Renown news & patch notes

Hey folks

As always, thanks for checking out the latest in Renown. It's been a fairly long patch cycle, and we've got some good stuff to go over. We've overhauled some of the game's most foundational systems, made significant quality-of-life improvements, and taken our first real steps toward making Renown more accessible without sacrificing depth.

A link to our combined patch notes, from early this year to the latest, can be found here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1488310/view/?l=english

Rethinking Progression: A Redesigned Research System

The biggest change in this patch is one you'll feel immediately: the research system has been completely redesigned from the ground up. The old system forced you down a linear path. If you wanted a specific item, you had to buy everything leading up to it, including things you'd never use. Based on the way it was originally coded, we had no ability to change or modify the tree. The new system is category-based and non-linear. You can spend directly into what you want, when you want it. Spending heavily in one category makes that category progressively more expensive, while other categories become cheaper to compensate. But it's the player's choice to make. The total gold you'll spend to reach a fully researched loadout stays roughly the same. What changes is the freedom you have over how you get there.

Inventory & Economy

We've done a full pass on inventory systems and UI across the board. Autosort is back. It's been rebuilt from scratch with proper duplication fail-safes and missing-item prevention. The previous version was very unreliable, regularly causing lost items and other issues. We're hoping this new version will add the intended quality of life, while still being completely reliable. All items now occupy exactly one inventory slot, with the exception of weapons, which take two. The hotbar has also been freed up: any weapon can go in any slot, so bows are no longer locked to your primary. On the economy side, everything has been rebalanced around one-month wipes. This has been a significant recalibration: gold costs, store prices, siege equipment costs. All adjusted to reflect a longer server lifespan. Servers now also restart every 24 hours rather than every 90 minutes, which should put an end to sessions getting cut short at the worst possible moment. The Rogue Trader now stocks every item available in standard stores (minus faction-exclusive items), at a premium. Faction shops remain your best rates.

Factions

A couple of targeted fixes to make the faction system less punishing for new players. Factions now start at Level 1, and you need to drop to -30 reputation before falling to Level 0. That buffer exists so you can make a few mistakes or just learn how the game works, without immediately getting attacked on sight by guards. Factions will also gradually forgive reputation loss over time. Faction swapping is now limited to once per hour. You shouldn't be able to flip allegiances on the fly to game the system, and now you can't. Faction shops have also been fixed: all factions now have a shop, stocking full Tier 1 and Tier 2 sets. The Brimdurn shop is no longer locked behind a key room.

Parties

The party system has been rebuilt. Parties now persist across sessions, so you won't log back in to find your group dissolved. The new management UI lets you create, manage, invite, kick, and join parties cleanly. Parties can be password-protected for quick, secure joining. Owners can promote or demote members, and if the owner leaves, leadership transfers automatically based on member rank. This also lays down the foundations of several systems for when we're able to scale up the size of player groups.

Combat

Archery

We've made a meaningful push toward skilled archery, feeling rewarding rather than RNG-dependent. Random bow spread has been cut from 20 down to 5, and Projectile speeds have been increased across the board. The War bow now correctly sits above the Longbow, and the Crossbow has been significantly buffed. Landing a shot on another player now refunds stamina, rewarding precision and making sustained archery viable in extended fights.

Quarterstaff

The Quarterstaff has been repositioned as a reach weapon. Damage drops from 24 to 15, but range increases from 2.7m to 4.0m. This is now the longest melee reach in the game. It can no longer be crafted; treat it as a valued find. If you like controlling space and forcing opponents to fight on your terms, this is your weapon.

Rondel Dagger

The Rondel has been reworked into something with an actual identity. Attack speed is up roughly 50%. Slash and overhead damage drop significantly, stab damage comes down too, but the miss penalty has been slashed from 10 to 3 stamina. The play pattern is relentless pressure and staying in your opponent's face, playing up the feeling of being in a high stacks Knife Fight.

Siege

Catapult and Trebuchet boulder damage has been reduced substantially (1000/1500 down to 400/600), but boulders now deal splash damage (200/300 respectively). The intent is to push both attackers and defenders toward more tactical thinking — defenders can't just honeycomb every wall with furniture, and attackers need to identify real breach points rather than hammering a single tile. Silver costs for both have been significantly increased to reflect the monthly wipe cycle.

What's Next?

This patch lays a lot of groundwork. The research system redesign has been in the works for a while, and we're glad to have it in your hands finally. We'll be watching how the new economy balance plays out closely. The shift to monthly wipes changes a lot of variables, and we expect to keep tuning. Ultimately, all this is leading up to our next "Free to play" wipe.

As you might have guessed from reading above, we're looking at running this event for a whole month. There is still a ton that can go wrong, but we're hoping you'll be happy with how much has changed since Early Access.

Building

• The key bind popup UI is getting modernised.
• The clunky build mode entry animation is being removed.
• The crosshair will now switch to an X when you're in build mode, so it's always clear what state you're in.
• Equipping the mallet will automatically lock you into build mode rather than requiring an extra step/click. We're also looking at making the mallet just do building mode, so it's not interacting badly with the combat/swing system.
• Bug fix: You currently can't upgrade a structure to the same tier, which breaks certain upgrade flows in ways that aren't obvious. That's getting fixed.

Inventory & Hotbar

• Sometimes items in your inventory become non-interactive. You can't click, drag, or equip them. If this happens, a relog fixes it, or you can work around it by using Ctrl+Shift to transfer all items of that type if you have multiples. While a workaround is good, we're looking to properly fix this bug and others like it.
• Autosort is currently disabled. This was turned off to address a dupe bug and hasn't come back on yet, but it's on the list.
• If your inventory is full, you can't swap items between your hotbar and inventory without having at least one empty slot free. That shouldn't be the case in the near future.

Crafting

HUD

Party/Group UI Overhaul

Tutorial

Bugs & World

• Changing your gear currently causes your character to briefly go invisible. That's a known issue and it's been fixed.
• The crossbow trap can't currently be picked up because there's no way to deactivate it first. We're adding a deactivation mechanic so it can be retrieved properly.
• Persistent parties have been absent for a while and we're looking at bringing them back. This one is still ongoing but is fairly high up on the list.
• Economy: Merchant costs have been increased across the board by 2.5x. This was a deliberate change to reduce gold as an easy shortcut, but we'll be monitoring how it lands with players and are open to tuning it further.
• Mines are currently only producing gems, which wasn't the intent. Ore should be in there too and we're looking at why that's broken.
• Banner notifications are getting a rework. Right now they're too frequent and too visually noisy, and they can stack in ways that make them hard to parse. We're looking at consolidating them into a dedicated section within the inventory HUD so they're accessible without being constantly in your face.
• The map is also due for a review. This could be several dev blogs on its own, but we're in the initial stages of planning out our next map. This will likely be an ongoing thing for the next few months, as we work out how to apply our learning and some of the new tech that's come onto the market since our old map was created.

Next Steps After This

A Note on Raid Mode

Hey folks

We'd just like to say a huge thank you to everyone who checked out Renown over this Free to Play wipe. We'd also like to extend our humble apologies to any players who had their time wasted due to crashes or bugs. Going into the wipe, we'd hoped all of that had been sorted.

However, due to the crashes not occurring on the dev team's machines and our low population levels prior, it was very hard to verify across the wide variety of PC configurations out there. Based on player data since then, we've been able to fix the majority of those bugs.

That said, we're not happy with how Survival is playing and the general loop we're getting players into. We've got some thoughts on what we'd like to change, but we're always keen to hear what players have to say, we've had a good discourse going on our Discord, and we're always keen to have more. Two things are front of mind for the future of Survival:

• Extending wipe times: making each wipe last as long as players could want it to

• Returning to our roots: improving the medieval experience at the core of the game

There's still a bunch of work to be done on the technical side, but we also want to shake things up a bit.

Raid Mode is Coming Back

In the meantime, we're bringing back Raid Mode. This was originally a testing map and game mode we used prior to the Survival map being a thing. It was also really fun, and a lot less overhead for players to get into. This mode puts players on teams with a small premade base and resources. There's a short safe window to build, upgrade your base, and gather supplies, then the safe window drops, and it's an all-out brawl over the bases until one team is left standing. This experience generally went on for an afternoon, as opposed to the full duration of a Survival wipe. Raid Mode can be played in two configurations:

• Team vs Team — 1v1 teams

• 4-Team Free-for-All — 1v1v1v1 teams

We'll of course still have Survival servers running for each region. Raid Mode is there to offer a quicker, less intensive gameplay option alongside it.

What's Next

We're going to bring the Free to Play Demo to an end in the next couple of hours. This is while we work through the data gathered. That said, we'll be looking to run another one in the coming weeks. Some folks might have noticed we went very light on the marketing and promo. We think that was the right call, but we'll be doing our best to properly hype up the next Free to Play wipe. The next Free to Play experience will also start at a proper time for our European friends.

Again, a huge thank you to everyone who played the wipe. Doubly so for anyone who had a less-than-satisfying experience but still took the time to troubleshoot or provide detailed bug reports. That feedback genuinely makes the game better. — The Renown Team

What's Changed Since Launch - Free to Play Wipe!

Thank you very much for checking out the Free to Play wipe of Renown!

This document has been designed so that it becomes more detailed as it goes on.

If you only read the New Feature Breakdown, you'll get a good overview of our work.

If you want more detail, the next section has our work in depth by category.

If you want the specifics of what we've been up to, the article finishes with all of our Patch Notes since the Early Access launch, combined in one place.

Since launching into Early Access, we've been shipping updates continuously across every corner of the game.

Let's get started with a full breakdown of what we've worked on, grouped by area:

Major Advances and New Feature Breakdown

• 2-Week Wipe Cycle - An ongoing process of optimisation and system replacement, with the goal of extending wipe times for as long as we possibly can.

• Basic Combat Training Tutorial - Introduces new players to the Slasher genre. Teaches the core concepts and provides a low-pressure learning environment.

• Treasure System - High-value items to be found. Reduces the amount of clicking needed to farm materials.

• Discord Watchmen - Receive warnings from Discord when your base is being raided. Warnings occur after the first broken base piece to prevent malicious use.

• Ferryman Transport System - Temporary fast travel until Horses are added. Pay a small gold price and move to locations around the edge of the map.

• Sewer Event - A subterranean adventure under Brimdurn.

• Mine Event - The Mines have been Unsealed. Multiple critical locations to give Silver farming a bit more risk/reward.

• Swamp Biome - A marshy location designed to cater to smaller bases. Test bed process for future Biomes, building up to our next map.

• Key & Door System - 3 tiers of locked doors throughout the map requiring keys to enter; keys found in crates, barrels, and on NPCs. Keys are Bronze, Silver and Gold.

• Faction System - Select or change factions at any time; actions in the world affect faction favour; faction shops added to each town.

• Title System - Earn and display titles; titles are now persistent across sessions, with the highest-ranked auto-selected. New titles added: Seeker, Proven, Trialled.

• Crossbow - Added as a new high-tier ranged weapon. Obtainable only from Gold-tier locked rooms.

• New Downed System - No longer instant death at 0 HP. Now players are knocked down and can be lootable.

• Combat Hit Reacts - Entire system redone. New camera shake and blood particle effects. Characters getting hit now visually show this far better.

• Player Ticketing System - New system allows us to directly see critical info when crashes occur.

• Research Menu Refresh Button - Fixes the launch issues around research.

• Better Error Handling on the Main Menu - Players now see a clear reason for lost connections.

• Overhauled Fire Arrow System - Raid defence improvement with new visuals.

• Bear Trap, Spike Trap, Crossbow Trap, and Reset Kits - All added. Trap limits per banner tier introduced.

• Bear NPC - Now wanders the map. Don't get too close or you're in for a big surprise.

