Greetings Romans!
We have a special greeting from Sam Bloom and Björn Detterfelt, the founders of Beartwigs, where they share what they're working on and what's on the horizon for Romestead.
Before we dive into the details below, we would like to take this opportunity to thank the entire Romestead community. Thanks to your excitement and you recommending the game to your friends, the community has grown to over 400,000 players! It's been really fun seeing your excitement and also seeing the community helping each other out with our not-so-clear puzzles.
You've been helping us out by reporting bugs, leaving reviews, providing suggestions, and offering some very honest feedback. Based on that, this is our current Roadmap for Act I of Romestead's Early Access.
Top priority additions
I: Full controller support: You will be able to bind any kind of controller or any keybinding to any action you want through the Steam Input API.
II: Network optimizations that should help out for those of you who have been struggling to play multiplayer.
III: Steam Deck Verification. Together with the Full Controller Support and some changes we're doing to the UI, we hope to get fully Steam Deck Verified.
IV: More varied dungeons that will reduce the repetitiveness in the world, and we think will be a lot of fun to explore and test out.
V: Quality of Life + Balance changes: For example, we're adding chest sorting alongside several other highly requested community fixes.
Now, we want to get updates out as fast as possible, but we also want them to be properly tested. This is why what we're sharing today is more of a team priority and less of a set-in-stone "this feature will ship at this exact timing" kind of roadmap.
Our goal is to patch in these updates before the end of summer (August 31).
What's on the horizon
Some of you have already completed most of what's in Romestead up until now, and you want more. And we hear you. What we can reveal for now is that there is a Fourth Major Biome on the horizon, and this one is a bit spooky.
Early concept art for the fourth biome
Romestead's fourth major biome will come with a new building tier, new armor sets, new enemies, new dungeons, and new challenging bosses.
We can't give too many details right now, but let's just say you want to prepare. Exactly when this fourth biome will be available is something we will be able to share as we get further along, but we're currently targeting a winter release.
Q&A about future features
Q: Will villagers eventually be able to defend settlements?
A: Yes! We want your settlements to feel alive and secure. We are planning to introduce a Barracks building in a future update, which will allow you to assign specific villagers as defenders to help protect your home.
Q: Are there any plans to add options to make the game more difficult?
A: Yes, this is something we will look at once the foundation of the game is fully in place. We like the idea of players being able to opt in to more challenging gameplay that increases the risk/reward.
Q: Will additional Gods be introduced, and will there be a deeper worship or devotion system?
A: No comment 😉
Q: Are there plans to add animal taming, domestication, or breeding systems?
A: It’s a very popular request and something we’d love to explore down the line, but it’s currently outside the scope of our immediate roadmap. For now, our focus remains on tightening the core gameplay and delivering the next major biome.
Q: Is an ocean or sea biome planned? Will there be boats or ships?
A: This is not something currently in the plans, but we view it as an interesting area to explore in the future.
Q: Are there any plans to add fishing as a gameplay activity?
A: It’s a classic activity that many players love, so we’d definitely love to add it down the line. However, right now we are prioritizing features that are uniquely Roman and lean into our specific setting. Because fishing is a more generic mechanic, it’s currently lower on our priority list while we focus on the core identity of the game.
Q: Regarding boss loot chests, will players be able to place them as decorative or functional containers within their settlements?
A: Yes, this is something we want to add!
Signing Off
That concludes our development update for this time! Stay tuned here on Steam, Discord, or our social medias for future updates!
As always, a massive thank you for your support so far, and happy adventuring!
Roma Aeterna!
-The Beartwigs Team