It’s been four months since we launched into early access and welcomed our first batch of players to the picturesque Alderwood Island. Since then, we’ve released 11 patches - with many more on the way! If it’s been awhile since you’ve taken a ride across Alderwood, it will probably look a bit different and feel much better to play. We have so many exciting updates planned for the future that we've shared in our new roadmap here!
...But before we dive into the future, we wanted to take a moment to look back on what we’ve accomplished together. 🥰
It’s a tough time in the industry and all of us are grateful for the opportunity to create something that’s so different. Whether you’ve been here since our first reveal, joined us on launch day, or are waiting for the right time to ride: thank you for supporting us!
Steam reviews are the lifeblood of any game - especially for a game as unique and nontraditional as ours. If you’ve played, please take a moment to leave us a Steam review! We can’t respond to all of the reviews, but the team reads each and every one of them. We take the community’s aggregate feedback and use that to guide our future plans. Together, we’re making this game the best it can be.
Without further ado: let’s take a look at the updates we’ve released and their highlights...
Patches #9, #10, and #11
This trio of summer patches released more art polish, several bug fixes, and our first localization! Read our summary below to learn what changed:
German Localization: Our first language localization launched in German!
New Hairstyles: Several new hairstyles were added to the game.
Vanity Equipment Slots: New cosmetic slots let you look fabulous and enjoy other items’ stats.
Compendium Updates: Two new compendium sections were added to track Tutorials and Race information.
Art Polish that introduced new set dressing, horse handfeeding, performance updates, and child animations.
These patches focused on removing quest blockers, collision issues, and more. We fixed shaky cameras during dialogue, resolved an issue that prevented some players from receiving Weekly Race quests, continued improving navmesh, and more.
To see the full change logs, check out the release notes here: Patch #9 | Patch #10 | Patch #11
New Content Drop: Patch #8 - Chapter 3
This patch was one of our biggest yet and introduced a new chapter and riding island as well as community-requested features like subtitles, keybindings, and environmental jumping! Check out our summary below:
Over 20 New Quests: A new narrative drop for Chapter 3 alongside some new side quests and weeklies were released.
New Ride Island - Sunset Lake: Take a lakeside retreat to a hidden gem and the darling of the archipelago! This map takes you around a beautiful lake dotted with forest trails and cozy nooks.
Environmental Jumping: The first iteration of our mechanics that lets players jump over obstacles outside of races, such as fences and trees.
Custom Settings: Now players can customize mouse and keyboard keybindings and adjust new camera sensitivity options.
Subtitles: This update brought subtitles for our cutscenes and support for future localizations.
New Compendium Updates: Now you can track completed quests in a new section in your Compendium!
New Loyalty Currency: As a small token of gratitude for our Early Access players! This currency can be used, in the future, to redeem exclusive cosmetics items just for EA players.
Fixed an issue where clues during Deer Trail Danger wouldn’t light up when investigated, removed Alfred’s doppelganger in Postman Duties, added quest map markers for several quests, continued to polish Compendium copy, and fixed the knife’s incorrect Egg UI icon.
Check out the full change log here:
Summer Patches: Patch #7 and #6
Our summer patches introduced bug fixes for quest issues, a lot of new cosmetics, our new Emote system, and a lot of different Quality of Life improvements. Here’s the highlights:
New Emote system: This new system lets players express themselves and pet their horse.
Texting and Riding: A new improvement that lets you steer on horseback even while your phone is open.
New Cosmetics: A new shipment of items arrived on the island in this patch, letting players purchase new hats, helmets, bridles, and blanket pads.
Set Dressing: New environmental set dressing across Alderwood Island
Horseback Collection: An update that makes it easier for players to collect items even while riding past on horseback!
Polish: We continued to roll out improvements for our animations, editorial polish, and environmental art errors.
In our sixth patch we fixed several bugs that locked players out of quests, prevented quest completion, and crashes.
In our seventh patch, we continued to resolve several issues that affected quest completion, continued to polish and improve UI - especially for the phone! - and fixed missing collision on the High Coast Trail riding island.
Want all the details? Read the patch notes here: Patch #7 | Patch #6
New Content Drop: Patch #5 - Chapter 2
Our first content update included over a hundred and fifty fixes! This update introduced a new chapter where you retrace Jenny’s final moments with Sarah as well as new content and improvements. Here’s the key takeaways:
Over 50 New Quests: This new quest content included new Chapter 2 quests, side quests, and weeklies.
New Ride Island - High Coast Trail: Descend down the mountain via a series of switchbacks that take you across waterfalls, lakesides, and a charming coast.
Two New Races: These two new tracks are full of challenging jumps, with Alderwood Lap taking you through downtown and across the tracks. Fisherman’s Folly is a winding beachside route just outside the picturesque fishing village.
Daily Gifting for NPCs: A new daily quest that lets you increase faction reputation.
Equipment Upgrades: Upgrade the stats on your equipment for better performance by heading to the Farrier!
Shader Loading Bar: A loading bar on the main menu to indicate when your machine has finished loading shaders.
Animation polish for rider reins, reverse riding, and Dynamic Sky performance improvements.
New Compendium updates and Journal entries for our new quests.
We focused our efforts on rolling out improvements to stability, overexposure issues, and navigation mesh improvements.
Read the full patch notes here:
Post Launch Patches: Patches #4, #3, #2, and #1.
In the three weeks immediately following launch, we pushed out four patches! These patches added a lot to the game: game performance improvements, a ton of bug fixes, and several important Quality of Life additions.
New Race - Forest Weave: A challenging forest track full of twisting turns that takes you uphill.
Character Reset: Due to player requests, we added a temporary reset option so users could adjust their appearance and replay our narrative content!
Pssst.... Our new Stylist NPC is nearly ready! This will let you change your character's and horse’s appearance whenever you want~
Sprint Motion Blur Toggle: Now players can turn off motion blur to prevent getting nausea while sprinting.
Race Sign Posts: To help prevent players from getting lost in the races, we added additional sign posts to all tracks.
The team came together to fix as many critical issues as possible, and as quickly as possible, post-launch. Some of the more important updates included:pesky nav mesh errors, incorrect color renderings for horse markers and PC hair color, race progress not tracking correctly, and improved UI screens across the board.
For the full details, check out the patch notes here: Patch #4 | Patch #3 | Patch #2 | Patch #1