Detailed Breakdown

This section gets more into the detailed breakdown of our work since the launch:

Balance

• Plant Fiber spawn rate doubled

• Ground Stone now respawns at the same rate as trees

• Gold Coins from lootables increased to an average of 10 (was a flat 5)

• Research costs reduced across T2 & T3 weapons, Sapper's Axe, Petard, and Steel Tools

• Banner and Bench upgrades now cost Silver instead of Gold

• Some T2 and T3 weapons now have a small Silver cost

• Iron Cook recipe changed to 1:1 (was 2:1)

• Treasure drop rate reduced; sell price increased

• Smithy Hammer and Tailor Kit drop rates increased

• External wall costs increased and health increased

• Raiding made cheaper overall

• Progression pace slightly reduced

• Silver scattered across the map reduced - mines are now the primary source of Silver

• Zweihander, Maul, and Crossbow are now exclusive to Gold tier locked rooms

Combat

Core Mechanics

• Falchion damage buffed to match other T2 weapons

• Missed swing stamina cost standardised to 10 across all weapons

• Swing hit detection changed to box-based to reduce phasing issues

• Improved input queuing for Parry and Release

• Fixed ground hits incorrectly costing Stamina after already hitting a player

• Character hitboxes updated to more accurately reflect armoured players

• Parry turn speed relaxed for a more forgiving feel

• Weapon timings rebalanced across the board for consistency

• Option to disable melee attack input queuing added

• Fixed being able to crouch while staggered

• Fixed being able to parry with a tool

• Chip damage removed

• Held Block added

• Perfect Parry added

• Kicks and Bashes added

• Flourish animations added for all weapons; durations tuned per weapon type

• Fist combat remade from the ground up

• New combat VFX added throughout

Stamina & Parry Tuning

• Morph stamina cost now scales incrementally with each use - up to a maximum of 8

• Feint attack delay increased to 1.0s; feint stamina cost removed entirely

• Out-of-stamina stagger now triggers at 0.9 stamina

• Parry stamina cost changed to a flat 5, regardless of whether it connects

• Parry-into-parry still has no stamina cost

• Successful parry window expanded significantly

• Late Parry Forgiveness added - parrying within 1s of being hit allows parry-into-parry until returning to idle

• Fixed Parry into Riposte into Parry and Parry into Parry lockout bugs

• You can now Feint to Parry out of a Riposte Morph

Bash & Kick

• Bash range increased (8 → 16), horizontal range increased (32 → 64)

• Bash cooldown after sprinting reduced from 1.5s to 0.3s

• Bash turn speed and Kick turn speed both increased for more responsive feel

• Bash stamina and distance values tuned; can no longer immediately run after bashing

• Stagger duration increased from 1.5s to 2.5s

Ranged Combat

• Ranged combat entirely remade - Quiver requirement removed; new arrow damage system introduced

• All bows normalised to the same fire rate and accuracy; fire rate increased across the board with improved animation blending

• Arrow damage and armour penetration tiered by ammo type: Primitive → Broadhead → Bodkin → Bolt

• Anti-Burst mechanic introduced for arrows: damage is rate-limited to 35 per 3 seconds per target, preventing group focus-fire instakills while keeping individual archery strong

• Arrows now deal direct damage to shields; higher tier ammo deals significantly more shield damage

• Pavise Shield health reduced from 750 to 650

• Bolts cannot be crafted - loot-only, found in Gold and Silver locked rooms

• Shortbow and Warbow draw timing fixed for consistency

• Fixed shield animations using incorrect strike morphs

• Fixed Katzbalger having incorrect strike-to-strike morphs

Traps

• Bear Trap, Spike Trap, Crossbow Trap, and Reset Kits all added

• Trap limits per banner tier introduced - Crossbow/Spike: 5–20 traps; Bear: 5–10 traps, scaling with tier

• Spike Traps and walls no longer block each other's placement

• Spike Traps can now be destroyed by Sapper's Axe (120 HP, 10 damage per hit)

• Crossbow Trap arrows no longer stack into a single inventory slot

• Crossbow Trap no longer allows enemy interaction

• Traps now use the default inventory system

Building

• Wood and Plaster structures can now be destroyed at any time using a Building Mallet

• Fixed upgrading a building causing it to regain its destruction timer

• Fixed Spiral Plaster Staircase crashing clients

• Fixed Gatehouse decay issue

• Fixed inability to upgrade external wall stairs

• Fixed floor blocking wall placement

• Fixed all trap placements blocking walls and vice versa

• Fixed the autoplace lock option

• Fixed upgrade costs not displaying properly on optimised buildings

• Owners are now properly hidden in the building health menu where appropriate

• Key creation for keylocks removed

• Optimised buildings now cull at 500m

Raiding & Siege

• Trebuchet added as a new siege weapon

• Trebuchet minimum range reduced to 100m; max range 300m

• Catapult max range extended from 55m to 85m

• Adding/removing trebuchet weight now previews boulder travel distance and strength

• Players now take fall damage when riding siege vehicles

• Trebuchet frame can no longer be upgraded

• Petards can now be placed 2 seconds after another explodes (was 20 seconds)

• Fixed Sapper's Axe not dealing full damage to Portcullis

• Fixed Petard no-build zone remaining after explosion

• Fixed Portcullis taking incorrect damage from siege weapons

• Fixed catapult exploit - players can no longer exit while inside a build zone

• Fixed auto-attacking on exiting a Catapult

• Building pieces can no longer be picked up during a raid

• Fixed being able to pick up objects while being sieged

• Fixed dying or being downed on a siege engine locking the player in place

Map & World

• Swamp biome added

• Mine's visuals improved; resource nodes now drop gemstones; nodes spawn in fixed predictable locations

• Duelling area improved

• Fixed sewer terrain and killzone overlap at Brimdurn

• Fixed animal spawns to match map icons

• Fixed several stuck spots throughout the world

• Fixed walkable beach ground being too low in some areas

• Fixed moss on the riverbed showing the wrong colour

• Fixed tree impostors and floating foliage spots

• Fixed floating loot on the map

• Fixed AI pathing issues across the world

NPCs & AI

• NPC pathfinding improved - especially around doors and stairs

• Fighter NPCs now alert nearby NPCs when attacked

• Town NPCs flee and call Fighter NPCs when attacked

• New town NPCs added across settlements

• AI now correctly locks on to players

• NPCs now stand closer to players when attacking

• Fixed NPC loot tables

• Fixed Bots not being able to attack

• Touched up stairways so NPCs can navigate them properly

Performance & Graphics

• New graphics presets: Low, Medium, High, Epic

• Mipmap overhaul to reduce VRAM usage

• Map Hierarchical Level of Detail (HLOD) improvements

• Foliage optimisation pass

• Mesh culling improvements

• Mesh LOD tuning at various distances

• Upscaling improvements

• Improved object streaming

• New lighting pass across the world

• Framerate stability significantly improved - all GPUs should see smoother frametimes when turning or idling

• Save file performance improvements - player saves load faster after the first load

• Updated graphics settings with clearer, more helpful descriptions

Servers & Community Hosting

• Server reboot interval increased to 2 hours

• All game modes now have an uncapped tick rate

• AFK kick timer set to 10 minutes

• Ping limiter removed

• Server name added to the queue display

• Wilderness respawn cooldown reduced from 30s to 3s

• RCON improvements: better performance metrics, side scrolling, byte size limits, rolling save limit

• Fixed RCON admin adding not taking effect until the next reboot

• Fixed MaxPing cap (now uses int, supporting values above 255)

• Server Browser UI overhauled and reorganised

• Wipe scheduling configs added: bUseOfficialWipeSchedule and WipeSchedulerInterval

• Time Until Wipe element added to the UI

• New Wipe Scheduler System deployed

• Reboot messages made more prominent and accurate

• Fixed Map Rotation bugging out on GameMode servers

• South American servers have been brought back online

Exploit Fixes

• Safe Zone exploit patched

• Dupe exploit patched

• Catapult raiding exploit patched

• Selling animal hide and fat to Vendors removed

• Catapult exit exploit patched - players can no longer exit or look into buildings from vehicles

General Fixes & QoL

• Weapon racks now replicate weapons correctly

• Voice chat issues fixed, including Voiceloop on VOIP

• Lampposts fixed

• Crosshair no longer reacts to the player in third person

• Treasure chests in POIs now have proper names

• Rename Building menu cleaned up

• Additional save validation added

• Sleeper checks improved

• Player name changing from the settings menu removed

• Research bugs fixed; research no longer bugs out in various edge cases

• Tutorial text improved and updated

• Triggering siege mode on your own base fixed

• Crate items now go directly into inventory

• Player reporting fixed

• Recipe sharing fixed

• Banner cloth physics fixed

• Fixed accidentally starting attacks after closing menus

• EAC authorisation improved - fewer erroneous kicks - with a new logging tool for identifying crashes

• Updated localisation

Full Patch Notes - Early Access to Free to Play

The following section is a combination of all our patch notes, starting from our first post, Early Access Launch patch, on the 27th of September 2025, to the 18th of March 2026.

Patch Notes Alpha 3.0.1

Options

• Streamer mode now toggles the Kill Feed off

Features

• Added Player Ticketing menu where you can ask for support from devs directly

• Added better error handling on the main menu so players know why they lost connection

• Added a Wipe Time Indicator to the compass

Balance

• Rebalanced some tools

• Doubled the spawn rate of Plant Fibers

• Changed ground stone to respawn at the same rate as trees

• Gold Coins from lootables increased from 5 to 5-15 (AVG 10)

• Reduced Research Costs of T2 & T3 Weapons

• Reduced Research Costs of Sappers Axe and Petard

• Reduced Research Costs of Steel Tools

• Banner Upgrades now cost silver

• Bench Upgrades now cost silver

• Some T2 and T3 Weapons now have a small silver cost

• Iron Cook Recipe reduced to 1 to 1 (was 2 to 1)

Combat

• Fixed a movement bug

• Buffed Falchion Damage so its in line with other t2 weapons

• Missed swing Stamina cost for all weapons is now 10

• Fixed a bug with Parry into Riposte into Parry

• Fixed a bug with Parry into Parry lockout

• Fixed Parry into Parry mechanics

• You can now Feint to Parry out of a Riposte Morph

• Changed swing hit detection to use a box to reduce the amount of swing phases

• Added better inputting queuing for Parry and Release

• Fixed ground hits costing Stamina when you've already hit a player

Building

• Fixed upgrading a building causing it to regain its destruction timer

• Owners are properly hidden in the building health menu where appropriate

• Fixed spiral plaster staircase crashing people

• Fixed an issue with the autoplacelock option

• Fixed an issue with upgrade costs not being displayed properly on Optimized buildings

Raiding

• Fixed being able to pick up certain objects while being sieged

• Petards can now be placed 2 seconds after another blows up (was 20s)

Exploits

• Fixed Safe Zone Exploit

• Fixed Dupe Exploit

• Removed selling animal hide and fat to the Vendors

Map Fixes

• Fixed animal spawns to match icons on the map

• Fixed some holes you can get stuck in

• Fixed walkable beach ground being too low in some areas

• Fixed moss on the riverbed being the wrong color

• Fixed some tree imposters

• Fixed some floating foliage spots

• Fixed some floating loot on the map

NPCs

• Fixed an issue with Bots not being able to attack

• Fixed NPC Loot

• Changed AI pathfinding so they stand closer to the player when attacking

• Touched up some stairways so NPCs can navigate them

Servers/Community Hosting

• Player cap to 100

• Server Reboot time upped to 2 hours

• Fixed IdleTimeOutTime, its now in the gamemode configs

• Made the rebooting message more obvious

• Fixed MaxPing using a byte, now it uses an int and can be set to values higher than 255

