Hello, this is JANG, the Executive Producer of Game of Thrones: Kingsroad.
The official launch is just around the corner! With less than a week to go, the whole team is buzzing with excitement and a touch of nerves after all the hard work we’ve poured in.
We truly appreciate everyone who has been waiting patiently for the official release, and we hope you’ll continue to show your support as we head into launch.
With the official release so close, we know many of you are curious about what kind of updates to expect.
So today, we’d like to take a moment to share more details about the upcoming launch update—along with a deeper look at some of the topics we touched on during our recent AMA.
First and foremost, Early Access exclusive packages on Steam will no longer be available for purchase as of May 21st. With the official launch, Game of Thrones: Kingsroad will be free to play for everyone.
If you haven’t had a chance to experience the game yet, this will be the perfect opportunity to begin your adventure across the vast continent of Westeros.
Furthermore, we extend our deepest gratitude to all of our Early Access players who have been with us since March. Your support has been instrumental in reaching this milese of our official launch. We’re excited to keep building this story together, and we hope you’ll continue to follow along as it unfolds.
Throughout the Early Access period, we have carefully listened to your valuable feedback, and we aim to implement many improvements based on your suggestions in the official launch and upcoming updates. We remain committed to fostering an open dialogue with our community and will continue to listen as the game evolves.
Lastly, as a token of our appreciation, we’ve prepared a special gift for everyone who joined us during Early Access—you’ll find the details at the end of this developer note, so be sure to read through to the end!
1. Region Expansion: The Stormlands
The centerpiece of our official release is the regional expansion into the Stormlands.
This marks the beginning of a significant new chapter, as the threat of the White Walkers looms large and the protagonist ventures into this new area on a desperate quest for answers. There, you will face new and formidable threats, including a mysterious plague and the zealous Red Priests of R’hllor.
Prepare to explore entirely new territories, unravel captivating storylines, and unearth a wealth of new content that awaits in this iconic region of Westeros. We can’t wait for you to experience the adventures that lie ahead.
2. Progression Expansion
With the new region comes the opportunity for your characters to grow even stronger. Brace yourselves for thrilling encounters with ferocious new beasts and formidable enemies that surpass any you've faced thus far. To meet these challenges, your characters will have a chance to reach new heights of power.
We’re raising the maximum character level from 40 to 45, introducing higher-tier equipment to discover and craft, expanding set research levels, and adding new House Sigils to further customize your forces.
Furthermore, we’re adding new difficulty levels to existing content such as Wormwalk and Beyond the Wall Expedition for those seeking to truly test their limits. Prepare to push your characters to their absolute potential.
3. New Altar of Memories Boss
A new trial awaits within the Altar of Memories.
Whispers carried on the northern winds speak of elusive Unicorns, creatures of myth said to roam the wild and isolated island of Skagos, far beyond the Wall's icy reach. Now, one of these creatures will manifest as a formidable new boss, testing your strategic prowess and the strength of your characters in unprecedented ways.
We're thrilled to offer you a first glimpse of the Unicorn before the update goes live:
4. Official Launch Events
In celebration of the official launch of Game of Thrones: Kingsroad, we're rolling out a series of engaging in-game events!
We're happy to announce the return of fan-favorite Test Race and Bonus Time events from Early Access. These will be back on a weekly rotation with a variety of formats designed to keep the fun going and the rewards flowing.
Get a first look at the schedule for the returning Test Race and Bonus Time events following the official release:
* Please note that the event schedule provided above is subject to change.
Popular events like Bonus Time will continue to run regularly, and we're actively developing new formats to bring you even more engaging and rewarding experiences. We're also preparing a variety of special events to celebrate the official launch—so stay tuned!
5. Improvements
Next, we’d like to delve into some of the specific improvements and refinements we’ve been working on, many of which were discussed during our previous AMA session.
🔸Copper Economy Improvements
One of the most frequently raised topics—and the first we’d like to address—is the state of our in-game currency economy. In particular, the scarcity of Copper has been a significant point of feedback, and we're committed to addressing this directly with two key changes in the official release update.
First, we will be implementing an overall increase to the Copper rewards across repeatable content.
Building upon this, we're also significantly boosting the Copper payouts in specific content. This will allow you to strategically focus on certain activities if Copper acquisition is your priority, making Copper farming a more viable and rewarding endeavor.
Second, as we discussed in our previous AMA, we will be improving the efficiency of the Production & Trade systems.
While some players made good use of these systems during Early Access, we observed that overall engagement remained low—largely due to underwhelming returns and a lack of compelling synergy between the production and trade mechanics.
