Good news, everyone! It’s January. The world has finished another lazy rotation around the Sun, and as you’re gazing into the murky horizon of 2025 like a groundhog in search of Spring, we’re hard at work to bring you your next excuse to return to Faerûn.
Patch 8 is still moving along nicely, but before we let you in on the upcoming stress test to try your hand at breaking things, we’re adding some finishing touches and working with our partners to ensure you can fully test cross-play. We hope to let you into the Patch 8 stress test towards the end of this month.
Today’s community update is here to remind you of what’s arriving in our final major patch and uses the upcoming photo mode to celebrate some of the creations you’ve shared with us during our journey together. Someone grab the tissue, it can’t really be the end, can it?
Register Now
If you’ve not yet signed up to take part in the Patch 8 stress test to help test things out, you can still register your interest by clicking on the banner with the handsome feller below!
Want to join the stress test from an Xbox? You’ll need to download the Xbox Insider Hub App to become an Xbox Insider and join the playtest from the app once the stress test begins to go live.
Arriving With Patch 8
The final major patch for Baldur’s Gate 3 is right around the corner and will deliver several hotly anticipated features, including cross-play, photo mode, and 12 new subclasses, which you can read more about in Community Update #30.
In-Game Mod Manager Improvements
Removed the third-party mods warning and replaced it with clearer messaging.
The Mod Verification window will now trigger regardless of where the request to connect to a multiplayer game is coming from.
With plenty more fixes to be included! And don’t worry, this isn’t the end of our bug fixing.
New Subclasses
Soon there will be 12 new ways to experience Baldur’s Gate 3 - a new subclass is being added for each of the 12 classes in the game, complete with new VFX and animations that we teased in Community Update #31.
You’ve got to try out all of them, right?
Photo Mode
Patch 8 also introduces photo mode, so get ready to smile for the camera, or if you’re like Karlach, stare into the middle-distance as you contemplate all your past mistakes.
While you’re adventuring around the Sword Coast, you’ll be able to toggle photo mode on or off and play around with a multitude of options for the party you’ve brought along with you, including during combat encounters. Position them to your liking, change facial expressions to fit the scene, and play around with the camera, lens, and scene settings.
During dialogues and cinematic scenes, you won’t be able to alter the camera or position your party, but you will have access to a whole bunch of post-processing effects, such as colour-grading settings, frames, and stickers, that can be used whether you’re tottering around Baldur’s Gate, or kissing your beloved.
We’re looking forward to seeing the creativity you’ll bring once you get your hands on Patch 8!
Happy New Year, and welcome to a fresh and tasty Dev Diary from the team at The Chinese Room. We are starting the year by talking about the player character, Phyre, and how you can shape their legend and add to it as you play. As you’ll see below your story will start wearing rags, but will it end in riches? Seattle’s fate is in your hands.
An Elder of your choosing
As our game starts, an Elder that some call the Nomad wakes up in an abandoned building in Seattle. They don't know where they are or how they got there, but they are quick to adapt - the Nomad is old, and they have survived for a long time.
It is clear that they have experienced the deathlike sleep of torpor. The last they remember was a smile and a piercing pain in the chest, delivered in their Haven in Tunis at the start of the 20th century.
Now they are awake. What happened to them in their long slumber, and who woke them? Why does their Blood lack the strength and power they are used to? And why is their body carved with arcane sigils?
The Nomad is a legend amongst Kindred. Their name has been whispered for four hundred years - of their presence in revolutions, on battlefields, at slaughters, and at the fall of Princes. Are they escaping these situations, causing them, or taking joy in red wrath and ruin? Whatever the truth, they are a catalyst - when they appear, the world of the Kindred will be irrevocably changed.
The concept of the Nomad came when we were expanding early ideas of Phyre to make the most of an Elder's history in the world. There is a reason a vampire survives - and in the game our vampire is always on the front foot, leaving an indelible mark on Kindred society. That must have been true for the rest of Phyre's existence. So what might people in Seattle have heard?
