountains...
[h4]Wandering ambushers and poachers.[/h4]
Out in the 'wilderness' you may run into gangs of barbarian ambushers, who drop more loot but also get incrementally more dangerous as you defeat them. Hunting them down will contribute to finding rare crafting ingredients, some unique equippable gear and unlocking new spells.
You'll also run into 'poachers' who are competing for harvestable resources, they may try to defend their territory or run away.
You'll find scoreboards at mountain military camps that keep tally of how many ambushers and poachers you've taken down.
Battle with a large ambusher group:
We've added options for followers / hirelings, which may be unlocked at the mountain village. This trio includes a warrior, a spellcaster and a helpful busy-body battlefield looter. You may only have one with you at any given time.
In exchange for a bit of gold, they'll follow you anywhere, but should be especially helpful against larger groups of enemies in the mountains.
Loras the Nimble in action, being very adept at looting the battlefields for you:
Visual Improvements
Some work has gone to making the game look visually better, for example by improving the trees (which the maps are full of). Contrary to what intuition might tell you, but in typical game development fashion, the better looking assets are also more optimized and thus translate to some performance improvements. There are also more options in graphics settings menu to tweak performance.
[h4]New trees:[/h4]
[h4]UI improvements:[/h4]
Some art has been added to make the action bar feel better. And the dialogue UI has also gained a small visual uplift, plus it now displays the character you're conversing with, which improves the feel of the dialogue by surprisingly quite a bit.
New action bar:
New dialogue window:
Inventory management and bank improvements.
There are tons of different items in the game and that pool has only increased many-fold since we began early access. To accommodate that, the inventory size has now been significantly increased. In addition, you're able to acquire universal bag items in the game, with a separate UI, capable of storing further items.
[h4]General Storage Bags[/h4]
These bags, capable of storing any and all items, come in multiple sizes. You may drag items to the bags to store them within. One bag is granted for free at the beginning of the game and more may be unlocked later.
[h4]Bank[/h4]
The bank UI has received a full rework, which should hopefully resolve the prior glitchyness players have encountered with it and add some much needed QoL.
- Added the much requested bank tabs, and the option to rename them.
- Buttons to deposit all items from inventory, or all equipped items.
[h4]Horsy[/h4]
- Horsy's bags are also now fully accessible, just like the general bags, with the UI to add or remove any items.
- Just like before, you can talk to Horsy to send him off to the bank or the stables, but you may also acquire a new item to summon him without visiting the stables.
- Horsy has always been a bit clumsy in combat, so now he's a peace loving Horsy who gets agitated and runs off to the stables when you're in combat for too long. Good thing he can be more easily summoned now.
[h4]Scrolls of True Alchemy[/h4]
New stackable scrolls to turn items to gold on the go. These may be obtained as monster drops, from shops, or crafted at the new Mystic's workbench.
[h4]Salvaging[/h4]
You may encounter new salvager's workbenches and salvager's kits that turn some items into stackable scrap, which may be exchanged for crafting materials and other potentially useful items.
Trading scrap at a new scavenger merchant:
The Scavenger's Yard may be found west of Haywind, which will come to serve all your scrap related needs:
Achievements
New achievement UI has been added into the game, and with it 'achievement content'. Most of these relate to peaceful grinding, and serve as rewarding experience for engaging in such a playstyle.
From completing achievement, you also gain artifacts which may be traded for special item rewards at a new 'achievement shop' in Haywind.
[h4]Achievement Shop[/h4]
Arty M'faktis in Haywind will gladly take your artifacts in exchange for special items and abilities, such as larger storage bags, ability to reduce Homecoming cooldown and calling Horsy from the stables while out in the world.
Item 'encyclopedia' function.
Right click an item in inventory or press "I" while browsing the item tooltip to open a new UI window. For the most part, you'll be able to see which shops sell the item, which monsters drop it and what crafting recipes it may be used in.
Revamped prologue areas.
We reworked some freedom into the prologue, the ability to engage with the core skills of the game without being stuck in story, and a few optional tasks around the manor that reward experience.
Aercrest Manor has a new look!
You can engage with some npcs, tasks and crafting from the get go:
Manual monster respawn function.
When enemies are in the process of respawning nearby, a timer icon will appear in the top left corner. You can click it to manually speed up respawn times of enemies, if you're waiting for specific ones. The option is only available while out of combat.
Steam deck and controller improvements.
The game isn't exactly "officially fully supports steam deck" status, but some effort has gone into making it run better on the deck nonetheless.
Improvements have been made to the UI so it fits smaller screens better, and we've added 1 button commands for some actions that could only be made using a mouse before. You can bind these in the keyboard shortcut options, they include:
- Attack nearest enemy
- Interact with nearest object / NPC
- Pick up nearest loot
Misc QoL, improvements, bugfixes
- ESC key should now close most windows
- There is now an exit to main menu button in options
- There is now a pause game button in options
- Quest starting locations mostly now show in world map
- Additional drops (like acorns from trees) no longer consume the health of the resource
- Npc harvesters no longer consume resource health if near player
- Pistario nuts sometimes stop working after 1 use
- Effects and abilities that move your character (e.g. knockback, and abilities like leap attack and disengage) can no longer throw you to inaccessible locations
- Clicking the minimap compass now resets the camera
- Enemy kill counts now visible in bestiary
- Possible to craft exceptional bracelets and trinkets now
- Shops now show restock times
- Artisan orders now also accept bank notes and can be completed multiple times
- Etherlight quest items should be a little clearer now
- Increased pathfinder range (previously your character would stop halfway if you clicked too far, now the path should be recalculated as you move to reach the target.)
Original Game Soundtrack
We've uploaded the game soundtrack to both spotify and youtube :)
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
What does the future of the game look like?
We’re by no means done providing updates for the game. For the immediate future we’ll be focused on balancing loot, enemy stats, fixing bugs etc. based on your feedback. Arguably we gave ourselves a little too much to chew through in terms of new content additions in this update and didn’t take as much time reviewing prior content and making balancing adjustments as we ideally would have liked.
With that said, we’re happy to deliver all the aforementioned changes and additions to the game and will focus on delivering manageable, smaller updates for improvements in the near future, before planning any new, larger content additions. As for potential future content, we're certainly not short on ideas, but we'll let you know once we get to that point!
As always, if you have any burning questions, we'll do our best to answer them on our discord server, which is where you're most likely to get a hold of us - the link's included down below. A special shout out to Splattercat for his coverage of our game - it really has meant a lot to us - and to all the super active and helpful members of our discord community!
With that, it's once again time to wish you the most important thing of all - happy gaming!
Regards,
Pura
