Albion Online News

Spring is back, and the Keepers of Albion are beginning to awaken... and for the entire month of March, you can take the Keeper Challenge to collect fantastic rewards! Earn points for open-world activities, unlock chests to get valuable loot, and claim your very own Grizzly Bear mount.

GRIZZLY BEAR: This month's Challenge brings back the popular Grizzly Bear, a huge, intimidating mount with an arsenal of powerful spells. In addition to its Intimidating Aura toggle spell, it also gains a temporary speed boost when attacked, giving its rider an edge when enemies are in pursuit.
 
AVATAR RING: Reach your goals to unlock the Keeper Challenge avatar ring, which gives your chosen avatar the stone-and-leather look of Albion's true guardians. This non-tradable item permanently unlocks this avatar border for one character, or can be traded for one Adventurer's Token at the Vanity Merchant.

SEASONAL SPECIALS: All month, reach weekly goals to unlock Keeper Challenge chests. In addition to valuable rewards like Adventurer's Tomes, Silver bags, and rare resources, this month's chests contain various Keeper-themed furniture and capes.

As always, you can earn Challenge Points by gathering, fishing, farming, and killing monsters. Points count simultaneously toward a daily bonus, a weekly unlockable chest, and the monthly mount. So log in, head out into the open world, gather points, and claim your rewards!

The Season 11 Crystal League Championship takes place March 6-7, with Albion's top Crystal League players facing off for tremendous prizes including the ultra-rare new Saber Tiger Rex Swiftclaw Skin. The tournament is open to teams who won one Level 9 match or two or more Level 8 matches with the same 5 characters during Season 11.

Additional rules:

• Teams must sign up by Tuesday, March 2 at 10:00 UTC
• Participants must use the same team and characters that qualified during the season
• Each team can allocate one substitute
• Each team must assign a Captain as the main contact point
• For full rules, signup info, and the final schedule, see this forum post.

[h3]Watch the Action Live on AlbionTV[/h3]
Like always, you can watch the action all weekend long on AlbionTV, the official Albion Online Twitch Channel. Join hosts Shozen, Lewpac, and Tazzik as they bring you live coverage and commentary on these high-action fights. The reigning champions will be crowned and receive their prizes at a ceremony after the final match on Sunday.

Get ready for the first high-stakes tournament of 2021, and keep an eye on our forum for updates!

Albion Online's twelfth Guild Season starts on Saturday, March 13. Guilds that reach a high enough rank during the season can claim fantastic rewards including an avatar, avatar ring, and the powerful new Juggernaut mount!



The Juggernaut is a powerful engage tank for large-scale battles. While it has little impact on smaller player groups, its full potential is unleashed when facing large enemy armies, where it can summon a whirling tornado of rocks. This mount will be awarded to guilds who reach Silver Rank or higher during Season 12, with increasingly higher stats (and increasingly epic appearance) with each successive tier.

The winning guild will receive a statue among the past Guild Season winners in Conquerors' Hall and members of the top three guilds will receive their own placeable Winner Statue. Qualifying guilds will also receive other goodies like an avatar and avatar ring, a Fame Bonus, and more:




[h3]Season 12 Changes[/h3]
Season Points from Territories, Castles, and Castle Outposts have been updated and rebalanced for Season 12. The PvE Fame Buff in open-world boss locations has been reworked, and Lesser Outlands Treasure Chests now spawn more often. A new level has been added to the 20v20 Crystal League and Guild Challenge rewards have been rebalanced. And updates to the Smart Cluster Queue and Hideout defense will follow in a patch after the season begins.



For the full list of changes, see this forum post. Click here for the complete season schedule.

It's official: on March 17, 2021, the Call to Arms update goes live! Call to Arms is Albion's tenth major content update since launch, and brings a host of major new features. The centerpiece of the update is a complete re-envisioning of Albion's Faction Warfare system, which gives a sense of truly belonging to a City Faction, as well as a major expansion of the Royal Continent. A fully reworked and expanded Hellgate system brings new life to one of Albion's most thrilling and intense PvP settings, and numerous additional upgrades, fixes, and quality-of-life improvements make the world of Albion better than ever before.
[h3]Faction Warfare Re-Envisioned[/h3]


The new system allows Factions to take not just Outposts but entire regions as well, and rewards loyalty to a chosen Faction via updated Faction ranks and month-long Faction Campaigns with valuable rewards. Caerleon joins the fight as a fully playable sixth Faction with a unique "lawless" playstyle. Alongside the six regular Faction Mounts, each city now has its own Elite Faction Mount with powerful abilities.

