Dragonkin: The Banished News

Today, we’ll be giving you a closer look at the three playable characters you’ll be able to embody in your adventure against the dragons at the start of Early Access:

Electrane the Oracle, Lothair the Knight, and Rurik the Barbarian.

We designed each character with a set of abilities that consume or generate Energy, which you can consider the base resource. The other shared ability is the dodge, designed to get you out of sticky situations.

Additionally, we wanted each hero to have an innate ability thematic to their playstyle that highlights their strengths. This also serves as another resource for players to manage. For the Oracle, her ‘Vision Gauge’ fills with each spell cast and can be used to amplify the power of certain abilities. The Knight’s flamelance gives abilities that make use of his ‘Fuel Gauge’. The Barbarian is fueled by Rage, increasing his damage output and reducing ability cost, but only if he stays in combat, giving him the biggest sense of risk / reward for his playstyle.

Check out our heroes in action in our reveal trailer:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h3]Electrane - The Oracle[/h3]



Metamorphosed by the blood of the blue dragon without losing her humanity, she aspires to a world where dragons and humans live in harmony. She uses her electric draconic powers with precision, and can amplify them using her visions.

[h3]Innate Ability: Vision[/h3]

The Oracle's innate ability allows her to consume a portion of her Vision Gauge using a dedicated button to enhance her next ability while reducing its cost. Each ability has a specific upgraded version: projectile bonuses, cooldown reduction, bonus damage, and others you’ll discover in-game, like this rotating laser. This gives players the freedom to choose which ability to upgrade depending on the situation.



All skill detail windows in this blog can be clicked for full detail.



[h3]Controlling the Battlefield[/h3]

With a combination of slows, stuns, and forced movement abilities, the Oracle has everything she needs to keep enemies far away while avoiding any hits.





The modifiers in your Ancestral Grid already allow you to customize your abilities. But that's not the only way! The Wyrmling companion that accompanies you also has its own abilities and acts as a specialization, adding effects to abilities that are properly connected in the Ancestral Grid.





[h3]Blink & Barrier[/h3]

Unlike other Heroes, the Oracle’s Evade is a blink, teleporting a short distance.

A classic in the genre, this instant teleportation allows the Oracle to dodge a powerful attack in a pinch, pass through terrain and enemies, or simply keep her distance.

However, the Oracle remains fragile. This is where the Barrier stat, shared by all characters, comes into play. The Barrier acts as an additional health bar that regenerates quickly out of combat. It helps save on health potions, but it’s less effective against constant assaults that prevent it from regenerating.






[h3]Lothair De Montdragon - The Knight[/h3]



Trained in combat from a young age, he masters the fire lance with unparalleled skill. His unwavering faith in the Eternal and his unwavering determination make him impervious to any draconic corruption. He presents himself as the light that will banish darkness!

[h3]Innate Ability: Fuel[/h3]

With the Knight, we wanted to highlight equipment and abilities that mirror the power of Dragons—fight fire with fire—making Lothair a Knight unlike any other. Some of his abilities consume Fuel instead of Energy to create fiery effects. This resource passively regenerates over time, though other abilities can restore it. Managing Fuel requires players to carefully alternate their abilities to avoid running out of resources.





[h3]Armor & Blocking[/h3]

Beyond his offensive abilities and specific resource management, the Knight possesses full armor and a large shield, allowing him to either counterattack or deal damage depending on his defensive potential…









There is also a Blocking stat, shared by all heroes, which allows for partial damage mitigation when taking hits.

[h3]Support & Summons[/h3]

The Knight also has the ability to support his allies, or summon soldiers to the battlefield, through a banner, passive abilities, or by provoking enemies.





[h3]Rurik Haraldson - The Barbarian[/h3]



Following a dangerous traditional ritual, he became a dragon-blood: half-man, half-monster. His supernatural strength and ice powers combined with legendary rage allow him to defeat the toughest enemies.

