Legacy: Steel & Sorcery News

I vividly remember the first time I stepped foot on World of Warcraft's Asian-inspired island, Pandaria. As a budding adventurer, I was awed by the opening airship battle, stunned by the region's beauty, and enchanted by its fluffy Panda-inspired people. My jaw still drops any time I do the circle around the Serpent's Heart - it was a world quite unlike any other: lush, vivid, and exciting. But the last time I really played the MMO was during Shadowlands because, while I reviewed Dragonflight, I didn't get to put as much time into it as I'd wanted. Why? Well, MMORPGs are 'massive' by their very nature, and finding the time to slot in daily quests and raids with the squad isn't exactly easy. By contrast, Legacy: Steel and Sorcery feels like a condensed version of the WoW experience, with added extraction mechanics to boot. It's a game that showed a lot of promise in its alpha stages, and it's finally arrived on Steam in early access.

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Legacy Steel and Sorcery, an extraction game from ex WoW devs, gets launch date

Legacy Steel and Sorcery is World of Warcraft if it was an extraction game

• New Map: Goldbrook (Tutorial) - A new smaller, sandbox tutorial level where you can learn how to play without the threat of other players. Completing Goldbrook's tutorial level is required for the first Quest in the Campaign questline, but experienced players can quickly extract upon entering if desired.
  

• New Feature: Quest Campaigns - Players can complete the first Campaign questline which is a series of quests aimed at guiding the player through the various systems and features. In the future, vendors and some features may be locked behind certain levels.
  
• New Feature: How to Play - A new button has been added to the Adventure Tab (Main Screen after Login) which gives you some tips on how to play the game. Further tips and information will be added in the future.
  
• Supporter Packs - Now that Legacy is in Early Access, supporters can purchase two different tiers of the game which unlock special rewards
  

• Pickup Loot Overhaul - Throughout Greenwood there are new pickup loot items placed all over Greenwood. These items can be found in many of the houses and other locations. Some items will be easy to pickup and find but there are many treasures that are hidden so keep an eye out for them.
  
• Spawning Polish Pass - The Level Design team has overhauled creature spawning throughout Greenwood to improve the creature encounter experience. There are many new mobs and spawns patrolling the zone to enhance the gameplay.
  

• You can now swivel the player character 360 in the UI in the Adventure Tab and Inventory screens to get a better look
  
• New Feature: How to Play - Learn the basics in a convenient UI found on the main menu screen
  

• Mantle is blocked from being able to activate after falling far enough to receive fall damage
  
• Baseline Critical Damage multiplier has been reduced to 30%
  
• Incapacitate no longer breaks on Fall Damage
  

• Improved the locomotion state transitions and rotation behavior to create a more responsive movement feel.
  
• Improved the reliability and consistency for Evades, reducing the chance that you will see stamina reduction when you enter a network correction scenario
  
  • You may still see corrections when evading, especially at higher pings.
• Fixed an issue where if one character blocked an AOE effect, all characters in that AOE would block it
  
• Fixed some issues around seeing two projectiles on a number of abilities
  
• Fixed an issue where players would experience lower mouse sensitivity at higher frame rates

• New Trait: Advancing Guard
  • Enables the Warrior to be able to Sprint while Blocking (Mace + Shield and Deathball weapon types).
• Iron Grip
  • Enabled predicted projectiles on the Iron Grip projectile, making it feel much snappier and fixing not seeing the projectile in certain situations
    
  • Fixed Rogue being able to grapple out of the Tether
    
  • Added Unstoppable to the charge up of Iron grip after 0.5 seconds
• Charge
  • Fixed Charge sometimes ignoring walls.
    
  • Now blocks activating Battle Frenzy
    
  • Fixed charge not pinning targets reliably.
    
