Dawn of Defiance News

[p]Dearest Defiers![/p][p]It is that time for our monthly news! As we head into March, we are still progressing well on the Unreal Engine 5.7 update we informed you of last month. You can still expect that in under two months now. If you wish to know more about our reasons for working on this engine update and what to expect during this first part of 2026, definitely check out our previous community video with Game Director Tony.[/p][p][/p][h3]Bugs of the Month[/h3][p]Now, as I have little news to add regarding this next update that we did not cover in January, I will offer you instead some very fun bugs our team is currently dealing with. Presumably if you are with us in Early Access, you are happy to peak behind the development curtain. If not, skip to the next section ;) In switching to UE 5.7, naturally a few things broke. Fixing these issues are a significant part of our team's time at the minute. On the list are various bungled HLODs, including floating terrain planes:[/p][p]And green plastic dogs:
[/p][p]We've also seen a return of stuck beds:
And perhaps my personal favorite: unintended fashion choices appearing in character portraits…
These are among the more visible bugs we're addressing. Less obvious issues might include hard crashes and progress blockers, coming from unexpected changes to our weather system for instance. But worry not, we intend to have them cleaned up for your next update! We are grateful to have additional QA support from our publisher during this time, and we're grateful for all of your patience![/p][p][/p][h3]Teasers for Next Quarter[/h3][p]Luckily, while our engineers and designers are hammering away at adjustments and fixes, many of our artists are able to work ahead on new content. Without wanting to spoil too much too early, we might have some more decor buildables headed your way after the 5.7 engine update. Take a gander at the blurred pics and place your guesses on which essential household room these new props are intended for.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]We're also working on new weapons, but these high-poly hilts aren't just for players, and they aren’t for raid bosses....so who could they be for…?[/p][p]
And the last I will leave you with is a hint at a new mythic enemy coming sometime next quarter. Ifykyk.[/p][p]That is all I am willing to share at this time, as measly as these teasers are. But we shall see you at the engine update with more info on what's to come next! Thanks as always for being a part of this open dev journey! Looking forward to sharing more next month![/p][p]
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Traega Monday[/p]

[p]As the first month of 2026 wraps up, we wanted to check-in with the community to give you all a heads-up on our next minor update! Watch this video to hear Game Director Tony reflect on Desert Reign and share some important news on our development plans:[/p][p][/p][h3]The TL;DR:[/h3][p]Our next update is focused solely on backend issues and updating to Unreal Engine 5.7! Reflecting on Sisters of the Deep and Desert Reign, we will be splitting major updates into separate smaller updates going forward, affecting our roadmap cadence but not our planned content![/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][h3]The Rundown:[/h3][p]Engine Update Coming Soon: Over the next couple months, we are focusing on updating to Unreal Engine 5.7. This means we are temporarily pausing content development to support our engineers and address backend issues, so it unlikely (though not impossible) that this next minor update will include new content. However, players should hopefully see some performance and QoL improvements![/p][p]Reflections on Desert Reign: We’ve been really grateful to hear all the positivity from players surrounding the last update! We’re aware of changes needed to the Temple of Poseidon raid in particular, and we’ll be making improvements to that experience in the future! With the size of our team and the scope of the major updates, it has been difficult to give many features the development time they deserve, so we will be making changes to our update cadence…..[/p][p]Roadmap Tweak: Our past two major updates have packaged a new raid experience with a biome overhaul. Moving forward, we will release biome improvements and raid content as two separate, smaller updates. Instead of the current plan to release 2-3 more major updates, for instance, you might instead see 5 updates. These are likely to be 3 biome updates and 2 raid updates, including: Mountain Biome, Locked Biome, Underworld Biome, and the Zeus and Hades raid![/p][p]We believe this will help our team package and progress on the updates more efficiently! These changes will not affect the content or features we have planned. Around the same time as we push this next upcoming engine update, we will share a modified roadmap graphic that reflects this new cadence.[/p][p]Our New Publisher: Last month we made a lowkey announcement of some very important news! To offer some additional context on our relationship with Fireshine, they will be working with us on marketing outreach and QA support, rather than changing anything about the game or the roadmap! We’re still the same team with the same vision! But with Fireshine's help, hopefully our updates will reach more players with less bugs![/p][p]Thank you as always for your ongoing support! We’re excited for this second-half of Early Access as we start preparing for 1.0! We look forward to sharing new content with you all in 2026![/p][p]Talk to you next month![/p]