• Fixed an issue where Map Rotations would bug out on GameMode servers

• Fixed adding admin via RCON not taking effect till next boot

General Fixes

• Fixed an issue with Weapon racks not replicating their weapons accurately

• Fixed an issue voice chat

• Fixed Lampposts

• Fixed the crosshair reacting to the player in 3rd person

• Gave the Treasure chests in POIs a proper name

• Cleaned up the Rename Building menu

• Added additional Save validation

• Added some checks for Sleepers

• Removed the ability to change your name from the settings menu

• Fixed some instances of research bugging out

• Improved the text in the tutorial

• Fixed triggering siege mode on your own base

• Fixed being able to parry with a tool

• Updated localization

• Updated the tutorial

• Fixed an issue with the server browser

• Fixed Portcullis taking wrong damage amounts from siege weapon

• Fixed an issue with Petards

• Fixed an issue where Gateways would decay sometimes

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.5

Optimization/Performance

• Save File Performance Improvements

• Player saves are now accessed faster after the first load

Features

• Player names are now handled by the steam profile name

• Title System First Implementation

• Treasure System First Implementation

Combat

• Fixed losing stamina from ground hitting after hitting a valid target

• Added box hit tracers for melee swings to reduce phasing

• Fixed shield animations using strike morphs

• Changed character hitboxes to be more accurate to players wearing armor

• Relaxed parry turn speed

• Rebalanced many weapon timings for consistency

• Altered Arrow Damage

• Added a setting to disable melee attack input queuing

• Fixed being allowed to crouch while staggered

• Fixed Katzbalger having strike to strike morphs

Building

• Fixed an issue with gatehouses decaying

• Removed the ability to make keys for keylocks

• Interacting with Crafting benches now opens the crafting menu correctly

• Optimized buildings now cull at 500m

• Fixed not being able to upgrade external wall stairs

Raiding

• Fixed sappers axe not dealing full damage to portcullis

• Fixed Petard no build zone dropped on explode

• Prevent picking up building pieces during a raid

NPCs

• AI should now lock on to players correctly

Servers/Community Hosting

• Servers Reduced to Main Survival and 2x Survival Per Region

• 3x Changed to 2x

• South American Servers Back Online

• Wipe pushed back to 6pm Local

• Reboot message in survival says it will reboot instead of shut down

• Fixed adding admins via RCON not taking immediate effect

• Ingame RCON side scrolling

• RCON Improvements for better performance metrics

• All gamemodes now have their tick uncapped

• AFK kick timer is now 10 mins

• Added server name to the server queue and resized the menu elements

• Added a byte size limit on RCON replies

• Added a rollingsavelimit cvar

• Doubled RCON maxuptime

General Fixes

• Fixed a bug with Voiceloop on VOIP

• Crate items go directly into inventory

• Fixed player reporting

• Fixed a crash with wooden spiral stair cases

• Recipe Sharing Fixes

• Fixed Banner Cloth Physics

• Fixed accidentally starting attacks after closing menus

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.6

Features

• Added Research Menu Refresh Button (temporary research disappearing fix)

Balance

• Treasure drop rate decreased heavily

• Treasure sell price increased

• Smithy Hammers and Tailor Kits drop rates increased

• Balanced External Costs (Increased) and Health (Increased)

Exploits

• Fixed Catapult Raiding Exploit

Servers/Community Hosting

• Server Browser UI Improvements

• Fixed LastWipeTime Incorrect Value

• Added Config bUseOfficialWipeSchedule

• Added Config WipeSchedulerInterval

• Added Time Until Wipe Info element

• Fixed Issue for Wipe Date info element

• Reduced Wilderness Respawn Cooldown to 3s was 30s

General Fixes

• Fixed auto attacking on exiting Catapult

• Fixed Claymore blood mask

• Fixed Blacksmith Bench floating slightly

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.8

Main Features

• Added Sewer Event

• New Camera Shake and Blood particles

• Added Hit Reacts

• 2 Week Wipes

• Ferryman Transport System

• Swamp Added

• Flourish for All Weapons

• New Downed System and Animations

• Added Beartrap, Spiketrap, Crossbow Trap, Reset Kits

• New Lighting and Optimization Pass

• EAC Authorization Editing (Less getting kicked) and Logging Tool (Identifying crashes and kicks)

Balance

• Treasure Changes, Drop Rate Decreased

• Smithy Hammers and Tailor Kits increased

• Raiding Cheaper

• Progression Slightly Slower

Combat

• Removed chip damage

• Held Block

• Perfect Parry

• Kicks and Bashes

• New VFX Added

• Entirely Remade Ranged Combat

• Removed Need for Quiver

• New Arrow DMG System

• Simplified Differences between weapons

• Fist Combat Remade

Building

• Can Now Destroy Wood and Plaster at any point using a building mallet.

Raiding

• Trebuchet Added

• Dummy Boulder Added

• VFX and SFX Updates

• Fixed Boulder Destruction Collision Issue

Exploits

• You can no longer exit a catapult when within the bounds of a buildpart

Map Fixes

• Mines Sealed Until Mine Event Completion

• Fixed Stuck Spots Winterhold

Servers/Community Hosting

• Re-Organized Server Browser

• Removed Ping Limiter

• Added a new field for time until next wipe

• Wipe Time Should Show Correctly

• New Wipe Scheduler System

General Fixes

• Many many fixes

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.7.1

Small Combat Balance Changes

• Buffed Bash range 8 -> 16

• Buffed Bash horizontal range 32 -> 64

• Buffed Bash Cooldown after sprinting 1.5s -> 0.3ms

• Buffed stagger duration 1.5ms -> 2.5ms

• Buffed successful parry and held parry into parry window from 0.6ms -> 2s

Added late Parry forgiveness: If you parry within 1s of being hit you can parry into parry until reaching idle state or windup Developer Notes: Bash is almost unusable, this should make it a little more enticing against aggressive opponents. The parry changes aren't really buffs, they just make parrying a lot less clunky.

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.8.1

Performance Changes

• Map Hierarchical Level Of Detail improvements

• Foliage Optimization

• Mesh culling

• Mesh Level of Detail changes when close up and further away

• Upscaling improvements

• Updated setting options

• Updated setting descriptions to better help players understand what the settings will change.

• Framerate stability

Developer Notes: There is still more work to do for those with weaker GPU's. But no matter the GPU everyone should notice much more stable framerates when turning or idling.

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.8.2 BETA

Combat Changes

• Kick turn speed increased: 3 -> 5.25

Bash

• BashTurn speed increased: 3 -> 5.25

• Can no longer bash and then immediately run

• Stamina cost on miss: 0 -> 3

• Stamina gain on hit: 10 -> 3

• Stamina drain: 5 -> 0

• Bash distance reduced: 16 -> 12

Animation Adjustments to Flourish

• 1H weapons: 3.0 -> 1.5

• Longsword: 3.0 -> 2.5

• Greataxe: 3.0 -> 2.5

• Polearms: 3.0 (unchanged)

Traps

• Crossbow traps no longer return all arrows into a single inventory slot

Spike Trap

• Spike traps and walls no longer block each other

• Can now be destroyed by Sapper's Axe

• HP set to 120 (12 hits)

• Trap damage from Sapper's Axe: 10 per hit

Banner Trap Limits By Tier - Crossbow and Spike Traps

• Tier 1: 5

• Tier 2: 10

• Tier 3: 15

• Tier 4: 20

Bear Traps

• Tier 1: 5

• Tier 2: 6

• Tier 3: 8

• Tier 4: 10

General

• New bear spawn locations

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.9.3 Part 1 - Gameplay & Combat Changes

Combat Updates

• Morph stamina cost: 0 → now increments by 2 up to 8 (0, 2, 4, 6, 8)

• Feint attack delay: 0.65 → 1.0

• Feint stamina cost: 10 → 0

• Out of stamina stagger: now triggers at 0.9 stamina and under

• Parry stamina cost: 6 stamina on connect → 5 stamina whether it connects or not (Parry into parry still has no stamina cost)

Developer Notes: The goal with the stamina changes are to put more agency into attacking. Defense is really strong right now and we wanted to balance it out a little more. Bows

• Fixed inconsistent draw timing on Shortbow & Warbow - all bows now have the same fire rate and accuracy

• Added Crossbow

• Quivers removed from the game

Developer Notes: All bows keep equal fire rate & accuracy for simplicity amid changes (differ only in projectile speed - prioritize accordingly); Crossbow is the heavy hitter that will almost fully crack shields later. Weapons

• Zweihander now only obtainable in Gold tier locked rooms

• Maul now only obtainable in Gold tier locked rooms

• Crossbow now only obtainable in Gold tier locked rooms

Siege Engines

• Trebuchet minimum range: 150m → 100m

• Trebuchet max range: 300m (unchanged)

• Catapult minimum range: 45m (unchanged)

• Catapult max range: 55m → 85m

• Adding/removing weight now shows strength & boulder travel distance

• Players now take fall damage when on vehicles

• Trebuchet frame can no longer be upgraded

• Fixed bug where dying/downed on siege engine locked player in forever

Traps

• Crossbow trap no longer allows enemy interaction

• Traps now use the default inventory system

Tutorial

• Basic training combat tutorial released

Developer Notes: We plan to add more complex combat tutorials in the future, but this should be enough to get beginners started.

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.9.3 Part 2 - World, Systems, Visuals & QoL

Survival Map Bug Fixes & Changes

• Fixed sewers poking through ground at Brimdurn

• Fixed sewer killzone overlapping Brimdurn

• Fixed some AI pathing issues

• Fixed broken NPC loadouts

• Improved dueling area

• Silver scattered around the map has been reduced

Factions

• You can now select/change factions at any time

• Fighter NPCs will now alert other NPCs when attacked

• Actions in the world now affect your faction favor

• Faction shop added to each town

Developer Notes: The faction system is still a WIP and there is a lot we will be rushing to add to the system. More on this later. NPCs

• NPC navigation improved (especially doors and stairs)

• New town NPCs added

• Town NPCs now run when attacked and call fighter NPCs for help

Developer Notes: The town NPC's also have a lot still being added such as wandering the world (not just in towns), woodcutting, mining etc. Key & Door System

• Added 3 tiers of locked doors in various map locations (require keys)

• Keys found in crates, barrels, and NPCs (very low drop rate)

• Locked rooms contain increasingly valuable loot

• Special Secured locked rooms which are gauranteed to contain loot with special conditions

Developer Notes: Again, we want to expand much more on this in the following month with things like plagued areas, restricted areas, and other places that can't be entered through regular means. Mines

• Visually improved

• Resource nodes now have a chance to drop gemstones

• Mines can be farmed/controlled

• Nodes spawn more predictably and in fixed locations

• Significantly more silver (now primary way to get silver)

Building

• Fixed bug where floor blocked wall placement

• Fixed all trap placements blocking walls (and vice versa)

Graphics & Performance

• New graphics presets: Performance, Low, Medium, High, Epic

• Mipmap overhaul to reduce VRAM usage

• Improved object streaming

Titles

• Titles are now persistent

• If no title selected → highest ranking title auto-selected (Pressing "remove title" stops this behavior)

• New titles: Seeker, Proven, Trialed

Steam Achievements

• New Trial By Fire Steam achievement added (plan to add many more achievements over time)

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.9.4 - Archery and Shields Update

The Big Picture: Archery is being shifted from an early-game niche to a viable mid-to-late game option. By introducing a new "Anti-Burst" mechanic (for arrows only), we can buff fire rates and armor penetration without allowing groups to "one-shot" players through focus fire. Ammo Scaling

• Bolt (T3): 35 Base Damage | 0.625 Armor Pen (5 hits to kill T3)

• Bodkin Arrow (T2): 25 Base Damage | 0.46 Armor Pen (10 hits to kill T3)

• Broadhead Arrow (T1): 25 Base Damage | 0.3 Armor Pen (16 hits to kill T3)

• Primitive Arrow (T0): 25 Base Damage | 0.0 Armor Pen (205 hits to kill T3)

Shield Damage (New)

• Bolt (T3): 200 Damage

• Bodkin (T2): 100 Damage

• Broadhead (T1): 75 Damage

• Primitive (T0): 35 Damage

• Pavese Shield: Health reduced from 750 to 650

Mechanics and Loot

• Arrow Damage Cap: Damage is now rate-limited to 35 damage per 3 seconds (continuous regeneration). This matches the reload time of a Crossbow, preventing instant-death from coordinated groups while allowing for faster individual firing.

