Attention mercenaries! The 1.0 Release update has finally arrived, but before we get into the fun stuff we just wanted to take a moment to thank you, our wonderful community, for your support throughout the Early Access period. From our AMAs to Q&As together, hearing your thoughts and feedback, as well as seeing our vision and plans for the game evolve thanks to your involvement, we’ve thoroughly enjoyed our journey with you and are incredibly proud to be able to share this moment with you all. We really can't thank you enough! Now let’s jump into what’s new…
Release Trailer
New Region: Alazar
Behold, warriors of Wartales, a new region awaits your arrival! The land of Drombach lies to the south of the Kingdom of Alazar, a perilous county shrouded in icy mountains and fierce windswept plateaus. A place of knowledge and discovery, it is where the cure for the Plague was once developed.
But now, a new plague ravages the land, and even the wisest of scholars are unable to halt its spread. The mighty All-Seeing Eye, the god of light, strikes at will, pulverising beasts, buildings, and inhabitants without mercy. Even the powerful Inquisition dispatched by the Edoran Church is powerless in the face of this inexplicable wrath.
Storyline
The Wrath of the Eye has fallen on Drombach, annihilating everything in its path. Dispatched by the Church of Edoran, the Inquisition is entrusted with finding out what has unleashed the divine wrath.
Voice-over
The whole game has been fully voiced in English!
Content
- New confessions have been added to the pool.
- You can now bury your fallen companions :’(
- Numerous new achievements have been added!
Units and Combat
- New arena
- New elite
- Explore a new Tomb of the Ancients and defeat a special enemy!
- Snow wolves and bears are joining the fight alongside snow crawlers!
Companions and Camp Life
- The unit level cap has been increased to 12, and the enemy level cap to 14.
- Unlock the new level 12 skills known as Braveries: only one use per character and per round! If you don’t want to take this talent point, you can choose any other talent you have not chosen, creating new possibilities of building!
- Don’t worry about your animals; they will also be able to choose new talents.
- You can gain charcoal from the campfire when resting by burning wood!
- Hemp has been added as a brand-new component: craft ropes or new recipes! You can find it in various locations throughout the world.
Arenas
- The old arenas are getting a makeover with new requirements, new bonuses, and a rebalancing of the feature itself.
- In addition to the new arena in Drombach, battle in the brand-new arenas in Arthes and Ludern.
- Discover the last 3 specializations for your spearmen, archers, and swordsmen!
Difficult Mode
If you want to challenge your team, try the new difficult mode in arenas. But beware… disappoint the crowd, and you won’t last long!
Tombs of the Ancients
In addition to the one in Drombach, explore the new Tomb of Ancients in Vertruse.
Rouste
- Take part in the Rouste tournament!
- The rules of Rouste have changed: you will now play with two balls at all times, for twice the fun and... chaos.
- After completing the first Rouste match in Grinmeer, you will be invited to participate in the tournament with some trials to do. Each region has its field, its team, and its way of cheating the rules.
Difficult Mode
If after winning against each team, you are still not satisfied, you can try your luck with the difficult mode!
Professions
- We have rebalanced the way you gain experience in professions. It will now take less time to reach the last level: the more dangerous or costly your profession-related action is, the more experience points it generates.
- Some of the trade bonuses have also been revisited.
- Overall, new recipes have been added for each profession.
Woodcutter
Previously, you had to have an axeman to cut wood at relevant locations. Now it is a new profession that any companion can do. Of course, this profession comes with its own attributes, profession level bonuses and backpack accessories.
Alchemist
We are happy with the overall idea of Alchemy: fighting filthy rats in caves to gather as many filthy reagents as possible to make filthy oils to improve your weapons and strategy.
However, we felt that the initial access to the profession was a bit too complex, and the use of the oils was sometimes too random.
- We have added new oils that are easier to make at the start of the game.
- Oil recipes can no longer be bought with brains but with krowns: on the other hand, brains will become useful for crafting certain items.
- The majority of oils have been rebalanced: the effects are less random, and crafting an oil is now a long-term investment.
- The order in which the recipes are learned has also been revisited.
- New recipes have been added.
Blacksmith
- A new tier of weapons has been added.
- A new tier of armors has been added.
- New recipes have been added.
Scholar
Codices in the Tombs of the Ancients have been slightly redesigned. When obtaining a Codex, you must first decipher its Runes by playing a brand-new activity. Once you have obtained the Runes, gathered in Tombs, you will get a complete text that will serve as a clue. Collect all the clues from a group of Codices to find the location of a secret Vault. Inside, you will find a treasure (or more!)...
Lots of new secrets have been hidden throughout the world!
Graphics
- The overall look of the game has been greatly improved as well as optimized.
- Backpacks are now evolving with your gear: the better your gear is, the more beautiful the backpacks will be!
- New options for customization have been added: new faces, new beards…
- When you start the game, the characters’ customization has been revamped to make it clearer.
- In addition to the brand-new Alazar biome, new battle and camp maps have been added: rest and fight in the Edoranian fields and the Vertrusian vineyards.
- Visual effects have received some love.
- Wolf models have been updated.
Balancing
The amount of Experience points required to level-up the highest levels has been reduced.
Items
- Some items' rarity have changed.
- New items have been added.
- You should now loot more leather and fangs from animals.
- Civilians now have correct Attributes.
- Mint has been removed from the game and hemp has been added.
Difficulty Balancing
We believe that the Novice and Advanced difficulties are as they are intended to be. However, we believe that it is still possible to increase the difficulty of Expert mode. Therefore, some adjustments have been made concerning this difficulty.
One of the features requested was the ability to ignore which enemy is going to play during an enemy's turn. You can now hide or show enemies' turn order in the options menu. This means that you will know that the enemy is going to play, but you will not know which exact unit is playing.
We believe it is a first step in making the game more challenging for people who want more of a challenge. Keep in mind we do not want to alter the game experience for the new players but we also want to give more challenges to our veteran players. We want to give some love to the hardest difficulties and we think this feature is a good addition.
Units
You will encounter less mosquitoes in Harag.
Forsaken villages have been balanced in accordance with each difficulty.
Skill & Weapon balancing
Skill
Piercing Throw Damage [45%] -> [55%]
Fortifying Strike Damage [60-80%] -> [80-100%]
Weapon
Dagan's Hammer Damage [45%] -> [35%]
- The weapon was dealing too much damage while its range was too large, thus making it an imbalanced weapon when hitting 3 enemies or more. We believe that tweaking the damage a bit means that it remains totally viable and an excellent choice while not being totally overpowered.
Bug Fixes
- Ponies’ equipment is removed before getting eaten by the party
- Porridge’s recipe can now be bought in the shabby camp
- Candied fruit can now be bought in the tavern in Marheim
- Eel broth is now called Eel Soup
- Salt Scoop now “Produces salt during each Rest if assigned to the Cooking Pot.”
- Fixed an issue in co-op where the UI would not appear after scoring a point in Rouste
- Fixed some items that were missing bonuses, they now have bonuses
- Fixed a bug preventing old saves from facing units from new factions.
- Other minor bugs have been fixed
Once again, thank you for joining us on this journey. We can’t overstate how excited we are for our players to finally discover (or rediscover) the full experience as we’ve envisioned it since development began over 3 years ago Please let us know your thoughts and feedback on this update and stay tuned for more news about what the future holds for Wartales... Do not hesitate to leave us a review if you enjoyed playing during the early access. - Shiro Games