In our story, different characters have different beliefs about the Nomad and their history. While these events may not have an immediate effect on the game world, they will affect how our protagonist is treated. We have deliberately left it up to the player to decide how Phyre treats these stories and their legend, and how much they tell other characters about their past - and indeed, which stories they tell.
How would a Prince behave if asked for a favor by the legendary and powerful Nomad, who is not yet caught up in local politics?
The themes behind the Nomad
In Bloodlines 2, the matter of history takes a front seat. Our protagonist is centuries old, and while they may change things up to survive, adapt and keep pace with the march of time, they’ve nonetheless garnered something of a reputation. If a time-immune forensic detective were to inspect and compare the various crime scenes that are human history, they would no doubt find one set of fingerprints consistent. May you live in interesting times, etcetera etcetera. Playing an Elder was a bold choice; to move forward without leaning into the unique opportunities that provides for roleplay would be a missed opportunity.
In Narrative Design, we often find ourselves pulled between two ideals: providing agency and choice for players to make the story their own vs keeping the story feeling intentional, strong and tightly wound. The solution, then, is to establish what is immutable and, within that, carve out a more flexible play space. Ultimately, a good story is driven by characters being true to their psychology and either following that thread down towards tragedy, making the same mistakes over and over, or seizing upon the chance to challenge and change themselves.
That’s what makes a happy ending triumphant: a character’s ability to sacrifice what they have desired and strained towards for so long, to defy the never-ending hunger of old, painful wounds for a chance at long-lasting healing. It’s what makes a tragic ending tug at our hearts: we see clearly what the character needs, and we see them turn away from it one too many times, too consumed by their pain to do the hard thing, give up their coping mechanisms and save themselves. What I’m getting at is that history, for us, is not merely superficial or textural. Sure, the Nomad’s been around a while, and sure we want to give you folks the chance to say what they did with that time. But as far as storytelling tools go, that doesn’t give us much and, as Narrative Designers, we need tools that will allow us to chisel out those big, emotional moments. So more important than the ‘what’ is the ‘why’. The play space.
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In Underrail's design I drew from what I considered to be the high point of western RPG tradition and tried to build up and out from there. This was the case with combat system as well. I adopted the action/movement point design with sequential turns that worked well (enough) in a number of classical RPGs, adjusting it for my specific needs. Over the years, however, I came to realize that, while it's a solid way to approach party-based combat, it has some significant disadvantages when it comes to single character RPGs, even more so when coupled with free-form exploration:
Reactivity, or rather lack of it. As Underrail veterans know all too well, if you happen to stumble into combat with multiple powerful enemies and lose an initiative roll, you are going to get "100-to-0-ed" more often than not, probably getting stunned in the process as well. This is because giving a long turn to a powerful character in this system, without any opportunity to react to or counteract their actions, puts the party on the receiving end into considerable disadvantage. While in party-based combat, you could tolerate having one of two of your characters nuked or temporary disabled, if you are controlling a single character, this is often an unrecoverable situation. To a lesser extent, same is true with the player character getting the jump on the NPCs, though often, unlike the player, they can afford to lose a unit or two.
Dual time modes. Every active thing in the game requires two implementation for polar opposite modes. One is the real-time mode where things happen simultaneously and can and should be reacted to immediately, and the other one consists of long sequential turns where each actor can only react to the end state of the previous turn. This goes beyond the combat itself and goes into general AI and the behavior of the environment itself.
Sluggishness. This system scales badly with large number of participants if the player is controlling only a single character. The ratio of player waiting to player acting gets worse and worse with each NPC added to the encounter. Even worse, because there is a need to keep all the combat turn-based in order to avoid having to implement and maintain real-time combat AI, sometimes in Underrail you are just a passive observer of third-party combat.
The new combat system is designed to address all these and more. It is a combination of traditional roguelike combat, where turns are still sequential but short with atomic actions, and simultaneous turns combat. So here is the basic rundown of how it works:
Under normal conditions, game is in real-time mode.
When required due to the presence of hostile entities, the game will transition in and out of combat mode. Usually player will not be able to activate combat manually except under special conditions.