• Fire Rate: Increased across all bows with improved animation blending for a more responsive feel.

• Gold Rooms: Now have a chance to spawn Crossbows (includes 20-40 Bolts).

• Silver Doors: Now have a chance to spawn 20-40 Bolts. Note: For now bolts cannot be crafted; they are high-tier loot only.

Developer Notes: Right now, archery is in a weird place where it's really strong at T0 but becomes irrelevant fast. Part of the reason for this was our concern about players running in groups and wreaking havoc with ranged focus-fire. Melee slashers are a very unique concept with a huge learning curve. And while we're happy with the state of combat, we believe a second option should always be possible for those who want to pick up the game and do well quickly. With the new Anti-Burst mechanic, we can effectively limit overall group damage to match the output of a single player. This allows us to make the bow and arrow a truly viable option throughout the game, while still keeping it slightly weaker than melee overall, no matter the amount of arrows hitting the same player.

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.9.6

Combat & Gameplay

• Crossbow trap: removed 2× damage modifier

• Fixed numerous bow and arrow issues related to accuracy and damage

• Stamina no longer affects bow and arrow dispersion

• Reworked bow and arrow crosshair UI to better represent dispersion

AI & NPC Behavior

• Some NPCs will now always aggro players regardless of faction

• Added Aggressive behavior to all outsider NPCs (not yet applied to secured doors)

Developer Notes: Some NPC's do still represent factions but we're placed and designed to make certain area's dangerous and provide loot. The faction system implementation has caused all Human NPC's around the world to be safe to walk by which isn't what we intended, so now these specific NPC's will aggro anyone and can be killed without hurting your faction score. Factions & World Interaction

• Pillaging and stealing are now recognized by the faction system

• Added on-screen indicators for faction updates

UI & UX Improvements

• Chat messages now highlight when someone @mentions you (disabled in streamer mode)

• Fixed a bug where titles would not clear properly

• Improved Seeker title visual effect

• Reworked inventory scene capture

Bug Fixes

• Fixed broken textures on houses in Brimdurn

• Removed building optimizer causing multiple visual building bugs

Graphics & Settings

• Added new graphical settings options

Developer Notes: We have the technology! Graphics and performance should be at an all time high when utilizing our graphical preset buttons. Unfortunately though, this means all of your current graphical settings will be reset once more to what the game determines what's best for your PC.

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.9.7

Combat

• Players can now parry using tools

• Increased weapon turn cap by ~30-40% compared to Early Access

Developer Notes: Oh melee... We've given you so much love and attention that we feel we can trust you just a little bit more not to cause grief... (On top of melee tutorial, bows, shields, bugfixes, etc.) we fill this won't hurt beginners as much as it did in early access. Archery Changes

• Holding a bow reduces movement speed by 10%

• Drawing a bow reduces movement speed by an additional 20% (30% total)

• Switching to the bow costs 10 stamina (yes every time)

• Arrow stamina cost increased: 5 → 15

• Arrow damage bucket adjusted: 25 damage per 3 seconds → 25 damage per 4 seconds

Developer Notes: We're really happy with how the bow feels right now. What we're not happy with is how strong it becomes when multiple players use bows against a single target. So, we're aiming (no pun intended) to push players into making a choice: commit to the bow, or commit to melee. Right now, you can fire arrows at little cost, potentially deal damage, then safely switch to melee without losing anything. That's not ideal. These stamina changes are designed to heavily punish players trying to benefit from both the offensive power of the bow and the safety of melee at the same time. The movement slow is simply there to reduce how effectively players can kite with a bow. Shield Changes

• Shields can now block arrows while held blocking (if facing the projectile)

• Barrel lids T0 shield added (T0 primitive shield)

Developer Notes: Shields were meant to be the counter to a solid archer but currently it feels unreliable due to the different hotboxes of each shield. Now at the cost of stamina, you can gaurantee your safety if you hold up your shield against the arrow. Factions

• Fixed an issue where faction points would sometimes not update correctly

• Added a faction shop to each town

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.9.8

Combat & Balance

• Decreased bow stamina cost per shot: 15 -> 9

• Fire arrows now deal bonus damage to siege equipment

• Fire arrows now apply damage over time to siege equipment — up to 150 damage over 5 seconds (30 DPS)

• Siege equipment can now catch fire

Developer Notes: Fire arrows are making a comeback and function as they used to. Shoot them at catapults and trebuchets to do good damage from afar — if you shoot enough in a short period of time the equipment will catch fire to deal more damage over time.Server & Systems

• Server reboot interval increased: Every 2 hours -> Every 5 hours

• Idle timeout increased: 5 minutes -> 30 minutes

• Added Discord integration to notify players when their base is under siege (experimental)

Developer Notes: Nobody likes being offline raided, but nobody likes being told they can't do what they want to do either. We're introducing @Renown Watchman to help you watch over your base while you sleep and alert you here on Discord straight to your direct messages when it detects your base is being raided. This is a very experimental and new feature that is very early in development and should not be relied on for complete base security. We hope that this will create a more engaging experience and will tightly monitor how it effects the game. To use it make sure you can receive DMs from the bot, and then type /Register to get started.Misc

• Removed auto-sprint

Developer Notes: This is bittersweet — we love auto-sprint and it was a hard decision to make, but ultimately we've decided it's best to remove this feature. Auto-sprint is too good not to use for combat, but not polished enough to make it the default option for beginners, and because beginners don't know about it they are immediately at a disadvantage. There are other reasons too, but this is our biggest issue. We want to reimplement it as soon as possible as the default. That's everything we've shipped since the Early Access launch. Thank you for being part of the Renown community - we're genuinely really excited for this next chapter. As always, the best place to share feedback, report bugs, or just talk about the game is our Discord and the Steam forums. - The Renown Team

Renown Free to Play Wipe is now LIVE!

Hello folks

We are super excited to announce that the Renown Free to Play Wipe is now live! If you've played Renown before, you might be interested in checking out what's changed since Early Access. We've provided a very detailed document for exactly this reason: Click here to read the full changel

Notice for Returning Players

Due to anti-exploit changes, you'll need to remove any lines from your launch option parameters to be able to join servers. These can be found by right-clicking on Renown in your Steam Library and clicking Properties.

We also strongly recommend deleting your Config folder before verifying your game files, due to the large number of changes and fixes to how Renown is configured. To do this:

Hey Folks

We are happy to announce that we have locked in the date of the Free Week, March 20th 5 PM PST!

If you have been wanting to check out the game or just been waiting for some more population now is the time to jump on board, grab ya mates and a few sharp sticks and have a roam!

For those who do not own the game, you will need to download the "Demo" which will be available on our Steam page when it goes live on the 20th. This is the full game, and you will be able to play on the same servers as those who own Renown.

We will be releasing a combined patch note of everything we have done since launch for anyone interested in a quick look at the changes. We've done a ton of work on the game since early access. Our latest dev blog can be found at:

Secondly, we would love to run a test this weekend at 12 pm PST on Saturday, if anyone who owns the game can jump on for 30 minutes or so to stress the servers and some of the new systems, that would be fantastic. The event is here if you would like to sign up. We'll have event info on our Discord if interested: https://discord.gg/DAdGfbHA

We're super excited, and hope folks will have a blast.

Hello everyone

We’ve got a big developer update to share, covering several major systems we’ve been working on. These are:

• Keys & Locked Loot Door gameplay

• NPC Life and Faction Reputation

• Performance and Graphics Improvements

• Titles & achievements

• Bow/Crossbow updates

A lot of this work is focused on making the world feel more alive, improving performance on a wider range of PCs, and setting up stronger progression systems for the future. This dev blog is also a mix of completed, in the works and future ideas for Renown. We’ll be putting out a dedicated “What’s changed Since Launch” document covering all the changes that are in-game for our upcoming Free-to-Play Wipe.

Keys & Doors System

Doors have been placed across towns (with multiple doors in each town), and key interaction is already implemented in those locations.

Three Key Types

The current system uses three key tiers:

• Bronze

• Silver

• Gold

Two Types of Locked Rooms

There are two categories of locked doors, and both require keys, but they serve different gameplay roles.

Secured Rooms

These are explicitly marked as secured and are designed to be reliable and consistent spaces. They have:

• Guaranteed loot inside

• Guaranteed to be empty/safe when entered (Camper Protected)

Comes with a trap/timer mechanic to move the player on after a time.

Regular Locked Rooms

These are standard locked rooms that still require keys, but with less certainty:

• Loot is not guaranteed (it may already be looted)

• Players may already be inside even if the door is closed

However, the Regular Locked Rooms have a higher RNG value to them. This means while riskier, the player could see more rewards or none depending on how popular that specific POI is, how many players are actively doing keys, and their individual luck.

Planned Expansions

This system is also being designed to scale. Planned additions include:

• Town-specific keys (for example, keys that only work in a specific town like Yarlsford)

• More trap variety depending on room type such as incorporating the Crossbow and Spike Traps.

NPCs: Bringing Towns and the World to Life

A major focus right now is using NPCs to better support the fantasy of being a known (or infamous) figure in a living world.

Current NPC Behaviour:

At the moment, NPCs are mostly ambient and local to their areas. They currently:

• Walk around when locked onto a player

• Attack with very little logic or communication to the player

This gives off a very artificial and robotic feel to all the NPCs

Planned NPC Behaviour (Partially Built)

The logic for deeper NPC behaviour already exists, but it hasn’t all been fully enabled yet because it still needs testing and tuning.

Planned behaviour includes:

• NPCs roaming beyond town areas

• Players being able to follow NPCs as they work (e.g. chopping trees)

• Roaming NPCs are killable by players

• NPC resource gathering feeding into world systems over time

In the future, we want NPC world activity to feed loot into secured rooms. In other words, what NPCs are doing in the world could directly affect what ends up behind locked doors in specific towns or cities.

NPC Role Variety

There’s also ongoing work around expanding NPC role types and making them feel more grounded in the medieval setting.

That means more specific job roles (like mining vs woodcutting), and potentially more accurate naming conventions rather than overly generic labels.

Warrior vs Civilian AI

One area we’re working on, is to split NPCs between being Fighters or Runners. For example, it’s a bit strange (if not a bit goated) that the monks in the Church in Dannamore immediately attack the player on sight.

Instead, we’ve implemented a new class of AI to represent civilian AI that will prioritise running and hiding over directly attacking players. These AI can still be hunted down and killed, and will drop small amounts of loot.

We’ll also still have our current combat AI type, which will continue as a warrior/defender style role for said civilian NPCs.

Factions & Reputation: A More Reactive World

The long-term direction for factions is simple in principle:

Everything the player does, either directly or indirectly effects the reputation system.

This system is being built to make towns and settlements feel like they belong to real powers and to give some weight to player behaviour. Players will have the option to be “Sworn In” by their chosen town on the map. This kicks off the player into the reputation system. From there, actions that affect reputation are:

• Breaking crates in town (treated as pillaging)

• Stealing loot / opening secured doors

• Killing NPCs, especially guards, fighters, or knight-type NPCs

We’re starting with very simple triggers for Reputation gains and losses, but this system gives us a ton to work with in the future. For example, it’s currently being designed to tie into the “Mission” system we’re prototyping.

However, this begs the question: What happens if I have a low reputation with a town or city?

If you are disliked / “unrenowned”, it’s planned that civilian NPCs may:

• Heckle you

• Throw tomatoes

• React with social hostility

If you become feared (very negative standing) NPCs may:

• Run when they see you

• Scream warnings

• Trigger hostile knight responses

• Cause guards/knights to attack on sight

Crime Clarity (A Big UX Focus)

One issue identified in testing is that players may not always realise when they’ve committed a crime or lost faction standing.

To fix that, a few options are being considered:

• A clear on-screen alert (e.g. “You’ve stolen” + faction penalty)

• A grace threshold (for example, no lethal response until the player reaches around -5 standing)

• Potential witness logic (crime only counts if NPCs see it)

The main goal of this is to make it clear when a player is actually affecting reputation as opposed to just looting something in the wild.