This isn't just a minor adjustment of numbers. Our goal is to forge a meaningful and rewarding gameplay cycle between Production and Trade, making these systems a worthwhile investment of your time and resources.
To achieve this, we’ll be reducing the Copper cost of production, increasing the rewards you can earn, and boosting the overall trade efficiency.
With these comprehensive changes, developing your Renan’s Rest Estate will evolve into a much more dependable and consistent source of Copper, directly benefiting your long-term progression.
🔸Artifact System
Next, let's delve into the upcoming enhancements to the Artifact system. We've carefully considered the significant feedback we received during Early Access and are implementing meaningful changes based on your experiences.
Our initial vision for the "Incredible Expedition" outcome was to provide a reliable opportunity to acquire Legendary Artifacts, even if they were alongside Epic-grade rewards. We designed the system with the intention that the probability of a Legendary find would feel reasonable, especially at higher Expedition levels.
However, your feedback, coupled with our internal data analysis, revealed a clear disconnect between our design and your actual experience. Many of you felt that obtaining Legendary Artifacts remained frustratingly difficult, even with consistent participation in Expeditions.
To directly address this, we've made two key decisions:
Firstly, any guaranteed Artifact Expedition result achieved after a set number of attempts will now always reward you with a Legendary-grade Artifact.
Secondly, we're reducing the number of Expeditions required to reach this guaranteed Legendary reward.
In addition to these changes, we're also slightly increasing the overall drop rates for Epic and Legendary Artifacts during Expeditions, with a more substantial increase at lower Expedition levels. Our overarching goal with these adjustments is to create a more positive and rewarding Artifact experience overall.
We also recognize that these significant changes might not feel entirely fair to those who have already invested heavily in Artifact Expeditions under the previous system. To address this, we will be providing Expedition Cart items as compensation, based on your current Artifact Expedition level.
▸ Compensation will be granted based on the highest Artifact Expedition level within your account.
▸ The level used to determine the compensation will be based on your level at the time of the official release, on May 21st.
▸ More details regarding the distribution will be provided in a future announcement.
🔸Ferocious Beasts
When we first envisioned the Ferocious Beasts encounters, our design aimed to offer a distinct experience compared to the Altar of Memories. While the Altar of Memories was structured around co-op play with guaranteed rewards after a certain number of victories, Ferocious Beasts were intended as solo challenges with randomized loot instead.
However, we’ve seen that this lack of guaranteed rewards in Ferocious Beasts encounters has led to long-term frustration—especially for players who go extended periods without receiving the rewards they’re after.
To directly address this feedback, we're introducing a new system in the official release update. This will allow you to exchange accumulated resources earned from defeating Ferocious Beasts for guaranteed rewards after a set number of victories.
Going forward, each Ferocious Beast you defeat will grant you a new item – Pelt Scrap (name subject to change). By collecting a specific quantity of these Pelt Scraps, you'll be able to trade them for the core rewards associated with each Ferocious Beast.
Our goal with this change is to provide a more dependable path to obtaining the rewards you're seeking, while still preserving the inherent challenge and satisfaction of overcoming these powerful creatures.
➤ Bear Pelt Scrap (Example)
🔸Class Balance
With the official release update, we will also be implementing some small-scale balance adjustments.
Our primary goal is to cultivate a dynamic combat environment where each class's unique passives—such as Fighting Spirit and Sanguine Crush—become more integral to your active strategies in battle. You'll find the comprehensive details of these specific changes outlined in the upcoming official release patch notes.
Looking beyond launch, we remain committed to the ongoing refinement of class balance through iterative updates. Our aim is to ensure that each class feels distinct, offers a rewarding playstyle, and remains a viable and compelling choice throughout your entire adventure.
🔸Difficulty Adjustments
Throughout Early Access, the development team has been closely monitoring quest-related death rates and the overall difficulty curve of enemies encountered in the main storyline.
Some bosses—like the Giant—already received their first balance adjustment during Early Access, based on player feedback and data. As we approach the official release, we're committed to further smoothing out any difficulty spikes in battles that might feel overly abrupt or punishing.
In addition to these general adjustments, we also conducted thorough mobile testing during Early Access, carefully reviewing play patterns and quest success rates on mobile devices. Our findings indicated that a higher percentage of mobile players experienced difficulties in the earlier main quests compared to PC, with combat encounters showing a noticeably lower success rate.