In combat mode, everything is paused until the player performs an action. The action takes a certain amount of time and this amount is granted to all non-player participants to use for their new or ongoing actions (such as moving, attacking, activating special abilities).
When exactly this time is granted to the NPCs is critical as sometimes they might act immediately to interfere with the player. This time may also be granted in bulk or in smaller amounts (e.g. channeled abilities such as bandaging).
Player is free to act and give additional time to NPCs unless he is "blocked" by an ongoing relevant NPC action. An enemy trying to move out of the player's melee range is relevant and the player must "respect" their available time; a neutral crab roaming on the other side of the map is not relevant and it can do what it pleases.
NPCs usually won't block each other. Meaning they will act simultaneously for the most part.
Because NPCs are just executing their real-time AI while stopping for time allowance, there is no need for a separate AI implementation, and they can also take the time when player is acting to "think" about their situation. That is, their AI state machine is running at all times.
Hopefully this grants you some clarity regarding what you saw happening in the combat demo. This is the basic gist of the system, but, of course, the devil is in the details. The amount and the, uh, timing of the time transfer between the player and NPCs, as well as determining which actions (and under which circumstances) are simultaneous and which are blocking (sequential) - these things are going to be critical. I am going to tweak and shuffle these things throughout the rest of the development with the aim of making combat as fast, fluid and fun as possible while still keeping it cerebral and tactical. You should be able to go fast and furious when you can and as slowly and deliberately when needed. And you should be able to transition between those seamlessly.
The extent of the combat changes goes further than just time management, though that is the most radical one. There are others factors and considerations, such as focus, momentum, stamina, range, different speed categories to replace action/movement points modifiers, different combat stances and attacks, etc, etc. I will go into more details regarding those in future dev logs.
Caves of Qud is a roguelike by developer Freehold Games released earlier this month after 17 years of development. The Codex has never really been a roguelike-oriented community, but Qud nevertheless managed to become an anticipated title among the genre's fans on the forum throughout its years in beta and Early Access. Or at least it was until a a couple of, uh, events in recent years marred its reputation. Some however pay less attention to such things, among them esteemed member buffalo bill who decided to write an extensive review of the game. Like other roguelikes of its type, Caves of Qud is packed with interesting features, but what makes it stand out is its Gamma World-esque post-apocalyptic science fantasy setting. It sounds like a good entrypoint for genre newcomers. Here's an excerpt from the review:
Caves of Qud (‘CoQ’ henceforth) is an open-world roguelike RPG made by Freehold Games, and was released on December 5, 2024 after fifteen years of development. The only other release from this studio is a game called Sproggiwood from 2014, but Caves of Qud seems to have been their primary focus. As a roguelike in the traditional sense, this game features a top-down perspective, simultaneous turn-based action, deep mechanics, a great deal of player agency, procedural generation, and minimal graphics. I love traditional roguelikes like ADOM, and have been playing the EA version of CoQ for several years, so I have been looking forward to its full release for a long time.
The game styles itself as a “retro futurist fantasy”, and clearly is inspired by tabletop RPGs like Gamma World or certain GURPS settings. It is set in a long-in-the-future post-apocalyptic Earth. Unlike the desolate post-apocalyptic settings of Fallout or Dark Sun, which depict uninhabitable and barren landscapes, in CoQ the natural world is thriving, and intelligent and non-intelligent mutant creatures have evolved to fill the void left by a nearly-eradicated humanity.
You frequently come across remnants of the old world in the form of ancient high tech gadgets (“artifacts” until identified), robots, and computers. Sometimes the computers and robots are worshipped by NPCs, such as pygmies (“Naphtaali”) who are led through the jungles by their chrome idol, or the Mechanamists who throw artifacts in a well or worship a deep-underground computer. Mutated creatures are everywhere, and often have strange abilities. For instance, the twinning lamprey (or the more dangerous trining lamprey) come in pairs, and killing just one of the pair causes a new lamprey to materialize near its brethren.