[h3]Happy New Years to all Defiers![/h3][p]We hope you have had a wonderful holiday season so far![/p][p][/p][p]We wanted to send you warm wishes and reflect on a challenging, yet rewarding and inspiring year in Early Access! Around this time last year, we were wrapping up a period of optimizations and QoL improvements and only just revealing our roadmap at the OTK Winter Expo with promises of new content to come. The game’s full gameplay loop at the time concluded with a handful of minor labors scattered about an otherwise empty map. The Temple of Athena was but a small, ruined shrine. The desert was a place for golems, ore, and little else.[/p][p]We had not yet seen the new raid zones, the expansions of the Dark Forest and Ancient Desert with their new puzzles and challenges, the first legendary weapons and all the new gear, or the character creator (with the female player model we’ve been waiting for since release)! The Crossroads are a different place! It has been so exciting to see these goals realized throughout the months, and more exciting yet to look forward to next year where we will continue to fully realize our vision for Dawn of Defiance.[/p][p]It bears repeating that Early Access would be nothing without our players and our supporters. Thank you for investing in our game, for trusting in our roadmap, and for offering us feedback along the way. [/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]In this interim, we’ve bumped the statuses on a couple items currently on our roadmap feature list to reflect work from Desert Reign. At the start of 2026, we'll be reviewing our plans to lock in dates for our next major update. Until then, we hope we’ve given you plenty to be excited about! I, personally, will be eagerly awaiting more news to share with you all in the new year![/p][p][/p][h2]Cheers to 2026![/h2]

[p]We're here today to share another hotfix, as well as a PSA on third-party mod tools.[/p][p]We cannot support the stability of third-party tools. We have no way of knowing how they will affect your game or what additional bugs they may contribute to your experience. This can also hinder our ability to investigate bugs and crash reports, as our reporting methods can be diluted with problems caused by these third-party tools. As of right now, our largest crash count is due to people using these tools.[/p][p]As a reminder, we've implemented settings in the in-game rulesets to hopefully cover many of the features players are seeking from third-party tools, such as unlocking all abilities and all recipes, infinite build resources and infinite stamina, disabling durability, no drop-on-death, and others.

[/p][p]Before using mod tools, please investigate your options here. If there are essential settings you feel are missing from the in-game rulesets, please submit those as requests to Feature Upvote.[/p][h2]
0.3.0.3 Hotfix Patch
[/h2][p]Now for the fixes. This latest patch addresses:[/p]

• [p]Fixed stamina drain issue for glide[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue with Vitalis arrows not healing friendly players[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue causing ranged based soldiers to not fire[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue with Ironwake Golem's shockwave ability not dealing damage[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where players couldn’t finish the Fallen Royalty raid[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where warm stacks would convert to hot stacks[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where cool stack would convert to cold stacks[/p]
• [p]Added compendium entries for Artemis Deer, Bear, and Wolf after killing them[/p]

[p]This may be our last hotfix before our team leaves for a much-needed break, so please be patient with us over the holidays. If a developer or admin does not promptly respond to you during this time, do not worry! We will review all reports and feedback in the new year when we will be jumping back into development on our next update, so continue to post your bugs to Feature Upvote. If you need immediate support, please come to our Discord!

Best for now![/p]

[p]We have additional bugfixes for you following our Desert Reign update last Friday! If you have experienced any of the following, please update and let us know if you continue to have problems.[/p]

• [p]Fixed an issue where some players could not properly create a new character, resulting in skills being reset[/p]
  • [p]We've identified Join-By-Presence as a cause for the above issue. With our team going on holiday leave soon, we’re disabling “join by presence” temporarily until we have time to fully resolve all instances.[/p]
  • [p]You can expect Join-By-Presence to return sometime after the holiday.[/p]
  • [p]Some skill-resetting issues may persist. For now, please join multiplayer sessions through the in-game "Join Game" tab to ensure you are prompted by the character creator. [/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where Seriph’s shield bubble could trap players[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where some players experienced increased Stamina drain when Gliding[/p]
  • [p]We’ll be fixing the issue if players are using the Ruleset “Grant All Abilities”. For now, disabling the ruleset will fix the issue if players have gained abilities through progression as well.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where Poseidon' Trident recipe required the incorrect legendary core[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue preventing Building Mastery IV from being completed[/p]

[p]Yesterday, we also added our local character save data to the steam cloud paths which should have addressed some other issues causing skills to be reset, so long as you have Steam Cloud enabled, particularly if you are using GeForce Now.[/p][p]We are also investigating crashes related to unlocked compendium entries for clients, but we cannot confirm at this time it is completely fixed.[/p][p][/p][p]Thank you![/p]