Albion Online News

Today's patch brings numerous fixes and quality-of-life improvements to gameplay in Albion. Here's a bit of what's new:


[h3]Black Market: Persistent Crafting Info and Improved Performance[/h3]
Items sold to the Black Market will now retain their "crafted by" info. This means that a great deal of item loot from mobs and in treasure chests will now show who originally crafted the item. In addition to helping active crafters make a name for themselves, persistent item info adds to the depth and continuity of Albion's ever-changing world. This patch also includes performance improvements to Black Market item distribution, correcting an issue where "split" party loot mode would sometimes not work when looting items.


[h3]A Dynamic "Hotkey" and Other Mobile Improvements[/h3]
Starting with Patch 5, the mobile version includes an additional "Custom Button" next to the spellbar, with one fixed option ("Inspect") and four additional customizable buttons that can be set via the Settings menu. This button allows for everything from Autorun to party member selection to emotes, and is among the most-requested features for mobile devices. This button is still in the experimental stages, so give it a try and let us know your thoughts on our mobile forum.

Additional improvements include the ability to connect a mouse for desktop-style chat scrolling, the ability to send feedback and bug reports via a new UI, an "Increase Brightness" slider in Settings, and various bug fixes.
[h3]General Changes and Fixes[/h3]

• The health increase for Demonic Shards in Corrupted Dungeons that was intended for Patch 4 is now live.
• The combat log now displays combat data for mounted players.
• Repair Tables can once again be placed in Expeditions.
• Maxed-out specialization nodes now display the correct item power bonus.

For the complete list of changes, please see the official patchnotes.

Last month, Albion's best 5v5 teams faced off in the first-ever offseason tournament. The finals came down to the last moments, with June Esports pulling off a stunning victory. (You can read the full rundown of the tournament here). We're very excited to announce the return of this high-stakes Crystal League competition with the Season 10 Crystal League Championship.

Like the last tournament, this one will take place between Guild Seasons, on Saturday November 28 and Sunday November 29. This time around, we've updated the entry requirements to include more teams while still representing Albion's highest-tier 5v5 players: the Crystal League Championship will be open to any team who wins one Level 9 match or two or more Level 8 matches.

Prizes for the first- through fourth-place winners are as follows:

• First Place: Each player on the winning team will receive the extremely rare Sabertooth Rex Swiftclaw skin unlock item and 10,000 Gold
• Second Place: Each player will receive the White Tiger skin unlock item along with 5,000 Gold
• Third Place: Each player will receive the Jousting Horse skin unlock item along with 5,000 Gold
• Fourth Place: Each player will receive the Armored Bonehorse skin unlock item along with 5,000 Gold

Regarding first-place prizes, our current plan is to offer a new first-place skin every calendar year. This means that this championship will be the final one where the Sabertooth Rex is awarded, and an all-new skin unlock will be introduced for 2021.

We'll be publishing more details on our forums soon, so stay tuned!

Back in May, we reported on the massive population growth that Albion Online saw in the first part of 2020, starting with the Queen Update in January and growing further with worldwide quarantine measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, even as many of these measures are easing, the ingame population continues to grow: this month we surpassed the lockdown population peak to achieve a new Daily Average User count of over 125,000 players.

This boost comes in large part from the Rise of Avalon Update, which launched on August 12 with a host of massive new features like Roads of Avalon, Corrupted Dungeons, and Avalonian Weapons. The update also introduced Chinese and Korean language support to the game, which has brought a huge influx of new players from these regions and grown the Albion Online community into a truly global one.


[h3]Expanding the Royal Continent, Working Toward the Mobile Launch[/h3]
As mentioned in our last update, we've been focusing not only on supporting the content introduced with the Queen and Rise of Avalon updates, but also on improving the gameplay experience for all players as population numbers increase.

In tandem with new features and upgrades coming to the world of Albion over the coming months, we've set our sights on an expansion of the Royal Continent. The ongoing growth of the player base has made Albion's blue, yellow and red zones fuller than ever, and we're currently hard at work on a comprehensive plan to expand these Royal zones while deepening the gameplay experience they offer.

We're also hard at work improving and streamlining the mobile version of Albion Online, with continual improvements to mobile-based controls and menus being rolled out since the Queen launch, and more to come. We'll soon have further updates on the mobile version, including the next steps towards a Play Store beta launch in the final leadup to the official Apple and Google store launches, which will finally fulfill our vision of a truly cross-platform MMORPG experience with platform-optimized content updates. For now, though, we're focusing on making the mobile experience as fun and intuitive as possible.

Thanks for being part of the ever-growing Albion Online community!

We're very excited to announce the official release of Albion Online: Rise of Avalon OST. This new addition to the official game soundtrack features six new songs from the world of Albion, created for the massive expansion of the gameworld that began with the Queen update in January and continued with Rise of Avalon in August.

This new batch of songs includes two songs by Jonne Valtonnen, composer of the original Albion Online soundtrack, and four songs by Marie Havemann, Audio Designer for Albion Online. She describes her process for creating these new tracks:

"The goal of the music was to capture the essence of the new faction and locations, and to give the players a hint of how to feel about them. We also went further with the interactivity and had the music adapt more to changes in settings and situations in the Roads of Avalon as well as the Corrupted Dungeons. Thus we have a darker and more primal feel in the Mists, and a sense of order and Avalonian influence on the Roads. Similarly, the music in Corrupted Dungeons changes if there is an invasion."

You can listen to these new songs on Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, Amazon, and Deezer- click here to see all the links in one place. (And check out the first official soundtrack release, featuring 22 orchestral tracks by Jonne Valtonnen, here).

And for those who prefer to listen on YouTube, we've also uploaded the whole soundtrack as a playlist.

Check out two new tracks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnx_ZJva5UA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwFHEHX8TLQ