Among the mutated creatures are familiar genre staples like giant bugs and lizards and hyenas and frogs and baboons, but also stranger beings like boulder giants (“Cragmensch”) who hurl pieces of themselves at you and sometimes bleed gemstones, barbarous and often psychic goatfolk, Dune-inspired cyclopean worms which roam the desert, plants and fungi of various levels of intelligence and mercantile interest (the “Consortium of Phyta” faction is a group of trade-obsessed plants), quilled albino cave bears, a tree of somewhat-hive-minded crystalline leaves, and so on. By my count, the number of broad types of NPCs is sixty, with each broad type typically composed of many specific creatures with unique stats and abilities and behaviors. For instance, just the insects have twenty three specific creatures.
The faction system allows the PC to befriend or make enemies with anyone in the game. Higher reputation leads to less aggressive behavior by the members of that faction, and lower reputation leads to more aggressive behavior. Factions have holy places which they will not let you into without violence if your reputation is too low. The PC can increase reputation by performing the “water ritual” with legendary creatures, which involves offering that creature your water (water also serves as this world's base currency, and must be consumed to stay alive). You can also offer secrets in exchange for a gain in reputation.
You can obtain secrets, or ask the legendary creature to join you, or learn psychic powers, or normal abilities, or food recipes, or crafting instructions, in exchange for loss of reputation. Some secrets (like the locations of certain legendary items or the “Cradles” of some of the ancient titanic agents of the apocalypse) are almost impossible to obtain without trading for that secret from a legendary creature of a relevant faction, and sometimes it is very hard to increase reputation with that faction (I’m thinking of trolls in particular, which have exactly three legendary creatures in the game). Killing a legendary creature costs reputation with its faction and factions who like that creature, but gains reputation with factions who hate that creature. Like nearly all of CoQ’s systems, this system is quite deep and unique.
The gameworld consists of a mix of handmade and procedurally generated locations. One issue I have with the game is the procedural map generation. Compared to some roguelikes like DoomRL or Infra Arcana, maps in CoQ sometimes feel a bit too random and relatively less interesting in layout. However, the procedural map generation is much better in plot-critical locations like Golgotha, which consists of a series of conveyor belts and different sorts of dangers as one descends, or Bethesda Susa, which has four floors that are always the same, and overall a unique feel in the gameworld compared to other dungeons. Most of the major cities are handcrafted rather than procedurally generated.
One last update to share with you before we leave you to your tryptophanic rest this holiday season.
It’s been a banner December here for Larian. Last week, you helped us take home the Best Community Support award for the second year running. Then you nominated us for the Labor of Love category in the Steam Awards 2024. And we aren’t slowing down.
Much like a certain jolly elf and his industrious band of shorter elves, Swen and team are hard at work putting the finishing touches on the Patch 8 stress test build - set to go live in January. Read on to find out how you and your friends can take part!
We’re also winding down on mod curation for consoles during the holidays, which will resume as normal once we return refreshed in the new year! (If you’re unsure about the process involved in bringing mods to consoles and the guidelines we must follow, you can check out our latest video with Aoife by clicking here!)
And if you haven't dug into our official Advent Calendar yet, you're missing out on daily puzzles, new art and wallpaper inspired by Baldur's Gate 3 and Divinity: Original Sin, instrumentals from BG3 composer Borislav “Bobby” Slavov, and a festive poem read by none other than Amelia Tyler - in which she offends all your poetic senses by rhyming “Northdark County” with “Tim Downey”.
Patch 8 Stress Test
Available to players on Steam PC, Xbox, and PlayStation, you can now register to take part using the form linked below.
What are we looking to learn from the stress test?
A stress test aims to do exactly what it sounds like; rigorously test the latest game version to detect any instability or gameplay issues before Patch 8 releases. With your help, we’ll be able to keep an eye on any funny business.
Cross-Play
Bringing cross-play to a game the size of Baldur’s Gate 3 has been no easy task, and we want your help to test-drive this new functionality.
Share the stress test registration link to summon your friends and settle in for a cross-play campaign, or head to the Larian Studios Discord Server to look for a group to play with.