The Faction Shop

One of area we’re experimenting with at the moment is unlockable faction stores by progressing down the reputation system. The original idea of this was that specific shops would have specific items for cheap, such as components or kits.

An alternative idea for the faction shop is that it could act as an individual boost for players. For example, as the player hits “level 1” reputation with a town or city, a limited selection is opened for the player, which they can return to as they level for small boosts as they increase rep. We’d be very keen to hear your thoughts on this one on Discord or Steam.

Graphics & Performance Upgrades (Unreal Engine Focus)

This is one of the most important sections for many players, especially those dealing with poor FPS, stutters, or crashes. A ton of recent work has focused on identifying why performance was poor even on strong PCs and fixing the root causes.

Why FPS Was So Low on Good Hardware

The main issue wasn’t just “too much stuff” in the world. A major cause was an inefficient texture and streaming setup, causes severely high and unneeded VRAM usage.

Texture Resolution Rework

Previously, many assets were using:

• 2K textures

• Sometimes even 4K textures

For many players (especially on 1080p displays), this was simply more texture load than they would ever visually benefit from. Textures have now been reduced to a more appropriate range (roughly aligned to 1080p needs), which should significantly reduce unnecessary GPU workload.  

VRAM Streaming Fixes

Another major issue was that textures were not always streaming in/out properly.

That meant the GPU was still “considering” textures even when they were:

• Not on screen

• Not near the player

• Not relevant to the current view

This has now been heavily improved so textures:

• Stream in properly when needed

• Degrade with distance

• Stop being considered entirely when far enough away

While this is a fairly standard step for modern games, physically setting this up on Unreal Engine 5 was “impossible” by old standards and represented a big breakthrough for Moxie.

CPU-Side FPS Improvements

The survival map contains 20,000+ objects, and many of them were not being culled or despawned properly at a distance.

That created a heavy CPU load, even on systems with strong GPUs. This, in turn, meant bad performance for folks with even very high-end PCs.

The render view distance system has now been significantly improved, and view distance being limited should now have a much more meaningful impact on performance.

Graphics Settings Presets (and Better Defaults)

One area we massively struggle with is professional User Interface (UI) work. We’ve never been able to find a proper UI programmer (someone who understands both UI design and implementation). As such, and to help players avoid accidentally wrecking performance by changing advanced settings due to the menu being very cluttered, the settings menu is being reorganised around clearer presets.

Current / planned presets include:

• Performance mode (temporary ultra-low mode to squeeze out FPS)

• Low

• Medium

• High

• Epic

The recommendation is that most players should use these presets rather than manually adjusting individual settings.

There are also plans to collapse advanced settings behind an “Advanced” button, so new players aren’t immediately overwhelmed or misled by technical options, but is still easily accessible for folks who want it.

Automatic Preset Detection on First Login

One important quality-of-life change we’ve made is:

On first login, the game now detects your GPU + VRAM and auto-assigns the most suitable preset.

The goal is to prevent the classic bad first impression where a player launches for the first time and immediately gets unplayable FPS.

Crash Reduction

A lot of hard crashes were linked to VRAM overuse. These changes should reduce those significantly by preventing runaway memory pressure. There's also been specific work going into fixing the root causes of the worst crashing bugs on launch.

We’ll be putting out a separate troubleshooting guide for players struggling with crashes, with tips for how to do clean reinstalls and which launch options to pick when crashing.

Titles, Achievements, and Cosmetic Identity

Titles are becoming a much bigger part of the player identity, and they’re being leaned into to reinforce the medieval/knightly fantasy vibe. This is also to honour our backers with their in game useable titles from Crowdfunding rewards.

These are along the lines of:

• Seeker

• Fallen Founder

• and more progression-based or prestige titles

How Titles Are Unlocked

Titles are intended to be unlocked through achievements.

• The first Steam achievement is already in

• More achievements are planned

• Achievements will directly grant title unlocks

Titles are also a main crowdfunding reward.

If you’ve activated a Skins DLC pack, the Titles should also unlock for you for that tier and below.

Where Titles Show Up

Titles will appear in multiple places, including:

• Chat

• Hover/nameplate UI

• Above the health bar

This should make them feel like a visible part of the player identity, not just something hidden in a menu.

Title Auto-Equip Logic

On login, the game can automatically equip what it considers your “best” title (typically highest rank).

However, if you manually choose a title — or choose no title — the game will respect that and stop auto-switching.

Bows & Crossbow Update

Ranged combat has also seen improvements, particularly with bow projectile handling.

Bow Improvements Already Landed:

The bow projectile system has already been updated and should now feel:

• More fluid

• More accurate

• Better overall to use

Bow Tier Structure

Regular bows now effectively cover Tier 0 through Tier 2, with only projectile speed improvements between tiers.

Crossbow Returns as Tier 3

The crossbow is back as the Tier 3 ranged option, with a distinct role:

• Not craftable

• Only obtainable through the Keys & Doors loot system

The intended balance between crossbows and Bows are:

• Crossbow: slower reload, high damage, strong against shields and tier 3 armour

• Bow: faster fire rate, more flexible pressure, Weaker against Armour and shields

Free to play Wipe update

As a fairly constant topic of discussion on our Discord, we wanted to update folks on the latest regarding a free-to-play period.

In this case, we’re planning to run a full wipe as free-to-play. Working with Steam, we’re not able to do a traditional “Steam Free Weekend” for that long, but we can host a “Demo” version of Renown. For the duration of the wipe, the “Demo” will give anyone who wants it full access to the game.

After this is done, we plan to convert the demo into a free-to-play, single-player learning experience. One bit of feedback we received was that newer folks to the slasher genre didn't want to risk the 2-hour, 2-week refund window just to learn to fight. The idea here would be to let players access the tutorial and practice against NPCs without the monetary worry, given it's a pretty rough time all around the world at the moment.

Our next dev blog will list in detail the exact additions and changes to Renown since our Early Access launch, alongside the detailed patch notes for the free-to-play build. We’ll also be sharing details on when the free-to-play period will start (currently, we’re aiming for next week or the one after).

As always, folks, thank you so much for hanging with us, given how rough the launch has been. We’re not expecting this patch alone to fix all the issues, but we hope it represents a good bit of change, and we can promise it builds on to some much more exciting plans that we’ve got in the works.

Hello Folks

As always, a huge shout out to our awesome community for helping us make our dream game. We know things are a bit grim atm, but our spirits are up, and we’ve been making awesome progress.

Roadmap Update – Stage Zero

Things have been a bit quieter since we posted our first major update. However, since then we’ve been making great progress, specifically towards FPS optimisation, and Crash fixing.

A big goal of Moxie and KZ’s work has been improving performance in a range of key areas. As such a big issue that was impossible to solve previously, has related to how the game handles VRAM. Anyone who played will know Renown makes a pc chug away.

We’ll have a blog in detail about this topic coming soon as we hit internal milestones.

Map Flow Redesign – Silver Mines, Locked POIs and Keys

One area that’s been receiving a lot of love relates to our work redesigning how the game flows around the survival map. I’d just like to say another huge thank you to everyone on our discord for their ongoing feedback and discussion regarding this topic.

Ultimately this is a range of changes which seek to promote more activity outside of the players base and its general area. Our goal is to make it so players can still get started and build a base without too much trouble, but to upgrade and raid, they’ll need to get more out and about.

Silver Mines – Gathering redesign

One of the big changes is the inclusion of the Silver Mines and changes to how silver spawns on the map. Previously all the players had to do for silver was to farm outside their base in a boring and repetitive loop.

Now four silver mine sites have been opened across the map. There will still be smaller amounts of silver spawning in the wild. However, if players want large scale amounts (like that for a big raid), they’ll need to compete over the choke points and confines of the mine locations.

We’ll be carefully monitoring how this change directly affects the raiding balance and making corrections if we’ve gone to far into the scarcity direction.

Locked POIs and Keys:

A key area we’re playing with at the moment, are major overhauls for the Points of Interest. Currently we’re doing it slow and steady, step by step but our goal is to redesign each of the points, so they have clearer and better siloed loot locations.

We’ve been using the term “Loot Silos” to refer to new gates and challenges we can add, which allows us to split up the loot so drops can be higher value, with higher risk attached.

Given previously all the points of interest had a very flat set of loot, we’re starting with the classic three tier key system, and related locked gates across all the points. These will be Bronze, Silver and Gold (I know very original) which players will be able to find, and which gain the player access to specific loot locations all over the map. We’re hoping this ties in well with the Ferryman system added in the Major Patch #1.

We’re very keen to hear folks feedback on this one so we can get the exactly correct balance of risk/trouble and the rewards attached to them.

NPC Life overhaul

Another area we’ve been wanting to do for ages is an overhaul on NPC life and the addition of NPC faction gameplay.

The NPC Life work is entirely focused on giving the NPCs a facelift when it comes to how they move, talk and handle themselves. Currently all the NPC’s act like mindless robots. We’ll likely do a few iterative versions of both of these systems as we make them more complex.

The first version aims to add in “Civilian/Non-Fighting” NPCs. This then allows us to redistribute the more code and server performance-heavy “fighting” NPCs around the map to complement the above-mentioned Key system addition. Alongside this, it should help the Points of Interest feel more lived in and give players a bit of a more entertaining time going the full “Pillaging” route on towns.

We’ll have another dev blog on the way in the next week or so. In it we’ll be going into more detail about contained fixing/optimisation, more content and map redesigning, alongside details about our Free to Play Session coming soon.

Hello Folks

Please see as follows for the patch notes for our latest update:

Patch 3.1.8.2 - Combat Changes

• Kick turn speed increased: 3 -> 5.25

Bash:

• BashTurn speed increased: 3 -> 5.25

• Can no longer bash and then immediately run

• Stamina cost on miss: 0 -> 3

• Stamina gain on hit: 10 -> 3

• Stamina drain: 5 -> 0

• Bash distance reduced: 16 -> 12

Animation Adjustments to Flourish:

• 1H weapons: 3.0 -> 1.5

• Longsword: 3.0 -> 2.5

• Greataxe: 3.0 -> 2.5

• Polearms: 3.0 (unchanged)

Traps

• Crossbow traps no longer return all arrows into a single inventory slot

Spike Trap:

• Spike traps and walls no longer block each other

• Can now be destroyed by Sapper's Axe

• HP set to 120 (12 hits)

• Trap damage from Sapper's Axe: 10 per hit

Banner Trap Limits By Tier Crossbow and Spike Traps:

• Tier 1: 5

• Tier 2: 10

• Tier 3: 15

• Tier 4: 20

Bear Traps:

• Tier 1: 5

• Tier 2: 6

• Tier 3: 8

• Tier 4: 10

General:

• New bear spawn locations

We're still building up to a free weekend for Renown. Keep tuned here or on our Discord for the latest news.

Hello Folks

From the entire RDBK Team, we hope everyone is having an awesome holiday season.

This is just a quick dev blog with our latest patch notes.

We’re effectively focusing on optimisation for FPS and fixing any of the legacy crashing bugs.

3.1.8.1 Performance changes

• Map Hierarchical Level of Detail Improvements

• Foliage Optimization

• Mesh culling

• Mesh Level of Detail changes when close up and further away

• Upscaling improvements

• Updated setting options

• Updated setting descriptions to better help players understand what the settings will change.

• Framerate stability

Developer notes: There is still more work to do for those with weaker GPU's. But no matter the GPU everyone should notice much more stable framerates when turning or idling.

TIP: For players experiencing framerates under 60FPS, please try launching the game in DX11

TIP: If you’re loading up the game but not seeing any servers, or getting a “Connect Failed” error. Try launching the game in Administrator Mode.

From the entire RDBK team, we’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone whose given the game a shot so far or backed our work previously.

While the launch has been rough, we’re super excited about this coming year and what could happen in the future of Renown.

Hello folks.

Thank you, as always, for checking out the latest in the world of Renown.

Our first major patch post-launch has just gone live on the main branch. We've done our best to address feedback, concerns, and replace the main pain points. We've also been able to add new content and overhaul existing content. We really hope you enjoy!