To accommodate Albion's growing population and provide more space for Faction Warfare to play out, the Royal Continent has been greatly expanded with numerous new regions, and a recurring Bandit Invasion event in the red zones offers thrilling large-scale combat for members of all Factions.
[h3]Hellgates 2.0[/h3]
Call to Arms brings major upgrades to Hellgates, introducing ten all-new Hellgate layouts and new demonic foes for varied and engaging PvE. Hellgate PvP takes on new dimensions as well, with the ability to chain Hellgates after a win and a rising lava mechanic that ensures a final showdown. And last but not least, new 10v10 Hellgates offer thrilling, high-stakes group PvP for new and veteran players alike.
[h3]Loadouts, Tooltips, and More[/h3]
Call to Arms brings major quality-of-life improvements like Loadouts, which allow players to create and equip pre-selected builds, and updated ability tooltips. Animated vegetation brings new visual life to Albion's biomes, and numerous additional improvements, fixes, balance changes, and optimizations have been implemented to make the world of Albion better than ever.

For more details, check out the official Update Page:
[h2]LEARN MORE[/h2]

In his third and final Dev Talk on the upcoming Faction Warfare rework, Game Director Robin Henkys gives a first look at the mysterious new Faction joining the fight. If you haven't yet watched the first two videos, you can check them out here:

• Part 1: Faction Warfare Revamped
• Part 2: Faction Ranks and Elite Mounts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBLdULJ-elA
Prefer a written summary? Then read on...
[h3]Caerleon Joins the Fight[/h3]
Since the fall of the Caerleon portal and the city’s resulting decline, Caerleon has become a nest of bandits, smugglers, rogues and mercenaries. Now the Council of Caerleon has decided to join the war between the cities and profit from the situation.

To represent this development, we’ve reworked the layout and massively improved the graphics of the city. We've added the “Stabbed Mug” Tavern, where Mercenary Captain Henry Cutter recruits unscrupulous souls to fight the other cities.
[h3]A Different Kind of Faction[/h3]
The Caerleon Faction offers a different style of Faction gameplay:

• As with all Factions, fighting for Caerleon lets you engage other Factions without reputation loss
• However, you will also be able to engage (and be engaged by) other players in the Caerleon Faction
• You can capture other Factions' Outposts and regions as usual, but instead of generating value over time, these turn into bandit camps which generate no defensive value
• Instead, Caerleon players can make huge profits plundering Outposts and regions, as captured points are not shared with the Faction as a whole
• Finally, Caerleon players need to beware of betrayal: should one bandit group become too dominant, the others will have to put a stop to it if they want any of the profits for themselves

With this playstyle, Caerleon offers unique gameplay for veteran players looking for dynamic full-loot PvP with plenty of enemies.
[h3]What makes Caerleon worthwhile?[/h3]
In addition to the appeal of living free under your own banner, Caerleon offers unique Faction rewards of its own:

• Faction Points can buy Caerleon Greywolf Pups or Caerleon Elite Greywolf Pups
• These can be grown into a T5 Caerleon Greywolf or a T8 Caerleon Elite Greywolf respectively
• Like other Elite Faction Mounts, the Elite Greywolf has two unique abilities:
  • Hunter’s Mark: marks an enemy who then leaves behind a trail; collecting this trail boosts movement speed, with wounded targets offering a greater boost
  • Faction ability - Spite: dismounts the rider and grants a damage reflection aura to nearby allies (can only be used while flagged for Caerleon, only affects Caerleon players in your party)
• Caerleon players can also purchase crests to craft Caerleon Faction capes with a powerful passive that resets your Q-ability for double casting
• Finally, Trade missions are available which are more profitable than those of other Factions

[h3]New Daily Event: Bandit Assault[/h3]
Additionally, the Caerleon Faction NPCs are responsible for the recurring “Bandit Assault” event in Albion's red zones:

• Irregularly throughout the day, Factions will lose control of all Outposts and regions in the red zones, which will be taken over by Bandits
• Recapturing them is a top priority, as there will be a massive reward paid out to players in the Faction which has claimed the most regions during the event
• Although Caerleon players cannot participate in this event as a Faction, they can use the rush of Faction players into the red zones to set ambushes and find plenty of full-loot PvP

[h3]In Conclusion[/h3]
This concludes our look at the all-new Faction Warfare system coming with the Call to Arms update. Will you join the Caerleon Faction and lead a life of villainy? Or will you proudly fly the banner of another city? We can’t wait to see which Faction will produce the mightiest heroes, and we're really looking forward to joining the battle ourselves.

Call to Arms will be released in mid-March – until then, stay tuned for more Dev Talks on new features!