Patch 8 & Supported Mods
Supported mods should remain free of issues, however, this stress test is also a great opportunity to monitor how these mods interact with the new features Patch 8 introduces.
Discord Channels & Your Experience
Should you wish to take part, you’ll be able to submit responses in our feedback form to help us make any small tweaks and adjustments before Patch 8 is released. We’ll also have testing channels open in the Discord server, where you can call upon our Community Team for guidance installing the stress test and share information about your experience playing with Patch 8!
Got this far and still have no idea what we’ve been talking about? Check out our last community update for details on what’s coming with Patch 8, including 12 new subclasses, photo mode, and cross-play!
Vagri! We’re sure many of you’ve been waiting for more information about our next DLC (shaping up to be expansion-sized once again) and the time has come to deliver just that – in the form of a special story trailer we’re excited to share.
So, there you have it. Some exposition delivered by award-winning voice actor Phil Rowe, along with a title reveal and the year of release. Although the latter is fairly vague, we can already say that we are aiming for the first half of 2025, as we’ve been working on it very diligently for months now. There’s still a lot to go, but we’re making good progress and we’re very satisfied with how it’s shaping up. Can you guess where it’ll be set? There are quite a few indicators, we think.
We can’t wait to share more, of course, including a launch trailer with some gameplay closer to release, so stay tuned. In the meantime, you can wishlist the DLC on Steam.
Together with the entire Ancient Forge team, we are incredibly proud and excited to officially announce that Glorious Companions has just left Early Access! After years in development, and valuable feedback from our amazing community, the game has reached its full release!
You can grab the game today in its refreshed form, and there’s no better time than now because the Steam Sale is here! That means you can get Glorious Companions 40% off!
What Awaits You in the Full Release?
Turn-Based Combat
Vast open world of Terscara with breathtaking biomes waiting to be explored
1v1 PvP Arena Mode
Challenging Tactical Adventure and Complex Battle Maps
Rich Mercenary Management System
Immersive Story of Terscara
This journey with Glorious Companions has been incredible and we wanted to say - Thank You! Thank you for your trust and support throughout all these years. Now it's time to dive into the world of Terscara and experience the new era of our tactical RPG.
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We have finally reached a major milestone for our game: Swordhaven has been released into Early Access.
Of course, the game is not yet fully developed content-wise, and some mechanics that are already in place may require further refinement. But thanks to Early Access, we can communicate with you directly and consider your ideas and suggestions as we progress, truly designing Swordhaven in the way our players envision it.
This, however, is only possible if we receive feedback. Please feel free to contact us in any way you see fit to share your opinions. We will evaluate your feedback and implement it into the game before our full release.
So, what comes now?
First and foremost, we're planning updates to the game, with major ones hitting roughly once every couple of months. We will provide you with all the necessary information to keep you in the loop about what's been implemented and what the next big addition is.
One area we will focus on is the Real-Time with Pause battle mode, which is currently available for testing in the game. Swordhaven already provides a variety of settings for the AI, including the option to turn it off completely, and we will continue to make improvements in this regard. Animations are also a priority; we already have a lot, but there's much more to come!
Compatibility, optimization, and bug fixing are also top priorities for us. We're doing everything we can to test the game on all available devices, but a small team cannot cover every configuration out there.
If you encounter a bug (such as launch problems, graphics issues, or freezing), please send us a report at support@atomrpg.com. Our new Bug Tracker feature will help us track your problem, and you can check the resolution status at any time.
Thank you very much for being with us, and let's hope for a smooth ride towards the biggest milestone yet: the full release!
With this DLC, Wartales returns to its roots with an entirely new region to explore.
Ormance is under the control of the Skelmars, violent invaders from the Marches of the World. The new region is divided into sub-regions, called baronies, that have fallen into the hands of the Skelmars. Faced with such brutality, the Legion alone is no longer strong enough to hold back the barbarians… So who you gonna call? Mercenaries!
As you reclaim territory from the Skelmars, you’ll have the chance to repair buildings which have been destroyed by the invaders. This will allow you to gather resources to boost the war effort, request support from local factions with unique combat skills, and take back each stronghold one by one until Ormance is finally liberated!