Please see below for a summary:

Major Update Summary:

This substantive update overhauls combat, adds new content and systems, improves raiding, optimizes performance, and includes countless fixes and polish. New Content & Feature Highlight

• Swamp Region added

• Ferryman Transport System – Fast travel between key points

• Sewer Event (polished, decorated, and re-enabled after fixes).

• New Traps: Beartrap, Floor Spiketrap, Crossbow Trap, Tripwire triggers, and Trap Reset Kits.

• Trebuchet siege weapon fully implemented with added tracer/dummy boulders, building mechanics, VFX/SFX, and camera shake on impacts.

• 2-week wipe cycle with new wipe scheduler for reliable official/community timing.

• New lighting/graphics overhaul and optimization pass

• Flourish emotes added for all weapons (hold emote key).

• New downed system with reworked animations and restrictions.

Combat Overhaul

• Added Held Block (up to 10s) and Perfect Parry with brief damage immunity on successful parry.

• Kicks/bashes reworked: faster, no stagger, no morphing (useful vs blocks only).

• Entirely remade ranged combat: no quiver needed, new arrow types/damage system, tracers, sticking arrows, reliable hits, smoother animations.

• Fists combat fully remade with new animations, effects, and flourish.

• Weapons simplified into 3 classes (1H, 2H Fast, 2H Slow) with standardized stats except damage.

• Hit reacts, camera shake, blood particles, new VFX/SFX (parry sparks, armor sounds, etc.) across all weapons.

• Multiple animation pops, equip timings, and major combat bugs fixed

Balance & Progression

• Treasure drop rates lowered; sell amounts tweaked.

• Smithy Hammers & Tailor Kits increased; raiding costs reduced ~30%.

• External building costs/health increased; progression slightly slower.

• Can now destroy Wood/Plaster (up to Tier 3) at any time.

Raiding & Building

• Trebuchet + boulder improvements (prediction, impacts, sounds, no collision on rubble).

• Fixed boulder/building collision issues.

• Catapult tweaks (distance reduced, exit exploit fixed).

Servers & Quality of Life

• Reorganized server browser with accurate wipe timers and "time until next wipe" field.

• Removed ping kick – Players can play on any region now without being kicked for high ping.

• AFK timer increased to 1 hour.

• Respawn timer reduced to 3s.

• Admin fly fixed + speed modifier (mouse wheel).

• Research menu refresh button.

• Numerous map fixes (stuck spots, collisions, floating objects, sealed mines until event).

Hello Folks

With some happy news, we’re finally ready to present our first major patch since launch. This blog is an accompaniment to our latest Vlog which can be found here:

Renown - Major Update #1 and Free Weekend News

Given that the video is more to show the visual element, we figured it would be best to expand on the list we posted in that video’s description. These are:

Other New Additions

• New Swamp Biome

• Bows Improved/Simplified

• Spike Pressure Trap

• Crossbow Trap

• Ferryman Location Selection

• Sewer Event

• Swamp Biome

• Polearms Enabled

• 2 Week Wipes

• Combat Overhaul - Held Block, Regular Parry, Perfect Parry.

Combat Overhaul - Held Block, Regular Parry, Perfect Parry.

We’ve got a bit to go through, but we’re sure the main question on a lot of minds is, what did we do to the combat system?

In effect, we’re attempting to lower the barrier for entry, while not lowering the overall high skill ceiling of the game.

We’re also looking to directly address the ping problem so we can remove the ping limiter from all official servers.

We’ve attempted this via three key changes to the combat system:

Held parry:  We added held parry as a way for newcomers to learn the ropes without getting destroyed by drags and morphs. While held parry is useful, its detrimental to your stamina so as players get better they will slowly step away and just focus on trying to get regular or perfect parries.

Regular Parry: Regular parries are pretty much the same idea as our old parries they are just quick parries to deflect a hit while still using a little bit of stamina

Perfect Parry: Perfect parries are harder to land as you have to hit your parry off at the last second but with that risk, comes reward of no stamina loss. The perfect parry is notified via blue sparks so you will know when you hit them off

As mentioned this also flips the dynamic for High ping vs Low Ping play. In the past, high ping, high skill players had a disproportionate advantage. This was due to only having a simple click to block system. Now if there is any ping advantage, it's with the lower ping player via the perfect parry system.

(This same post on our Discord has short WEBM videos showing this off, which Steam doesn't accept as an upload)

2 Week Wipes

We’ve seen the massive amount of demand folks have had for extended wipe times. In the past we had a misinformed mindset of how much demand this would have. Our apologies for not catching on sooner.

In this case we’ve done a decent amount of tinkering with the save system and other limitations to longer wipes. That said we can only really test this by putting it in action.

As such we’re raising the wipe period on official servers to 2 weeks. Community servers are of course free to set any wipe duration they desire.

We’re still expecting some performance issues into the 2nd week, but this would also provide us the exact data we need to continue to raise the wipe window. Our goal for this is of course to raise the supported wipe window to 3 weeks, then further and further, as time goes on.

Polearms Enabled

Polearms are back, with a couple of needed changes. In this case, we’ve disabled the Morphs on polearms given they were really not up to the quality needed. Not a ton to say here, but we hope you’ll enjoy them in game. We’d also like to extend an apology to any backers who had a Polearm skin but could not previously use it. This is now rectified.

Sewer Event

The Brimdurn Sewer Event is now live and ready to be played. This event sees players delving into the depths below Brimdurn Castle. Watch out for Riff raff, Guards and other players as you seek for hidden treasure and glory.

The Brimdurn Sewer Event can be entered via the back of the cathedral in town, or via the two external entries to the North and South of town.

Likewise, this is a better one to experience then to read about, but we very much hope it’ll add a little more fun to the map.

Swamp Biome

Alongside his other work, KZ has still been cracking away at new content. In this case, we’ve got a new biome to add to the map. This is the first test in a larger process for eventually expanding or adding new maps in. We hope plays will have a good time making sure their “legally distinct green ogre” dreams come true.

Ferryman Location Selection

Likewise, the Ferryman system will be seeing its debut this patch. Put simply this is a network of points around the edge of the map, for which players can pay a small 100 gold fee to travel long distance. This is to help combat the “Walking Sim” nature of the game, till we add in horse and other vehicle systems.

We’re starting with fairly open and unrestricted settings for this system, but we do have methods of balancing, should it be needed.

Let us know how you’re finding this system, and what you feel could be added or balanced. 

Crossbow Trap and Spike Pressure Trap

Given the videos can take a while to make, the Bear trap was the only one to make it into our recent update vid. That said we’re very happy to present you with the Crossbow Trap and the Spiked Pressure Plate Trap. These will both be seeing an introduction alongside the Bear trap for this upcoming patch.

The Crossbow trap works with a tripwire. When triggered it fires an arrow, or several arrows depending on its setting, towards the intended direction. Plays can put in any type of arrow they can craft (Wood, Iron, Steel). They can also select how many arrows should be fired per tripwire trigger (stepping on the trap). The universal “Trap Rearm Kits” can also be used to auto-rearm the crossbow trap while in base.

The Spike Pressure Trap works via players stepping on a 1x1 floor section which triggers the trap. This slows any players in its effect area and applies damage per hit. “Trap Rearm Kits” can be used to dictate how many times the trap should re-fire.

For all of these traps, if they are placed within the banner radius, they will not trigger on authorised persons.  

Bows Improved/Simplified

One area we’re really excited for, is the overhaul for Archery. This is split into two main areas of logic.

First the overall feel, and experience of shooting Archery in game, has been completely redone. It’s now a lot faster, sharper and just generally feels a lot nicer to use. This also includes new hit feedback for headshots and the like.

The other area was to simplify and remove a lot of the old restrictions. After discussing it in the team, we all agree no one really cares about the quiver being needed, or limits to what you can have in your action bar. Ultimately folks just swapped things around in their bag anyway, getting around the restriction but adding more Jank.

With this correction, archery should be a lot more valid as a method of combat, feel a lot nicer to use, and is all in all easier with fewer restrictions to confuse or annoy the player.

As always folks, thank you for all the awesome support.

We’ll have full patch notes, patch release info and the free weekend details coming soon.

Hello Everybody

As always thank you for checking out the latest in the world of Renown.

This dev blog is intended to be a look into our current plans for next patch, and a short roadmap for our current activity. This one is a bit of a longer written number, focused on keeping you up to date with the team's thinking.

Internally, we’ve been working on development in 3 key areas for the upcoming patch. These are:

1. De-Jank

Polish, stability, clarity. This pillar focuses on making Renown feel better to play and improving QoL in game.

2. Content

New gameplay systems, world events, and features that expand the world of Renown.

3. Longevity

Extending wipe cycles, improving systems that support long-term play, and raising the skill ceiling without raising frustration.

Starting with De-Jank, let's chat over what we’ve been doing as a team.

De-Jank

Combat Feedback & Polish

Combat has undergone its largest quality pass since the early alpha. The entire team has been putting the majority of their time into this realm of development. This whole area is better shown and experienced than talked about. However, we want to save a lot of that until it's ready to be pushed in all its glory.

Though we will quickly cover the areas the combat is being improved and polished.

• Combat Mechanics Changes and Overhaul

• Hit Reactions (Animation, VFX, Screen Effects,Sounds)

• New Parry Animations and Reactions

• Combat Balance Changes

• Overall Sound Improvements

• Phasing and Desync Fixes/Improvements

• Ping Filter Removal (Official Servers)

Once these changes are finalized we will be creating a more in depth developer update showcasing the changes.

Lighting & Visual Improvements

Kz has been hard at work on our new lighting overhaul. He’s been pushing a full lighting pass using more accurate Lumen settings and preparing the game for a more realistic day/night cycle. This is part graphical enhancement, part de-Jank: better clarity, better readability, and more atmosphere.

Optimization

This is also a major focus area that’s been ongoing since launch:

• World Partition improvements

• Better instancing

• Cleanup of client-side performance drains

• AI and pathing improvements

• Fixes for falling-through-map spots

• Building exploit fixes and general QoL updates

Theres not a ton to say for this area, but we hope you’ll feel it in game. 

Bows and Ranged Combat

This area of the De-Jank is currently still in the planning phase; however, it’s been a major point of discussion in the team.

Effectively, the ranged element of the game is entirely off at the moment. Archery is not a fun or satisfying system currently. It can roughly be used as an advantage in base defence, but in almost all other scenarios, the bows are a disadvantage.

Likewise throwing Weapons are hard to predict and are not a flexible enough system to be used regularly in close to mid-range combat.

Its very likely the Ranged Overhaul will see its own Dev Blog. Our current thinking is we want the early game to feature more ranged gameplay, with it being reduced as players get into Full Plate at the end game. 

We’re of course still looking at endgame ranged options, but this is more likely to be specialised endgame weapons like crossbows.

Content

While a ton of work has been going into de-janking and optimisation, we’re still pushing for new content as quick as we can.

Traps – A New Layer of Strategy

Traps are finally becoming a fully-fledged system in game.

Trap Types currently being explored are:

• Bear Trap

• Spike traps (1/4 and 1/2 foundation sizes)

• Droppable cage with escape minigame

• Possible Crossbow trap:

  • Single-shot baseline

  • Reloading / periodic-fire version

  • Advanced rotating “four-by-four” arrow volley concept

(Let us know in Discord, all your creative ideas about what types of traps you’d like to be added to Renown.)

Placement Rules

This area is likely going to need a lot of balancing to get traps feeling good, without being an overly frustrating experience. We’re actively balancing abuse prevention vs. creative use via:

• Inside your Banner: traps persist and won’t trigger on allies. The maintenance system can be used to prevent the de-spawning of traps in the base and banner range.

• Outside your Banner: Traps can be placed in limited numbers and auto-expire after a given time to prevent spam and griefing of enemy bases.