[h3]Innate Ability: Rage[/h3]

Following a dangerous traditional ritual, he became a dragon-blood: half-man, half-monster. His supernatural strength and ice powers combined with legendary rage allow him to defeat the toughest enemies.

Rurik is the very embodiment of rage. With every blow struck or damage taken, his Rage Gauge fills up, allowing him to increase his damage and reduce the cost of his abilities. His rage decreases quickly out of combat, so you’ll need to chain enemies together to maintain a high level of rage and stay at the peak of your power.





[h3]Moving through the battlefield[/h3]

It was essential to help the Barbarian keep up the pace in order to maintain his rage. That’s why he has high-mobility abilities and mobile attacks, allowing him to chain his enemies together.

Even his dodge ability deals damage to everything he passes through!









He’s also an excellent hero for dealing constant damage, through bleeding, freezing, or even a key stat: Thorn Damage, which inflicts instant damage to enemies who dare strike him…

[h3]Buffs & Survivability[/h3]

To stay in the fight, the Barbarian has an immense health pool and various abilities that allow him to instantly heal, gain temporary damage reduction bonuses, or even achieve brief immortality for a few seconds.









[h3]That’s all for today![/h3]

That’s all for today!
Which of these 3 Heroes interests you the most?

Let us know in the comments or join our Discord server to discuss! We’ll be back soon with a DevBlog explaining in detail how the Ancestral Grid works, so stay tuned!

Hello Hunters!

Following our Early Access announcement yesterday, we sat down with Lead Game Designer, Jonathan Gabrielli to give you a better idea what to expect from our upcoming Hack&Slash ARPG Dragonkin: The Banished.

In this video, you'll learn about the world, how the ancestral grid affects skills, companion pets (the wyrmlings) and more.

Please note: The video is in French, you may need to enable subtitles on the video player (bottom right).

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Dragonkin: The Banished is coming to Steam Early Access on March 6th, learn more about why in our dev blog and chat with our development team on the EKO Discord!

Hello Dragon Hunters!

We are delighted to reveal that Dragonkin: The Banished is coming out in Early Access March 6th, 2025 on Steam!

Check out the Early Access trailer below and come back tomorrow when we’ll be revealing a new developer diary with a look at more gameplay for Dragonkin: The Banished.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h3]So, why Early Access, you ask?[/h3]

At Eko Software, we’re a small but passionate team of around 30 people working on Dragonkin: The Banished. We’re crazy about the ARPG genre, particularly Hack & Slash games. We’ve been making them for around 12 years now!

For Dragonkin: The Banished, we wanted to push the boundaries of what we’ve done before. We moved development to Unreal Engine 5, allowing us more flexibility compared to our previous engine. One of our goals is to highlight the things we love about the genre while bringing in something fresh and new to delight fans.

For the launch of Early Access on March 6th, we have prepared content to introduce you to the world of Dragonkin. You can play through the prologue and 1st act as one of 3 classes, collect gear, and expand your skills using the Ancestral Grid. You’ll have access to a couple of end game modes and be able to start levelling up your city. We think it’s a good starting point, but there’s more to come.



We’ll be bolstering this content throughout until launch with what’s planned on our roadmap. Expect regular updates including the addition of online multiplayer and more character skills, biomes, the addition of the 4th character and more endgame content. It also has room for us to make adjustments and tweaks to address player feedback and concerns. We’ll publish more information on the roadmap prior to launch, so keep an eye out for that.

Within the ARPG genre, we believe there is ample room for innovation and one of our major goals involves the Ancestral Grid which we’re going to deep-dive in a future Dev Blog. But the general idea incorporates randomly generated fragments that are collected as you play, ensuring that by the end of the journey, your grid will be completely unique. We wanted to add an element of fun while making your grid, while giving theory-crafters the flexibility to adapt their grids and come up with new playstyles.