To free the baronies, you’ll need to wrest these strongholds back from the Skelmars’ grasp. And since we’re all about being kind and gentle in Wartales, what better way to siege a fort than to ask nicely with battering rams and catapult fire?
Sieges introduce the first-ever version of multi-stage epic battles in Wartales. Begin at the fort’s outer defenses, take down archer towers and breach the gate to infiltrate the inner courtyard. Once inside, the fort’s defenders will try to stop your advance as you push toward assassinating the enemy leader and raising your banner. Hold your position for several rounds, reclaim the stronghold, and liberate the barony from the Skelmars’ control!
You won’t be alone in this assault; Ormance’s forces will support you with new command skills you can use during battles in the region. On top of that, you’ll be managing the war effort your way by rebuilding destroyed structures, unlocking unique bonuses and resources to aid in your reconquest.
An incredible journey of over eight years reaches its harbor today. What began as a project that, on paper, seemed impossible has now become reality: Urban Strife.
This game was brought to life by a dedicated team of three devs, alongside a roster of amazing friends who generously contributed their expertise. It’s still a rough gem, waiting to be cut and polished—that’s why we chose the Early Access path. We believe this is the best way to finish our journey: together with you, the players. Those players who – same as us three - wanted more and always got less from their games, because “it is what our focus groups say is trending”.
Making this moment even more special, we’re launching Urban Strife with the support of MicroProse—a name that has been synonymous with gaming excellence for generations.
In the past two weeks, we shared an Early Access preview build with over 100 content creators. Thanks to their efforts, we identified and fixed a dozen critical bugs, resolved hundreds of minor issues, and introduced vital balancing and quality-of-life updates. Their generosity in donating their time and expertise has been invaluable, and we are deeply grateful to them.
To those who’ve said, “I like the game, but I’d rather play it when it’s out of Early Access,” we hear you, too. We invite you to stay with us on this journey—share your ideas and critiques, and help shape Urban Strife into the game you want it to be when it officially launches as version 1.0.
So… welcome to Urban Strife. If you’re curious about what lies ahead, we’ve prepared a detailed Early Access roadmap for you. If you’re ready to dive in, check out the introductory playthrough running on a loop on our store page, or explore the quick tips we’ve provided under the “Quick Reference” section of our Steam page.
Good luck out there, and thank you for your incredible support!
I am a solo/hobbyist developer and this is my attempt at the modernization of my favorite old time RPGs like Bards Tale and Might and Magic. My goal is to create an atmospheric, world-spanning, fantasy epic with a little but of old school feel and modern features and bring Aeldrath to life in a low poly 3d world. Descending will have a heavy focus on exploration, combat and character progression. There will be lore available in the world, but it will not be a story heavy game. Stories and lore are intentionally simple, to evoke a feeling of a simpler time in gaming.
I am also developing a full map editor which will allow players to modify or build new maps, this editor will be used to build the entire world and all of its content. A data editor will also be included which will allow most content in the game to be edited and created, greatly extending the lifetime and replayability of the game.
Steam demo and release planned as well as free alpha and beta builds here on itch (instead of doing early access). Rough goal is to have a Demo released early 2025 and full release at least a year later.
The Crowned One has awoken from his long slumber, silently taking control of the once great city-state of Drakullovska. The profane crown he bears grants him immortality and must be destroyed. You will gather a party of adventurers who are brave, hardy or lucky enough to survive the upcoming trials. They must travel the Known World to find and unlock the secrets of the Elemental Shrines -- Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Life, Death, Order and Chaos -- and receive the blessings of the gods themselves. Only then will they be powerful enough to defeat The Undying Tyrant, his legions of followers and destroy The Blood Crown once and for all.
CURRENT FEATURE LIST
First person, grid based movement and rotation with an unlockable camera for freely looking around
Turn based combat with ranged attack options for most heroes
Build a party of up to 6 Heroes from 18 different fantasy races (Human, Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Half Orcs, etc.) and 6 Professions (Recruit, Mercenary, Scout, Thief, Apprentice or Acolyte). You currently start with a 3 or 4 hero maximum. This number will be upgradable throughout the campaign.