To ensure a smoother progression through the main quest for all players, we’ve identified the need for further difficulty adjustments. To this end, we plan to increase the base maximum capacity for HP Tinctures and projectiles, and we're also making HP Tinctures more readily available during combat situations. Furthermore, we'll be improving the health regeneration rate outside of combat to enhance your overall gameplay experience.
Beyond these changes, we are also reducing the cooldown time for dodge stacks and decreasing the stack cost per dodge, aiming to provide a more fluid and responsive combat experience.
Moving forward, we will continue to actively analyze gameplay data, including death rates and challenging sections, and make ongoing adjustments to difficulty levels and boss patterns to ensure a balanced and engaging experience for all players.
🔸Regional Currency
We’ve observed that some players who have completed all current content available in Early Access are intentionally farming North Tokens by replaying lower-level content in the region of the North to further strengthen their characters.
We understand the motivation behind this, and for future updates, we're actively exploring ways that will allow you to earn North Tokens through engaging with higher-level content as well. This means you won't feel compelled to return to lower-level zones solely for currency acquisition. While this improvement won't be part of the official release, it's something we plan to introduce in a subsequent update.
🔸Appearance Change
Next up, we're thrilled to finally address a feature that has been highly requested by our community: the ability to change your character's appearance.
We’re planning to introduce a ticket that will allow you to modify various character customization options—including facial features, hairstyle, and even gender.
This feature won’t be available at the time of the official release, but we’re aiming to release it in an update scheduled for June. More details will be shared through a future announcement.
🔸Pathfinding System
During the Early Access phase, we focused on enhancing the mobile experience and introduced an intuitive pathfinding system. This feature allows your character to automatically navigate towards a designated point on the map while mounted, significantly streamlining travel and exploration for our mobile players.
The positive reception and substantial convenience improvements observed during mobile testing have reinforced our commitment to providing a smooth and enjoyable experience across all platforms. Therefore, we are excited to announce that the pathfinding system will also be integrated into the PC version of the game.
Looking ahead, we're also actively developing further enhancements to the mounted experience. Our goal is to provide greater freedom and accessibility while traversing the world. To that end, we're implementing functionality that will allow you to seamlessly perform various actions–such as accessing menus and opening the world map–even while actively using the pathfinding system. This will make travel and exploration feel more fluid and less restrictive, regardless of your preferred platform.
🔸RP System
As we highlighted in our previous developer video, a key priority for us is to expand the range of engaging content that doesn't heavily rely on RP. With each major update following the official release, you can expect to see new experiences added to the game, ensuring that everyone has plenty to enjoy without feeling constrained by RP limitations.
Through these regular content updates—along with the exciting launch-day events and the improvements we're making to rewards—our goal is to create a more balanced and enjoyable experience for all players, regardless of their RP reserves.
We continue to actively monitor your feedback regarding the RP system, and please know that your suggestions will be actively considered for future game operations. We encourage you to keep sharing your thoughts with us!
🔸Others
In addition to the major updates and improvements we’ve detailed above, we’ve also been diligently working on over 1,500 minor bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements since the start of Early Access—and we’re committed to continuing this work all the way through to the official launch.
Moving forward, we will continue to leverage the data gathered during Early Access along with your invaluable feedback to consistently enhance the game. We greatly appreciate your continued support and patience as we continue to refine and expand Game of Thrones: Kingsroad.
Many of you have also expressed interest in our long-term update plans. We're excited to announce that we will be sharing our post-launch update roadmap soon, so please stay tuned for more details!
Furthermore, as we touched upon in our previous AMA, the expansion of alliance-related features and the introduction of new co-op gameplay content are high priorities for us, even though they won't be part of the official launch. We're working hard on these updates, which we know many of you are excited about, and we're committed to introducing them over time as part of our ongoing roadmap.
To give you a little taste of the exciting content still to come, we'll leave you with a small glimpse of what's on the horizon. That brings us to the end of today's developer note.
Finally, we want to once again extend our sincere gratitude to each and every one of you who joined us during Early Access.
As we mentioned earlier, we've prepared a special thank-you gift exclusively for our Early Access players, with the details outlined below. Your support has been invaluable.
We remain dedicated to ensuring your journey through Game of Thrones: Kingsroad is as enjoyable and rewarding as possible, both now and in the many adventures to come.
🎁 Reward Eligibility
- All players who participated in Early Access and purchased a Founder’s Pack
➤ Vardis Egen Outfit
➤ Pioneer's Torch Badge
Thank you once again for your passion, your feedback, and for walking this road with us.
We’ll see you in Westeros.
Sincerely,
JANG
Executive Producer, Game of Thrones: Kingsroad
👉 [Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Official Forum]