Arming / Disarming UX

In an aim to prevent mid-fight cheese, traps will use:

• 5-second hold-to-interact arming or disarming (time will vary with balance)

• Currently uses the existing trapped-progress bar UI

• Will be changed over to a more polished UI element in time.

Re-Arm Kits

Each trap has its own internal inventory. You can deposit craftable Re-Arm Kits, which are consumed with each activation. This ensures traps are powerful but finite. This also allows players to create a level of soft offline defence, without traps becoming a default place everywhere item.

Enemy Counterplay Item

Metal Sheet: This is a one-use, higher-cost item that allows one safe pass over spikes or other base-related traps.

Traps are a major part of the Content pillar because they aren’t just “more stuff”. They can act as a soft offline defence layer, a new PvP mind game, and a big marketing showcase feature.

Implementation of the Ferryman:

The Ferryman is effectively complete and ready to deploy, hopefully in our next patch.

This was explained in better detail in a previous dev blog. To be short, it’s a transport method to help reduce the “Walking Sim” nature of the game and allow for greater player interaction over wider areas of the game map.

The Ferrymen system will likely see changes after horses and other transport options are in, but in the meantime, this acts as a quasi-transportation method.

New Events and POI Changes:

We’ve also got several new events in the works.

Sewer System Event:

The first of these is the new Sewer System. KZ has been hard to work, and the programming team has just been able to implement the script for them. Ultimately, we’re looking to add as many new elements to the map as possible while continuing to work on the other key areas of development.

Underground Mine System Event:

KZ mentioned that the new event after this will be the Mines system we’ve had on the back burner for months. This event would see players exploring abandoned mine shafts and other deep places in the world to find Gems and Glory.

We’ll likely see the Mines System coming in a subsequent patch.

Trebuchet Implementation:

We’re very excited that the Trebuchet is ready for this upcoming patch. This will act as our new endgame raiding item, with the catapult being moved closer to the mid-game. This has been the brainchild of Phanzor in recent weeks, and he’s also already programmed a new “Dummy/Tracer Ammo” for the Catapult and Trebuchet. This will allow players to create low-cost ammo, which can be used to accurately get on target, without wasting precious raiding resources.

A ton of work has gone into both the flying Bolder effect, as well as the impact felt in base when under attack via Catapult or Trebuchet. This one is better experienced in-game, but we think folks will be happy with the change.

NPC Life:

Another area we’re currently looking at is giving the NPC’s more life and expression. This includes pathing changes, idle and roleplay animations to make towns feel alive. We’ve also been experimenting with the AI speaking in Old English or Old Norse, but this is still experimental. Currently, the NPC changes will be coming in a later patch. 

This is all leading up to greater NPC interaction systems, with the possibility of trading and reputation with specific towns, Player Territory Control and various other PvP-RP elements. This section could also be its own dev blog and will likely be bundled with the NPC Base Worker system we’ve had planned for years.

While the launch of Renown was a bit bumpy, we cannot accurately express how excited we are to be in a position to start adding new content again while being able to fix up the Jank.

The final area to cover in this week's blog is:

Longevity

Extending Wipe Cycles

This is a key area we’ll put our hands up and say, we made a mistake regarding our initial implementation. This was dependent on our Save System rework, but was also something we got wrong in our initial assumptions on 1 week vs longer wipes.

Once safe, we aim to push wipe cycles past a single week. Recent progress already shows really good stability gains. We’re fairly confident on 2-week wipes now, while 3 weeks should, in theory, also function. We of course need to run populated servers for this duration to really tell, however.

We can say, allowing for longer wipes is a prime goal of the team, based on community feedback. The end goal of this would be to have servers that rarely, if ever, wipe, allowing players to really get invested in a server. 

We’re hoping the expansion to 2 weeks, then 3 helps with this feeling in the short run. 

Map Redesign & Loot Flow

A long-term map pass will restructure POIs and loot progression tiers to create a more coherent mid and end-game experience.

Given that the entire map is effectively made by KZ, we’ve never had a ton of spare resources or time to effectively subdivide and “Make Fun” the various areas of the map. For example, you can see we’ve already split the map into coloured territories. This is partly to play into a future player map mechanics, but it was also so we can split the map into High Tier and Low Tier areas.

We’re currently looking at adding locked zones and keys to the POIs and some basic puzzles to add a bit more interactivity in POIs

We’d also like to introduce newer “Safe Zones” around the map, for player and NPC traders, and to give newer players a place to practice dualing without the pressure of gear fear.

Optimisation for Long-Term Play

Server load, client performance, AI overhead, and network responsiveness all contribute to how long a wipe can run smoothly. These are all under active work as part of the Longevity pillar. Ultimately, there’s not a ton I can say her,e but we hope you’ll feel it after the next patch.

Hey folks.

As always, thanks for checking out the latest news in the Renown World.

We’re on the edge of a fairly substantial patch atm.

We’ll have direct feature spotlights coming real soon.

For now, we’ve got a shorter and sharper update with more of the “on the ground” situation in Renown.

First off, I’m very excited to reintroduce Moxie:

Hello everyone! I'm Moxie, the new Lead Programmer of Renown. I already have a long history with both Renown and RDBK Studios, and I’m incredibly excited to help shape this game into the best version it can be.

In my career, I’ve worked at seven different studios, with more than five years of professional game development experience exclusively in Unreal Engine, using both Blueprints and C++. Nothing makes me happier than being here with all of you, building the world of Renown together.

Since stepping into the Lead Programmer role, a lot has already taken place. From new animations and a complete overhaul of sieging, to the introduction of the trebuchet and extensive improvements to the combat experience. There’s just plenty I’d like to cover.

For now, a brief note on combat. It’s received major visual updates to animations, sound effects, and visual effects to improve clarity and feel.

We’ve also squashed a number of bugs, including issues with hit registration (phasing), stagger inconsistencies, and various visual glitches.

We’ll be doing a full breakdown and briefing on combat changes in detail, hopefully next week.

Oh, and for all the archers out there.. bows are being completely redone very, very soon. They’ll finally be a truly viable option.

We’ll be sharing much more detail when we’re ready to reveal everything that’s new in the combat system.

But you can count on this next update to deliver: Critical bug fixing, smoother and more accessible combat for newcomers without lowering the skill ceiling, and most importantly, Clarity.

Before I wrap up, I also wanted to mention that multiple traps and the ferryman are confirmed to be in the game by next month!

Thanks for reading, and thank you all for your continued passion and support. We’re just getting started, and I can’t wait to show you what’s next for Renown.

Given our Lead Artist, KZ, normally has more of a show-don’t-tell mentality, he’s done a quick explainer for what he’s been busily up to:

Kz here!

I’ve been deep in the combat and visuals lately, really trying to make everything feel responsive and satisfying. The goal is for every action in combat to be clearly signalled—whether visually through animations and VFX, or through audio cues.

I think this will really enhance the overall combat experience, especially when it comes to landing hits and feeling truly immersed, instead of that older “gliding with a lightsabre” vibe. 

I’ve also been working on sounds, aiming to make everything feel more distinct and realistic. The idea is to tighten up the combat while still clearly communicating important gameplay information.

We want knights to feel like knights, not silent thieves sneaking up on you. (Also, RIP to the first helmet I forged at home - it took one for the team). 

As mentioned in the last few dev blogs, I’ve been adding more content and events—things like sewers, mines, and carriage encounters. Just more ways for players to engage with the world and have fun.

Lastly, I’ve been working on a lighting overhaul. I’m pushing it closer to realism while keeping performance in mind. This isn’t just for visuals; it’s also part of prepping for the upcoming day and night cycle.

Old:

New WIP:

That’ll bring back meaningful uses for torches and night raids. It’s a huge task since every time of day needs to look great and play well, no pitch-black nights, please. 

The day/night system will definitely add more structure to players’ in-game arcs and open up some really cool opportunities for creative plays.

Thanks again for checking out the latest news in the Renown Development World.

We'll be back soon with some exciting news regarding upcoming updates to the game!

Hello everybody.

We’ve got a ton in the works for the next patch, and all of this is gearing up for a larger content update in the near future.

Till then we figured we should show off the behind the scenes, for what’s going on in the Renown Development world, at the moment.

Introduction to one of our Mystery Programmers – It was Phanzor the whole time!

We are delighted to introduce one of our programmers, Phanzor, who recently transitioned from a long-standing role as a Discord moderator to a full-time developer on the project. Below is a brief message from Phanzor:

“Hello all

I’m Phanzor and I’ve recently been fully onboarded to the project after being a long-time moderator here on the discord.

I am currently working on the siege system. This has involved reworking projectiles to increase their impact with players. We’ve done this to improve the feeling of being involved in a siege. It also lets us make them more modular, allowing us to implement newer variants (i.e. flaming boulders). This opens up the entire system for easy development for some cool ideas, such as; Anti-Personal Catapult shots, Cheap Tracing/Guiding shots, and maybe even an airborne human option at some point.

This also comes with fixing up and adding in the trebuchet. We’re also making it so raid sounds are heard from farther away. Previously the impact and feel from being under attack was underwhelming. It also missed out on a key Survival Raiding troupe, of being able to hear a raid from a long distance and act as a 3rd party.

Recently also I finished up the new wipe system making it more reliable and introducing a scheduler to ensure servers wipe at the correct times and advance the date correctly afterwards.”

We’re super excited to have Phanzor full time working on the team. While there is still a lot of sharpening and fixing still to be done, we’re really excited for the future of the game. Next time we’ll hear from Moxie a long-time programmer on our team and our other “Mystery Programmer” mentioned last week.

KZ has mainly been hard at work with Combat Feedback and improving the direct feel of the combat system. We’ll have a whole dev blog dedicated to just the Combat system and its changes coming in the next week or so. Till then KZ has also been modelling and animating some cool new features.

The Carraige and Caravan System

The first of these are the new traveling event in game. These are the Merchant Caravans and the Royal Carriages.

To begin with, these will be AI controlled Carriages which travel around the map. If players find them, and can do enough damage, the Carriage will be stopped and lootable.

They’ll have a basic foot escort of Mercenaries for the Merchants, and Knights for the Nobles. This should add some excitement to the mix and gives us system to scale with the value being carried.

In the future KZ has mentioned he’d like to have the AI escorts riding on the carriage. For example, the back of both the noble and merchant vehicles has a step for riding along, or places at the front to ride “Crossbow”. This should also add a level of dynamic fun given the carriages could move a lot faster this way.

Further beyond this, we’d love for players to be able to create and ride along in their own carriages or caravans. KZ already had a video from a WIP riding system, but it’ll need a fair bit of love before it’s in game ready. However, this is stil a tangible step toward to the mighty medieval wagon fort!

The Ferrymen – A new fast travel system

The other area KZ has been working on, is the design and implementation of our new fast travel system “The Ferrymen”.

In this case we’re still looking to redo the entire vehicle system in game when we add in horse and cavalry. Till then we’ve got a fairly large map, and not a ton of ability for players to move around.

The quick solution for this in the meantime, is a simple network of Fast Travel points separated around the coast of the map.

The main idea being this should help with greater player interaction over the map, and better Quality of Life for any longer journeys the player regularly takes.

We’ll be starting with it fairly unrestricted, but we’ll be looking at options to add fees or other balance gates if it’s causing less fun than it’s helping to make.

This of course hints at a greater system of player rideable, and then controllable boats and other watercraft, after the aforementioned Vehicle system can be overhauled. River logistics was a huge part of the medieval world, and who doesn’t love a good sea battle at the end of the day.

Stay tuned for next week's "Fresh of the Forge" update. We'll be covering Combat changes and various other exciting bits planned for the next patch.

Hello Everyone We hope you have all had a great week! There has been a heap of changes and advancements here at RDBK. There is a lot to get through, so let's crack straight into it.

Connection Issues, Fatal Errors First, to address the progress made on the connection issues and crashes, we have since on-boarded the amazing folks at Code Wizards to help solve these issues, as they are far more knowledgeable in EAC than we are.

Once this is pushed to live servers, all we ask is for anyone still experiencing the issues to please grab these new logs and make a ticket here in the discord. This should directly be able to tell us a lot more information on the cause of the issue so we can get that fixed and behind us.