Masteries - Secondary classes that have various requirements and grant unique abilities. (e.g. Soldier, Paladin, Wizard, Pyromancer, Cleric).
Randomly Generated Heroes can be hired and swapped in and out of the active party. Currently up to 12 inactive heroes can be saved and kept. This number will likely start at 2 to 4 and be upgradable throughout the campaign.
Deadly dungeons full of monsters, traps, treasure, hidden rooms and ancient secrets.
Day/Night cycle with weather, fog, sound and particle effects.
Hero Death, Wounds and Aging - When a hero is killed they can be resurrected through magic or healer NPCs. Wounds are semi-permanent attribute debuffs that can also be removed with spells or by healers. Heroes will age and receive attribute debuffs as they grow older.
Camping - prepare a meal (meals add attribute buffs), cast rituals (powerful buffs or healing spells), boost party morale with an uplifting tune (coming soon) and if your luck holds, avoid random encounters (coming soon).
Random Item Generator creates items with a Quality Modifier, Prefix Enchantment and Suffix Enchantment (e.g. +1 Flaming Long Sword of the Bear)
Hand crafted, tile-based Fantasy world made with the included Map Editor. World is made up of a grid of smaller maps (approximately 75 maps total), each up to 50x50 tiles.
World will be built in chapters. The Demo will be the first chapter (4 overworld maps, The Ironsworn Isles). Each chapter will have a more or less self contained story that will fit into the greater campaign. There will be 14 in total each ranging from 4 - 8 overworld maps.
We are proud to announce that after 17 years of development, Caves of Qud launches into 1.0 today. A new trailer celebrating the launch will also be debuting today at PC Gamer’s Most Wanted showcase. Make sure you tune in starting at 12 PM PST/3pm EST/8PM GMT/9PM CEST.
The Caves of Qud 1.0 update includes:
The conclusion of the main quest, with multiple endings
Lots of new music, sound effects, items, and final UI polish
And most importantly, the Dromad Deluxe seal stamped on your main menu!
If you already purchased the base game, you can complete the Dromad Deluxe collection (and get your seal) by buying the rest of the items in the bundle.
What’s Next?
What comes after 1.0 for Caves of Qud? First and foremost, the team will be taking a well-deserved break. Putting the capstone on a game as complex as Qud took a whole lot of work. After that, we plan to continue updating the game, with two big feature arcs already in mind. Whether those are free updates or paid DLC has yet to be determined.
And while we might push updates to the live branch, we’ll be keeping save game compatibility stable between big feature arcs. This should allow modders to feel comfortable getting to work on new mods. Compatibility might break when a big feature arc does drop (whether it’s free or DLC), but we’ll give plenty of lead time in the run up to those releases.
Other than that, we’ll be working on supporting other platforms. More news on that later.
A Thank You…
It feels like a fever dream to be releasing 1.0. Seventeen years of development, nine and a half years of Steam Early Access. The only constant has been that whenever we’ve shown the game to a wider audience, there are more and more weirdos just like us who are ready to connect with it. Thank you so much for supporting us through the years — some of you since the very beginning — and helping us bring something original and heartfelt into the world.
RPG Dustgrave releases today on Steam Early Access on December 5 for $21.99 with a 15% launch discount for two weeks. Dustgrave offers players total freedom and a powerful emergent narrative thanks to its powerful character editor and advanced record and relationship system, which tracks every event in the world and makes NPC react to what they know about you, depending on their morality and interests.
ABOUT DUSTGRAVE
Carve your own path in the dangerous lands of what once was the mighty Dahlan Empire – now a land of strife and conflict, with all kinds of factions struggling among them. Follow the laws or seek to sow chaos: every choice is yours to make. Your actions can empower your faction to make it the most powerful of the continent; or you can go your own way and try to maintain a balance of power. Featuring a deep turn-based combat system that allows combinations of skills, spells, and items, you have endless tactical options to adapt the game to your playstyle. You can also rely on Dustgrave’s advanced stealth system to achieve your goals – you can break into places to steal valuable clues (or just, well, valuables), assassinate enemies, and other questionable deeds. Just be aware that, thanks to Dustgrave's advanced record and relationship system, the world will remember your choices -- and react accordingly...
