Many systems have been redesigned based on your feedback, existing mechanics have been expanded, and a lot of new content has been added to the world.
Here's what's new:
🌳 Skill Tree System
A complete Skill Tree System has been added.
You can now specialize your characters into different playstyles and create unique builds based on how you want to fight.
Combined with different weapons, elemental effects, equipment, and active skills, the Skill Tree opens up many more possibilities for experimentation and build variety.
🐾 Pet System
You can now find and raise pets throughout your journey.
Currently, you can obtain:
Cats
Wolves
Eagles
Snails
But pets aren't just cosmetic companions.
Every Pet Is Different
Each pet type has its own strengths. Some are faster, some are more durable, while others are better suited for offensive or utility-focused builds.
Even two pets of the same type may not be identical.
Pets can roll different starting and progression stats, meaning you might find an unusually powerful or unusually terrible version of the same pet.
Rare Bonus Stats
Pets also have a chance to gain additional special attributes, such as:
Critical Chance
Life Steal
Defensive bonuses
Offensive bonuses
Other rare modifiers
Finding the perfect pet is partly about luck, giving the system an additional layer of RNG and build experimentation.
More pets including rarer and more powerful creatures are planned for future updates.
🤖 AI-Generated Assets Greatly Reduced
👥 Companion Improvements
Companions are now much more detailed and play a larger role in your journey.
New Companion Stats Panel
You can now inspect companions in detail, including their attributes, equipment, combat capabilities, and progression.
This makes it much easier to decide how each member should contribute to your party.
Relationships & Family
Relationships with companions have also been expanded.
If your companion is of the opposite sex, you can develop your relationship over time, romance them, and eventually even have children.
📊 Detailed Character Statistics
The character statistics interface has been completely redesigned.
You can now see much more detailed information about your character, making it easier to understand exactly where your strengths, weaknesses, bonuses, and build choices are coming from.
⚔️ Combat Changes
The old Attack Bonus mechanic has been removed.
This simplifies combat calculations and allows character attributes, weapons, equipment, and build choices to have a clearer impact on your effectiveness in combat.
🎒 Over 200 Items Added
More than 200 items have been added to the game.
This includes new:
Weapons
Armor
Boots
Equipment
Consumables
Crafting and progression items
Loot variety has been significantly expanded, giving you many more reasons to explore, fight, and experiment with different builds.
🛡️ Expanded Weapon System
Characters can now use a much wider variety of weapons:
Swords
Axes
Hammers
Bows
Crossbows
Magic Staves
Equipped weapons now visually change depending on the actual item you're using.
Finding a new weapon is no longer just a stat increase — you'll actually see your character carrying it.
🔥 Elemental Weapons
Weapons can now possess elemental properties.
Elemental weapons can interact with your Skill Tree choices and active abilities, creating new combinations and combat strategies.
This makes equipment an increasingly important part of defining your build rather than simply choosing whichever weapon has the biggest number.
👕 Visible Equipment
Armor and boots are now visible directly on your character.
Equipment upgrades no longer exist only inside the inventory screen.
As you discover and equip new gear, your character's appearance changes with it, making progression much more visually noticeable.
🧙 Improved Character Models
The previous character designs have been replaced with full 3D character models.
The new characters support the expanded equipment system and make weapons, armor, boots, and other equipment much more visible.
This has significantly improved both character customization and the overall visual quality of the game.
🏆 Achievement System
A new Achievement System has been added.
Achievements now track milestones throughout your journey, including combat, bosses, exploration, crafting, loot, companions, skills, and character progression.
Some are straightforward milestones, while others reward experimenting with different parts of the game.
💻 DirectX 11 Support
DirectX 11 compatibility has been improved.
This should resolve loading and texture-related issues experienced by some players and allow the game to run correctly on a wider range of hardware.
🌍 More Content
The world itself has also received a significant amount of new content.
This update introduces:
New Bosses
New Enemies
New NPCs
New Quests
New Loot
New encounters and things to discover
The goal is to make exploration feel more rewarding while giving you more reasons to prepare different characters and builds for what you might encounter.
🔧 General Improvements
Alongside all of these larger additions, many smaller parts of the game have also been improved.
Balance, UI, progression, combat feedback, equipment, compatibility, and various existing systems have received changes and fixes based on playtest feedback.
There are still plenty of rough edges to improve, but The King's Bargain has changed considerably since the previous version.
❤️ Thank You
Thank you to everyone who has tested the game, reported bugs, shared ideas, and given feedback.
The King's Bargain is being developed by me as a solo developer, so every bug report, suggestion, Steam wishlist, and comment genuinely helps shape what the game becomes.
There is still much more planned especially more build variety, pets, enemies, bosses, equipment, and content to explore.
I hope you enjoy the update.
And as always, let me know what you'd like to see next in The King's Bargain!