  • Fixed the Charge Rage perk not granting rage on the first hit of the charge
• Enraging Shout
  • Fixed an issue causing the incapacitate effect to last 3 seconds instead of 4
• Deathball
  • Fixed attacks having friendly hit reactions
    
  • Fixed the first normal attack double hitting sometimes
    
  • Fixed the Critical Strike chance perk stacking to 100% and staying on for the rest of the session
    
  • Fixed the power attack causing an instant execution of players
    
  • Reduced block pips to 5
• Mace and Shield
  • First normal attack hit frame time reduced to frame 14
• Juggernaut
  • Now required to destroy priest statues
• Pain Management
  • Fixed an issue where it would be applied twice
• Fixed issue with warrior perks from both weapons staying applied at all times
  
• Fixed an issue where Warrior consumable items were consuming the first available item and not the one being activated

• Bear Trap
  • Fixed not being able to kick it, nor the rogue being able to disarm it
• Shock Beetle
  • Disabled collision when the Beetle is underground, so you can walk over it
• Fire Arrows
  • Now explode even if the target is blocking
    
  • Fixed burn damage not dealing fire damage
• Sentinel Cyclone
  • Duration per swiftness changed to 3 seconds per point
    
  • Has a short delay before spawning
    
  • Snare reduced to 30%
• Shortbow
  • Fixed issue with the cyclones registering hits more than their 3 hit limit
    
  • Weapon Attack (Q ability)
    
    • Cyclones deal 1 point of block damage
  • Right Click Cyclone
    
    • Block damage reduced to 0
• Long Bow
  • Eagle Stance - Fixed issues making it difficult to exit
• Windfall
  • Fixed Windfall allowing you to cancel fall damage
• Monster Slaying
  • Fixed monster slaying applying to players
• Windstriders Leafplate
  • Fixed movement speed buff causing the player to jitter
    
  • Reduced the movement speed increase to 30%
    
  • Reduced the duration of the buff to 2 seconds
• Flying Seed
  • Fixed a bug causing the flying seed to deal double damage when sticking to a target after first sticking to the ground.

• Adrenaline
  • Increased time it takes to be out of combat before adrenaline starts regenerating back to 10 seconds, up from 5
• Stealth
  • Updated material
    
  • Now pauses energy regeneration
    
  • Fixed issues with various attacks being unable to be casted while in stealth including Jump Attacks, Normal Attacks, and shooting Darts
    
  • Removed the baseline 20% damage buff while in stealth
    
  • Stealth now breaks when interacting with any chests or harvestables
• Shroud
  • Now cancellable with the same button press
    
  • Cost increased to 60 energy
• Visage
  • Now costs 25 energy on initial cast, and 25 on teleport (was only 50 on teleport)
    
  • Ghost projectile speed increased by 30%
• Phantom Dagger
  • Re-designed: Now instead of instantly teleporting, the Rogue travels as a phantom to the target over a short time. While a phantom, the Rogue is immune to all damage and effects and travels to their target through walls and other environmental collision. The Shadow damage over time effect that the dagger inflicts has also been significantly increased.
    
  • Cost reduced to 50 energy
    

    "This change is intended to differentiate Phantom Dagger from Grapple. Grapple is intended to be used to initiate quickly on a specific target, while Phantom Dagger is a more advanced ability that is best for quickly swapping between multiple targets, such as 1v2 PvP scenarios."

• Grapple
  • Fixed some reliability issues with grapple
    
  • Grapple does 1 block damage on hit instead of zero
• Swords
  • Parry
    
    • Parry window reduced to 0.3 seconds
      
    • Parry no longer activates on projectiles
  • Charged Attack (LMB Hold)
    
    • Added a rotation input window to the beginning of the charged attack
• Daggers
  • Backstab (Charged Attack (LMB Hold))
    
    • Increased block damage to 0 / 2 / 3 per charge level, up from 0 / 1 / 2
  • Spider Bite (Charged Alternate Attack (RMB Hold))
    
    • Fixed block damage values, they are now 0 / 1 / 2 per charge level instead of 2 / 0 / 2
  • Evade attack
    
    • Reduced block damage to 1
  • Normal Attack
    
    • Moved around the order of the block damage hitting during the normal attack combo
• Pickpocket
  • You can no longer steal calling cards
    
  • Fixed giving a calling card to the target even if you stole nothing
    
  • Fixed not having a loot toast popup for the item you stole, if you stole something
• Darts
  • Fixed issue with being able to stay in sprint if casting darts while sprinting
    
  • Both darts now cause a small stagger reaction
    
  • Both darts now do a 2 meter knockback (get those pesky priests out of the trees!)
    