Early Access is a collaborative process. We know how passionate the ARPG community is, and want to get as much feedback from our players as possible. We’ll be using this to shape and improve the game as we move towards the 1.0 launch. Early Access also gives us the opportunity to invest further into the project, possibly altering or expanding the scope of our plans for Dragonkin: The Banished.

We have many goals for development, but being in Early Access gives us the opportunity to bring the community into the process and we strongly believe that it will result in a better version of the game for everyone.

[h3]How to support us?[/h3]

Share the trailer, spread the word, and wishlisting Dragonkin: The Banished on Steam helps us a lot!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1863430/Dragonkin_The_Banished/


[h3]What's next?[/h3]

We’ve got a lot to share in the coming weeks, starting with a Developer Diary tomorrow (January 10th), where we’ll discuss some of the systems and gameplay in Dragonkin: The Banished.

In the meantime, don’t hesitate to join us on social media and Discord if you haven’t yet, for the latest news, discussions, and exclusive sneak peeks. Know that your enthusiasm and support mean the world to us, and we’re so grateful to have you on this journey.

Happy New Year from the team at Eko Software, and get ready for our next DevBlog!

Howdy Dragon Hunters,

NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements) for the Dragonkin: The Banished playtest on the 19th have been sent so please check your inbox (the mail should be from Nacon Gaming ).

As a reminder, you must sign the NDA to receive a key and access to the playtest. Those who sign the NDA will also receive an invite to an exclusive Discord to discuss the playtest with the development team.

We look forward to hearing your feedback!

Hello Hunters!

In this blog, we want to give you an exclusive first look into the world of Dragonkin: The Banished. As you may know from our class blog, Dragon Blood can have various effects, granting immense power, but often at a deep cost.

For you to better understand the insidious nature of the blood seeping into the world itself, we’ll walk you through two areas within one of the biome’s you’ll step into, a place twisted and tainted by Green Dragon Blood: the Jungle and the Swamps of Ja'Ksara.

Let’s dive in!

[h2]The Swamps of Ja'Ksara[/h2]

This treacherous land is home to the Toxic Dragons, whose blood has had a disturbing, corrupting effect on everything it touches. From the wildlife to the vegetation, the swamp is a twisted reflection of the Green Dragon’s power.

As you venture through the swamp, you’ll come across Batrachians that release deadly toxins when threatened, monstrous Moths that unleash swarms of insects ready to overwhelm you, Leeches (oh god, the leeches!) and Shamans that wield the electrical powers of the Blue Dragon, just to name a few.

After all, who truly knows what else may lurk beneath these muddied waters…



Nestled within the towering treetops, you’ll discover a cult village. Here the tainted waters have even begun to affect the locals.

[h3]Meet the Monstrous Swarm[/h3]

Without a doubt you’ll meet the Monstrous Swarm, a moth-like (and terrifying creature) that has been completely transformed by Green Dragon blood. Characterized by it’s enormous mouth, it can summon Dragonflies, tiny but deadly insects, ready to sting on sight.



[h2]The Jungle of Ja'Ksara[/h2]

While the Jungle may appear peaceful, especially at night, these decayed ruins are far from deserted. Corrupted creatures wander, hostile to those who dare venture too close to their homes. And as you journey deeper, the Jungle itself will threaten your progress, as if something doesn't want you to reach its core.



Despite the Jungle being viciously dangerous and inhospitable, the serene sight of waterfalls reminds us of the world the warriors are trying to protect as you uncover the mysteries hidden under the roots.

[h3]Meet the Rampant Corruption[/h3]

It’s here in the Jungle that you'll cross paths with this unnatural rampant tree-like creature animated by the Blood of the Green Dragon.



[h2]We hope this sneak peek at Dragonkin: The Banished has you even more excited for the adventure ahead![/h2]

What are you most excited to explore, the Swamps or the Jungle?
Let us know in the comments, or hop into our Discord server to discuss it with fellow hunters!

We’ll be back soon with more updates, so stay tuned!