KEY FEATURES
Everything meaningful happening in the world is recorded. NPCs will judge your good and bad deeds based on their personality or faction
The world is in constant evolution. Factions will constantly fight against each other: some may acquire more power, others may be destroyed forever.
All NPCs have unique personalities and desires, and their daily life is thoroughly simulated
True fantasy sandbox RPG experience. You decide with your actions what kind of character you want to be: a holy man, a thief, a hero, a soldier, a mercenary, an archeologist, even just a mail deliverer…
Smash your enemies with an advanced yet accessible turn-based combat system, combining Skills and Items in huge tactical depth
Use an advanced stealth system to do anything you want! Stealing? Check! Assassinating? Check! Breaking and entering? Check!
Create your own customized characters with an advanced character editor
This Henry guy just can't seem to catch a break. When we last left the blacksmith's son-turned-knight at the end of the original Kingdom Come: Deliverance, things were finally starting to look up for him. But the sequel, in true video game sequel fashion, starts by knocking him down a peg or two and dumping him into a new, larger open world to regain his dignity, one side quest at a time. And to be honest, that's refreshing.
The story of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II picks up almost immediately where the first one left off, but it's certainly not essential to have played it to follow what's going on, thanks to an extended intro that brings you up to speed on the broader strokes. The year is 1403. Henry is a village boy from Bohemia (modern day Czech Republic) who saw his home burned to the ground due to a civil war for the crown taking place between two half-brothers. He ended up in the service of the frustratingly good-looking nepo baby Sir Hans Capon to try and help out the supporters of the royal brother who isn't going around burning down villages, and that plan got… a little sidetracked.
It's not exactly a start back from square one, though. Henry began the first game as that kind of old-school RPG protagonist who is really just some random guy with no skills to speak of. He could barely hold a sword, and the unforgiving combat really made you feel that until you put in the time to master it. But Henry's a seasoned adventurer now. He knows how to read, which is practically a superpower in medieval Europe. And while you were out partying, he studied the blade.
Taste My Blade
This is reflected in the changes to combat in KCD2, which the developers described as lowering both the skill floor required to play competently and raising the skill ceiling for the most devoted warriors. There are only four attack directions now instead of five. Thrust attacks are no longer a separate attack button, and have instead been folded into the combo system for weapons that make sense with them only. Parries are a bit easier to pull off, and much to my delight, blocking can now defend you from multiple attackers – as long as they're all in front of you.
Basically, whether you mastered KCD1's combat or not, the lower skill requirement at the very beginning models the fact that Henry is simply a better fighter by now. But careful stamina management is still the core of every scrap, and button-mashing is one of the quickest ways to die. I came across plenty of challenging encounters even as someone with more than 100 hours across two playthroughs in KCD1, and it's not as easy to spam your way through them by getting a couple of powerful combo moves down to muscle memory.
Hill and Dale
The world of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is quite a bit larger as well, with two distinct maps about the size of the first game's that you can travel back and forth between once both are unlocked. The terrain feels fairly familiar, for the most part. We're still in the Central Bohemian woodlands, basically just over the hill from where KCD1 left off. But the level of detail on the terrain and vegetation is a noticeable step up. And better yet, it's way more optimized. My RTX 4070 Super still can't run KCD1 – a six-year-old game – on max settings. But what I played of KCD2 rarely had any performance problems.
The centerpiece of this new world is the city of Kuttenberg, which is quite a bit larger, denser, and more vibrant than anything we saw in KCD1. It's certainly no Paris or Prague, but navigating its crowded streets and markets, taking shortcuts through back gardens, and admiring its grand Gothic architecture is a complete change of pace from wandering around muddy woodland trails. It's big enough to get lost in, built on a realistic scale that makes towns in a lot of other RPGs feel like tiny dioramas.
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