  • Both darts now deal 2 block damage
• Duskcrawler's Malice Perk - Surprise Attack
  • Reduced bonus damage out of stealth to 10%
• Disarm Trap
  • Disarm range has been greatly reduced
    
  • You can no longer start disarming a trap that isn't yet armed
• Stamina Surge - item Perk
  • Adrenaline to Stamina conversion rate greatly reduced.
    

    "This perk was flying under the radar, but the Stamina gain was much higher than intended, causing the rogue to easily outlast any other class in Stamina by just wearing this armor piece. After the fix, the increase is still noticeable, but no longer extreme."

• Fixed an issue where the priest could hold block at zero pips indefinitely and not take block damage
  
• Spirit Vial
  • Fixed an issue where the charges would not refresh when at 1/2 when entering a game
    
  • Fixed an issue where the charges would not refresh when starting an adventure
• Divine Mirror
  • Fixed an issue where activating the mirror ability without enough energy would just destroy the old mirror
• Gleaming Star
  • Fixed an issue where the Healing perk would grant healing without having spirit
• Bouncing Star
  • Fixed an issue where the bouncing star could not be casted while moving
    
  • Fixed an issue where the bouncing star would target allies when bouncing
    
  • Fixed an issue where the bouncing star was spawning holy sparks
    
  • Fixed the UI not correctly displaying when it could be activated
• Heaven's Fury
  • Fixed an issue where the holy spark was not spawning if the target evaded out of the area
    
  • Reduced time it takes to cancel into a block during recovery
• Heaven's Ward
  • Reworked to just be a heaven's fury that detonates after 3 seconds on the target, does not trigger new heaven's furies to hit targets that hit the target
    
  • Fixed an issue where it would stop following the target 1 second before detonating
    
  • Fixed the cooldown and cost being committed at the start instead of on cast
    
  • Fixed the movement of the VFX looking jittery when following the actor
• Heaven's Wrath
  • Now spawns a holy spark halfway through it's travel
• Holy Staff
  • Damage of all staffs reduced by 5%
    
  • Holy Vulnerability stacking debuff reduced to 2% per stack, still stacks up to 5 times
    
  • Increased block damage from the second normal attack to 1, up from 0
    
  • Increased block damage from the third normal attack to 2, up from 0
    
  • Holy Beam (Charged Attack / LMB Hold)
    
    • Fixed beam becoming disconnected from the staff on remote clients
• Scepter
  • Fixed issues with the charged scepter heal that caused a projectile to spawn when attempting to heal the caster that would not hit them
• Sword and Buckler
  • Increased the hit frame time of the first jump attack from frame 2 to 4 when the flying loop starts
    
  • Removed the stagger from the first hit in the jump attack
    
  • Increased the time for the first hit frame on the first normal attack to frame 12 up from 10
    
  • Active blocking on the sword and buckler now only works in 180 degrees in front of the characters like other shield weapons
• Spirit Shell
  • Increased cooldown to 20 seconds, up from 15
    
  • Fixed issue with cooldown getting bypassed from the perk that applies on ascend
• Prayer Card: Holy Shield
  • Added an internal cooldown of 20 seconds before being able to cast it again
• Prayer Card: Spiritual Heal
  • Added an internal cooldown of 20 seconds before being able to cast it again

• Added stingers and sounds for when the timer approaches 0
  
• Fixed Harvestable objects vanishing if you try to access them while they are empty
  
• Fixed not being able to access a chopped down tree's inventory until the ragdoll despawns.
  
