Thank you for always playing The End of History.

Six months have passed since the start of Early Access (December 10, 2025). In this letter, in addition to our usual report on this month's activities and next month's plans, we would like to take a moment to look back on the feedback we have received from the community over these six months, and the updates we have delivered in response.

1. Six Months in Review: Your Voices and Our Response

Since the launch of Early Access, we have received a tremendous amount of feedback through Steam reviews, our official Discord, and various social media. As we promised in the Update Roadmap on January 30, rather than simply "working through a predetermined plan," we have continued development with an emphasis on flexibly tackling whatever improvement would have the greatest impact at any given moment.

Here, we have organized the most common feedback by theme and summarized how we have addressed each over the past six months.

◆ Stability: "Being able to play through to the end" first

Right after Early Access launched, the most common reports were about crashes and progression blockers. We have continuously treated "being able to play stably through to the end" as our top priority.

Feedback received: "It crashes in certain scenes," "The game becomes unplayable," "I can't control my character after battle," and so on.

Main responses:

• Fixed crashes caused by duplicate identical characters, corrupted diplomacy data, and the end of siege/defense battles

• Fixed the post-battle blackout and loss of control, as well as the progression block when the protagonist dies in Sandbox mode

• Addressed bugs accompanying new features with hotfixes as needed, such as a progression block when closing the Combat Arts popup with Esc

On the other hand, there are bugs we have not yet been able to resolve. In particular, the issue where "memory usage increases dramatically, causing the game to freeze or crash" has been reported by multiple players, but we have been unable to reproduce it on the developers' or team's PC environments, making the cause difficult to pinpoint. We are now considering commissioning an investigation from an external QA company and continuing to investigate it as our top priority. We apologize to those affected and are doing everything we can to resolve it.

Stability remains our top-priority foundation, and we continue to investigate and fix issues.

◆ Order System: Reducing unreasonableness and unnaturalness

"Orders fail too quickly," "They are issued repeatedly every day," "I receive orders that are impossible to complete." These were especially common opinions after Early Access launched.

In this game, we value not treating the player as special; NPCs, like the player, live in the world with their own will. We had hoped that being given unreasonable demands at times would be enjoyed as drama born as part of the world, but due to insufficient initial tuning, difficult or impossible goals came across as mere unreasonableness and unnaturalness.

We have not yet fully resolved this and continue to make adjustments.

Main responses:

• Adjusted issuance frequency and logic, and fixed a bug that caused repeated daily failures

• Improved the system so that, when an order is overwritten, you gain achievement and affinity values according to your already-achieved progress

• Fixed a bug where orders could be issued with target values exceeding the specification's upper limit

• Adjusted so that, after declining a proposal to declare war, it is not proposed again for a certain period, and adjusted the maximum drop in impression

• Added a specification to display related stats when an order is issued and received

◆ UI / UX: "Clearer and easier to operate"

Feedback on the UI was a theme we received continuously throughout the six months.

Main responses:

• Added a conversation log viewer and an event notification log

• Refined Esc key behavior, and added conversation fast-forward by holding Ctrl

• Added a notable-figure filter on the map, and changed the world collapse level notification UI

• Overhauled the compass UI (making directions and destinations more intuitive)

• Added a food purchase shortcut, cloud save support, and much more

We have also received feedback such as "the text is small and hard to read" and "notifications appear in the center of the screen, interrupting operation / being hard to see."

We plan to address these in the update leading up to the upcoming Steam Summer Sale, by overhauling the notification system and adding a text size adjustment option.

◆ Connections Between People: Making the core of this game more rewarding

Through the survey, individual interviews, and third-party play observations conducted in March, what emerged most strongly was the desire for "more meaning and feedback in interactions with NPCs" and "the complexity of relationships is interesting, but it's hard to see."

To answer this, after designing in April, we implemented the following in May:

• Implementation of the family tree UI, and its subsequent expansion into visualizing relationships and impression changes

• Visualization of the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" affinity system: NPCs who like or dislike a given person can now be seen on the tavern, family tree, and pre-battle screens

• Overhaul of the tavern conversation system: You can react to the other person's topics with "agree / disagree / deflect" and more, and your choices ripple out to the impressions of that person and third parties, visualized on the spot

• Added a female version of the protagonist's illustration and many NPC illustrations

◆ Combat: Letting "strategy beyond the battlefield" show in the results

We also received a lot of feedback about the feel and tactical depth of combat. Our combat values not speed or exhilaration, but having "strategy beyond the battlefield"—logistics, equipment, and technological research—determine victory or defeat.

Main responses:

• Formation assignment per troop type, projected artillery impact point display, and map display of projected march routes

• "Pincer" system: Flanking an enemy deals heavy damage. Beyond mere positioning, it also creates effects such as building numerically advantageous situations together with vassals and allies and sapping enemy morale

• "Combat Arts" system: Approximately 30 types × Levels 1-5. By choosing arts to match the enemy's composition and your own army's traits, you can turn the tide in your favor. Both players and NPCs learn them through combat experience

• Reviewed combat attack conditions, set a cap on looting upon defeat, and more

◆ Other challenges we continue to face

As we mentioned in the roadmap, we are taking our time with the following themes over the medium to long term:

• The stress of resource shortages, including food: Carefully tuning, through repeated testing, a balance that reduces stress while preserving its importance

• Expanding role-play: We continue to consider mechanisms that let you deepen your involvement in the world even as a rōnin, bandit, merchant, and so on

• Gamepad support: We originally planned to provide this at full release, but in response to the many requests, we have moved up the timing and are proceeding with verification to deliver it as soon as possible

2. Updates Coming Soon (Before the Steam Summer Sale)

After this letter is delivered, we plan the following updates before the Steam Summer Sale.

• Implementation of the History Timeline UI (new feature): A new feature that lets you look back on events that occurred in the world in chronological order. It will let you enjoy this game's core experience of "observing history" more intuitively

• Notification improvements: We will review the timing and display UI of notification pop-ups and system messages so that important information does not get buried

• Addition of a text size adjustment option: You will be able to adjust the text size to suit readability

• Various other bug fixes and more

Regarding gamepad support, as mentioned above, we are aiming to move up the delivery timing and continue to repeat testing and fixes. We are proceeding carefully so as not to compromise the experience by releasing it in an incomplete state, so please wait a little longer.

3. July Plans

The main focus for July is improving the tutorial "in a broad sense."

The tutorial here is not limited to control explanations.

We see it as an effort to redesign the very entry point of the game experience: how to present the events happening in the world to the player, and from what standpoint the player should enjoy this game world.

So that newcomers can naturally enjoy this game's core concept of "observing history," we will review the introduction of the campaign mode and the way information is presented. Rather than merely adding an operation guide, this is an adjustment involving the entire gameplay, aiming to convey at the entrance what kind of play this is, and who you can act as in this world.

In addition, we will continue to work on the following:

• Continued testing and fixing of gamepad support

• Further expansion of unique events and NPC dialogue: Adding late-campaign content and story fragments that make the relationships of randomly generated NPCs more memorable

Closing

Six months since the start of Early Access. We have received countless pieces of feedback—bug reports, opinions, and your cooperation with surveys and interviews on Discord. Every update over these six months has been supported by each and every one of them. Thank you so much.

What The End of History aims for is not a tale of heroes, but the experience of "observing history." Drawing on your voices, we will continue to refine that experience into a form we can deliver to more people.

We appreciate your continued support of The End of History.

Developer Tatamiya
Publisher WorldMap

This Developer Letter is delivered once a month. The next issue is scheduled for around the end of July.