• Fixed some Grabbable objects not showing an error message when your inventory is full
  
• Fixed players getting stuck on the vertical gates in some dungeons when they close
  
• Fixed being able to deal damage through closed doors
  
• Players can no longer jump, float, teleport, or otherwise cross the chasm at the Goblin Bridge Extract while the bridge is up.
  

• The Ossuary now refreshes every Tuesday at 19:00 UTC (11am Pacific Standard time).
  
  • It will always refresh at 19:00 UTC, even during daylight savings time
    
• Partial Experience will now always be rounded up to the nearest whole number
  

  "The goal is to make smaller Exp boosts like the Ossuary and Bed lodge furnishings more noticeable, and more impactful. "

• Heirloom chests are now "Account Bound", which means they can no longer be placed in the character backpack or soul pouch and taken out on an adventure.
  
• Sprint potion changed to an Ethereal item
  
• Armor potion changed to increase max health for 200 hp instead of adding physical damage reduction
  

• Fixed gem socketing failing if the Gem and the Item to Socket are in different inventories.
  

• Fixed the Wraith's lantern leaving an empty death bag when the wraith dies.
  
• Fixed some patrolling enemies leashing instantly and forever
  
• Updated the size and positioning of damage numbers on large sized enemies
  
• Fixed Mor'thog's summoned goblins being damaged for a frame if they were inside one of his AOEs when they spawn.
  
• Improved the animation and turning jitter on Mor'thog
  
• Added a fog door to Mor'Thog's lair
  

• Many new icons have been added!
  
• New Adventure Screen - Learn more about the maps before you queue into them in an immersive map selection screen.
  
• New Customize tab within the Inventory screen, allowing you to equip cosmetics from the Supporter Editions
  
• New Mailbox feature, allowing you to redeem rewards from promotions such as Twitch Drops
  
• New How To Play screen within the Adventure tab in the lobby, giving you tips and information on various features and mechanics in the game.
  
• New Post-match Stats screen when returning from an adventure, showing information about the session and recapping experience gained, stats, etc.
  
• New Party Info HUD element, showing the class icons and health bars for the members in your party.
  
• Added confirmation popups for leaving a match, logging out, and exiting to desktop from the pause menu.
  
• Added social media buttons and twitch drops account link button to the Adventure tab in the lobby.
  
• Updated the visuals of some progress bars.
  
• Updated art for the login screen.
  
• The session time now only appears at specific intervals for short periods of time, but has new accompanying sound cues and a permanently visible version of the session timer in the in-game map.
  
• Fixed Downed Players not showing their bleed out progress bar correctly.
  
• Fixed the quest log not appearing in the in-game map.
  
• Fixed the extract screen occasionally saying "You Died" when you successfully extract.
  
• Fixed the inventory stash panel being cut off on 16x10 aspect ratios
  
  • Note: You may still see some oddities with 16x10 or wider aspect ratios.
    

• You can now use the hotkey 'V' to swap vendors from any pane in the UI
  
• The Loot Ticker UI now shows up in the vendors to indicate items purchased, disenchanted or crafted
  
• Added an Exp Ticker to the Vendor screen that appears whenever you take an action that grants Vendor Exp
  
• There are now filters used to filter down items by class and other categories
  
• Fixed a bug where player backpacks would resize when generating player loot bag, causing incorrect player loot when a player dies
  
• Fixed an error where crafting would consume crafting materials twice
  
• Fixed an error where various vendor actions would consume more materials than necessary if the materials were spread between multiple inventories.
  
• When you swap two stash upgrade containers, the contents of both containers will migrate to their new tabs.
  
• Fixed an issue where upgrading an item with sockets would show incorrect item data and socket counts
  
  • This manifested mostly as purples that were recently upgraded showing 3 sockets, when they should have had 2.
    
• Fixed an issue where items with more than one socket would not save the gems in any socket other than the first correctly.
  
• Fixed an issue where you couldn't craft an item if the materials for that craft were spread between your character and stash inventories.
  
• Fixed an issue where you couldn't see the gold requirement for a craft unless you had already met the other resource requirements (including the gold requirement).
  

• You can now double click ingredients to put them into your cooking pot or ossuary
  
• Updated the layout/visuals of the fireplace.
  
• Fixed an issue where old cooked foods would be granted back to you unintentionally
  
• Fixed an issue where cooking meals would not be re-applied when you reconnected back into a session.
  
• Fixed multiple rows for the same ingredient type appearing in the cooking pot and ossuary.
  

• Replaced the background of the inventory and loot screens with a camera blur
  
  • You can now see what is happening while looting
    
• Traits now indicate how many points they cost before unlocking
  
• Quick Looting will now only remove items from your inventory if the item was fully moved from the source inventory to the destination inventory
  
• Fixed an issue where quick loot would not put items in the last consumable toolbelt slot
  
• Increased the size of the player's death loot bag to account for the fact players can carry more items in their inventory than would be able to fit in in the death bag.
  
• Fixed a bug where herb pickups would not report "No Inventory Space" errors if they were unable to be looted
  
• Fixed a bug where splitting items in your backpack while you had a partial stack in the first slot of your toolbelt of the same item would cause part of the split stack to vanish.
  
• Increased the "default" backpack size to 1x2 for the soul pouch, and 8x4 for the backpack
  
  • These are the same values as the junk bags
    
  • The default sizes are the sizes set when no item is in the respective equipment slots.
    

• Added more framerate limit choices
  
• Added Foliage Quality, Shader Quality, Mesh Quality, and Displacement Quality graphics options
  
• Added more anti-aliasing options and settings
  
• Improved auto graphics settings
  
• Added an option to enable Nvidia Reflex on supported cards
  

• 4 Classic Fantasy Classes with innovative Spells & Abilities that you can unlock and customize
  
• An innovative and unique Combat System that blends Soulslike Action combat with MMORPG style spells and abilities
  
• Innovative Extraction Gameplay Mode that evokes the feeling of World PvP from your favorite MMORPG
  
• Level up Character Classes up to Level 20, earning unique Traits along the way
  
• 11 Unique Weapon Types with unique Weapon Abilities and Traits
• 800+ Items to loot during Adventures or to Craft
  
• Seasonal Campaign, culminating in a quest to defeat the Boss Encounter Morg'thog, The Cruel
• 35 Enemy Creatures, including Epic an Special Types with higher difficulty
  
• Play Solo or up to 2 others in a Squad
• Queue by yourself into Solo Mode or with Duos or Trios in Mixed Mode
• 2 Maps (1 huge Epic Zone called the Greenwood, and 1 Tutorial Map called Goldbrook where you can play solo to learn the game in a sandbox environment)
  
• 7 Vendors for players to level up with a rich, MMO-like Crafting System
  
• Build your own Lodge with 6 Furnishings, including:
  
  
  
  
  • The Bed - Unlocks Rested Experience that builds up while offline
    
  • The Cooking Pot - Cook meals that give you buffs for Adventures
    
  • The Storage Chest - Add new Stash Tabs to your Stash
    
  • The Crafting Bench - Craft unique Class Tools like the War Horn (Warrior) or Poison Dart (Rogue)
    
  • The Ossuary - Sacrifice trophies from fallen enemies to the Blood God, and gain a Reputation buff

• The Wizard and Paladin classes
  
• More Maps, including a night version of Greenwood and Dungeon Crypt map
  
• Goblin Pawn Shop where you can purchase back the gear you lost during Adventures — for a price!
  
• Cosmetic Character Customization
• Guild Hall where you can build your own community and unlock new progression features
  
• And much, much more! Check out our Roadmap for a sneak peek.
  

• The game includes hidden paths and traversal mechanics to help players avoid ganking, similar to Tarkov’s "rat" playstyle. Progression is more horizontal, focusing on perks rather than raw power to prevent veteran players from stomping newcomers.
  
• A new tutorial map, Goldbrook, will let players learn the game before entering PvP. The goal is for gear to matter around 60/40 or 70/30 compared to player skill.
  

• The biggest surprise was the overwhelming demand for more PvE content, likely due to the studio’s WoW background.
  
• While PvE was always planned, the early demand led to prioritizing a tutorial map, onboarding systems, and a questline to help new players—something most hardcore PvP games don’t typically launch with.
  

• The plan is to bring Legacy to consoles around its gold master release or shortly after, with a target of early next year, depending on how Early Access performs. The team is also considering which console would be the best fit for launch.
  

• We will check with the team, but we're sure they'd love the idea and will pass along the suggestion.
  

• We learned that real player choice in talent systems is often an illusion, as players will always pick the mathematically best option. In Legacy, we've applied this by making gear perks optimal based on conditions rather than just playstyle preference.
  
• As for WoW, we still consider it a masterpiece and love that Blizzard has added Classic, Hardcore, and Season of Discovery to give players more options while staying true to the original vision.
  

• We classify ourselves as more of an AA studio, with a budget between $10M and $20M—far below the ~$200M typical for AAA. Marketing budgets are often equal to or half of a game's development cost, but for our Early Access launch, we're spending under $100K. The industry is shifting in how marketing works, and while streamers are often targeted, data suggests that just making a great game is the best approach for indie and AA titles.
  

• Players progress through gear tiers from "Junk" to "Legendary" items, which can be found through RNG or crafted by leveling up vendors and unlocking recipes. New players can obtain legendaries, but gear can be lost upon death. We aim to keep the power differential between low and high-geared players at around 50%, ensuring it's not too extreme, unlike some other PvP RPGs where it's much higher. The game features two maps at EA launch, with more coming soon to expand loot and progression.
  

• The Wizard will focus on elemental interactions, such as combining Frost and Fire to create Fog, and will have a unique resource system tied to collecting spell scrolls found in the world. They will have the highest number of spells, and exploring the world for new spells will be key. The Paladin is still in paper design, but will have the ability to "Sense Injustice" in the world, identifying assassins and allowing them to seek vengeance. The Paladin will also be able to buff other players, a feature not yet available in the game.
  

• We are focusing on the core experience and combat fundamentals first, taking a Crawl/Walk/Run approach rather than trying to do everything at once like Crowfall. While Crowfall had great ideas, its ambition to build an MMO with complex systems and content overwhelmed the project. We’re opting to build over time, focusing on solid foundations before expanding.
  

• The game blends Extraction with MMO-like features such as open-world areas, rich crafting, progression, and character customization. While it's focused on PvPvE, there are systems like quests and character creation common in MMOs. We aim to add more MMO features over time, including more PvE experiences and deeper character customization. The blend of "get in, get loot, and leave" with ongoing progression makes it unique. However, I don’t like genres or tags as they don’t fully capture what the game is trying to do.
  

• The game features large, sandbox-like zones within session-based maps. It's not a linear level; players can explore and loot freely within the zone. While we do want to eventually explore the idea of moving between zones, the current focus is on massive, single-session maps. Implementing seamless zone transitions is challenging, especially with Unreal, but it's something we might consider later.
  

• The name "Project Honor" came from an early idea I had around honor-based mechanics, though it wasn't directly tied to executions. The idea was more about giving players the choice in whether to kill others, similar to world PvP zones in MMOs. The game's name evolved to "Legacy," but the concept of honor remains in how players can choose whether to kill or let others live. As for the execution mechanic, it reflects a culture of "honor" and "dishonor" in combat, with plans to let players customize execution animations in the future.
  

If there's one thing I love about World of Warcraft, it's Azeroth. A boundless fantasy realm ripe with opportunity, it feels like no matter how long you've been playing for, you'll never discover all of its secrets. But imagine an Azeroth where that's your exact purpose: to loot everything, explore everything, and get out alive. That's Legacy: Steel and Sorcery, a brand new Dark and Darker-style extraction game from former Blizzard developers (some of which worked on iconic WoW expansions like Wrath of the Lich King and Legion), and if you like the sound of it, you can play it now.

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Legacy Steel and Sorcery, an extraction game from ex WoW devs, gets launch date