Combat Its become incredibly clear to us that the current combat is our number one issue, its almost entirely collectively agreed that this is not it, and we have come to agree. There are many reasons for this. Firstly, the phasing and desync issues have been uncovered to be a problem systemic to the current implementation.

The skill ceiling and barrier of entry for new players is also incredibly high. Any game with full-loot and raiding is a hardcore game. Combining that with our current combat might have just pushed that a little too far for the majority of players.

So now to discuss what we have decided to do; As mentioned, the current code of the combat is causing most of our issues. We could either spend 2 months trying to pull it apart and put it back together again, or we could spend the same time designing a new, simpler system that is more in line with what our player base wants.

However, there will still be changes to the current combat over this time. We will be using our current combat as a test bed to play around with different mechanics and find what works best for Renown.

Ultimately, we are hoping to create a system that still allows skill expression but is not be overly oppressive for new melee combat players. This way, at least they’ll be able to understand what's going on and feel as if they have a chance to enjoy the combat before being killed.

Combat Feedback

Combat feedback has also been a massive issue. Parrying and hitting players had little to no impact; at times, you might not even know a hit has been landed. We are working on implementing hit reaction animations, blood effects, camera shake, and parry sparks; these all in conjunction should create a much more punchier and immersive combat experience.

Optimization & Performance

The next major point of development work is, of course, Optimisation and Performance, both on the client and the server. In terms of client performance, we have identified two major systems that will help a lot in this regard. One being World Partition and the other being Skeletal Mesh Merging. These two systems should greatly improve client performance, allowing more players to be in one place at the same time and considerably lowering the cost of the map.

Regarding server performance and the weekly wipe requirement, we identified the current save system as the main issue.

With targeted improvements and rewrites, we believe we can achieve biweekly and eventually monthly wipes.

Optimisation and Performance is constantly a major focus of ours; we are always looking for any area we can squeeze performance out of.

Bows & Thrown

Renown was always meant to be a fast-paced game, but our bows and thrown feel slow and clunky. This was never intended, and over time, they were changed and shifted so many times that they now just feel horrible to use. We have opted to create a much simpler, faster system for bows and thrown, something that feels snappier and more inline with the game we are trying to create.

On top of just how they feel to use, we want bows and thrown to have a much more important place in the progression and PvP interactions of Renown. These should be weapons that most people use in the early game and only really become more obsolete as people are entering into full plate. We are also planning on adding the ability to throw all weapons and items that can be held.

Large Content Updates & Smaller Patches

Over the course of the development of Renown, we have had an issue with content and changes being pushed before they were adequately tested and confirmed to be working. \\

We want to make sure that going forward, when we do large content updates, these are in a more polished state and are ready to be used in-game.

We have finally been able to work on implementing development streams. This is a system that allows development work to be broken off into branches, allowing larger systems to be worked on in isolation, only being pushed to the main branch once they are ready.

This will allow us to push smaller patches that address bugs and exploits as they arise rather than having to work around larger updates. This goes hand in hand with our player count. Renown relies on having a server of players for people to enjoy, it would make more sense to have larger updates that bring back a bunch of people all at once than lots of smaller ones.

Expanding the Development Team

We are aware there are some concerns in the community on our current player count and our ability to continue development. Again, we just want to reiterate that the team has never been in a better position to push forward and build Renown into what it needs to be.

We will help quell those concerns through continued updates and improvements. One of those ways we are working towards that goal is by expanding our team. Since release, we have on-boarded 2 new programmers, and are in discussion with two more who will be specifically brought on for the new combat systems.

Additionally, we are now working with Prismatic Studios, a Gold Service Provider of Epic Games. They have been assisting on any high level issues we experience.

Finally, we wanted to let everyone know MR.Z is no longer working on Renown due to creative differences. Game development is not an easy business, and it's very common for people to have differing views.

It's understandable for people to worry that this will negatively impact the speed at which we can develop. The new programmers have been getting a handle on the project a lot faster than we could have imagined, and we are back into full swing already.

Due to the above changes, we are now able to start working in C++, which will allow us to create systems that, at a base operate 10-30% faster and more efficiently than Unreal Blueprints. It will take time to move all our major systems over to C++, but at least now we can make a start.

Geforce Now We had a lot of people reach out to me asking about Geforce Now. We went away and worked with Nvidia to get Renown up and running on that system. It should now all be operating correctly. If you experience any issues, please create a ticket and we’ll reach out to Nvidia to get that fixed up.

Patch 3.1.6

3.1.6 is following suit with our earlier comments in keeping it a smaller patch, addressing some particular issues while we save the bulk of our work until it's ready for a large content update.

The main problems being addressed in this patch are the catapult exploit fix and a new system for fixing the research disappearing bug as well as some balance changes to the treasure system.

We want to thank you all for sticking with us! I'm so excited to show off what we are cooking up. Keep an eye out for the next “The Road Ahead” update, where we discuss some of these future systems in some more depth.

Patch Notes

Features

• Added Research Menu Refresh Button (temporary research disappearing fix) 

Balance

• Treasure drop rate decreased heavily

• Treasure sell price increased

• Smithy Hammers and Tailor Kits drop rates increased

• Balanced External Costs (Increased) and Health (Increased)

Exploits

• Fixed Catapult Raiding Exploit

Servers/Community Hosting

• Server Browser UI Improvements

• Fixed LastWipeTime Incorrect Value

• Added Config bUseOfficialWipeSchedule

• Added Config WipeSchedulerInterval

• Added Time Until Wipe Info element

• Fixed Issue for Wipe Date info element

• Reduced Wilderness Respawn Cooldown to 3s was 30s

General Fixes

• Fixed auto attacking on exiting Catapult

• Fixed Claymore blood mask

• Fixed Blacksmith Bench floating slightly 

Volker here!

This is something the team wanted to start doing to kind of show appreciation for the awesome community we have and show off some of the things that stick out to us in the community as well as give an insight to the appreciation for the stuff all of you do. We love every piece of creativity the community shows us, whether it be art, a screenshot of them with their friends, or even just some video of them screaming in the mic killing someone in game. While the team's heads are down coding and doing all the tedious developer stuff, I've been sifting through the community looking at the awesome things you all have made. So here we go, enjoy the first of many Community Updates!

Connection Failed

A lot of users have been experiencing connection failures on our launch and in light of the situation one of our community members in the discord Rose made this great piece below to remind us of our mistake (sorry Rose we will do better we promise)

Epic Clan Photos

The epic screenshots above come from our community members GalaxyGG32, and alariclothbrok. We love seeing all the different group photos with your friends so keep them coming. Fun fact: the studio name RDBK actually comes from a Rust Clan we were in years ago RDBK (Redback) before starting Renown.

Player base or POI?

This awesome base that was posted by our community member Dime, was all built on 1x (yes that makes it extra impressive) There are so many epic bases to show but I thought this one would be an awesome one to share. We love seeing the massive builds people make that feel as if they could almost be POI's or apart of the world. We're also planning on getting a build server up eventually so you architectural geniuses of Renown can have a playground to build in hopefully soon.

Renown the movie?

We'll be finishing off this Community Update with a video from our community member Spanks! There were so many different videos I could have shown that we absolutely loved and I will probably even show in future Community Updates, but this one stuck out to us because of the creativity and overall silliness. Lastly, a huge thanks to all of you in our community showing your awesome creativity and overall passion for Renown, it means the world to us.

Welcome to Octobers 1st The Road Ahead - Plans and Discussions

This is where we talk through our ideas, discussions and planned work. This could be right around the corner or a little further down the line.

Balance

Once the treasure system and new server events are implemented, balance will be the word of the month. I'm sure things may feel too easy or too hard while these systems are finding their place in the progression of the game. Just know we will be making tweaks, some good and some bad, until we hit the right spot. We want treasure to be a meaningful aspect of teching up while also not being so important that an ambush on a treasure run means the end of your wipe. We have also been finding that 3x seems a little over tuned, we are going to be trying 2x instead to see if that feels a little better. 

Traps

A big one being discussed internally is our first iteration of defensive traps. These could come in the form of Bear traps, Caltrops, Tripwires, Crossbow Turrets, Oil Pots, False Floors and of course pressure plates with swinging weapons. A great option for extra base defense against unwanted intruders, both those that have raided in or those who have snuck in. Nothing screams get out like a face full of hot oil. To keep things simple, we will start with a select few, making sure they function as intended and then expand our options over time.

Mission Systems

At the end of the day Renowns progression boils down to one thing, collect gold and research new items, craft said items with components and resources and bobs your uncle. We have always intended it to be a simple, easy to understand system, one which we can add to over time. The mission system is one of the first steps in the direction of adding options to our players choice of progression. Players will be able to accept these from mission givers dotted around the map, each providing a task and reward, usually in the form of gold, components or treasure. Once balanced correctly this should be a valid option and change of pace for players tired of farming the same pois over and over without a loss in efficiency. The expansion options of a system like this is endless, such as reputation unlocks allowing an almost nomadic play style operating through purchases from traders, or functionality for player created missions to allow others to become mercenaries or farmers. The options are endless and we are excited to explore where we could take it.

The New Player Experience (Combat) A problem im sure all our players are aware of and that is our new players experience and especially those regarding combat. Renowns combat is incredibly hard to grasp for someone without any experience in this genre, and to compound that issue we are a full loot game with quite a fast TTK. New players rarely get to experience the combat at any meaningful length before they are killed, usually to something they can't understand. Those issues combined with our massive variance of weapons and attack speeds as well as the bugs such as desync and phasing creates a not so great experience for a first timer to say the least. Our team is open to any option that works for our community, and are currently exploring different methods to hopefully assist in the onboarding of new players and allowing a more meaningful, enjoyable combat experience for everyone. We don't have the answers just yet but we wanted to let everyone know we are working on the issue.

Player Count Concerns 

We have been seeing some valid concerns about the lowering of player counts and I just wanted to quickly address these. We have had issues and bugs plaguing the player base since the EA launch of Renown, which has had a clear effect on the current player population, these are mostly performance concerns and EAC connection issues. Both of these points are our number one priority right now and we are already working on some large performance improvements and the EAC issues should also be squared away soon as well. For those worried about the continued development of Renown, I'd like to quell those worries, our team believes in the vision of Renown and what it can become in the future, the team has been working on Renown for the better part of 5 years and we aren't going to be stopping any time soon. EA Release has given us the ability to increase the speed at which we are able to develop and iterate on the game and we haven't been as excited as we are now to smash out the work. If the current state of Renown is not to your liking there's no problem with taking a step away and returning when we have made those leaps and bounds in the right direction.

Thats all from us for now, have a great day!

Welcome everyone to our first of many EA developer updates!

We will be splitting our developer updates into multi parters so it's a little more digestible over the week, today we will be outlining our current workload and what the team is actively working on for the next few patches. Firstly we wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to check out Renown, we have heard all the comments and feedback, the good and bad. We really appreciate you letting us know what you feel the game needs. 

We have been having many internal discussions about certain systems, features and directions that we could take the game, to create a more enjoyable experience for all our players. Lets crack into what the team has been working on and has planned for the next few patches. Monthly Wipes - Why its like this, and what we’re changing. We have heard your concerns about the game only being able to handle weekly wipes, we know not everyone has the time to commit to such a short wipe cycle and there are a lot of players hoping for a slower, longer and more persistent version of the game. 

Currently the only reasons we didn't launch with biweekly or monthly wiping servers, was purely down to optimization and maintenance cost balancing. The game simply could not handle lasting that long. For roughly the last year, this has been one of our major focuses and we are making leaps and bounds towards the goal. We will keep you updated as we reach the biweekly milestone and beyond! Fatal Errors and EAC Connection Issues 

We have had some reports of people experiencing fatal error crashes and Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) connection errors which have been limiting, if not entirely stopping users from playing Renown. 

This is another one of our major focuses and we have brought on some experts in the field to help identify and solve the issues. We are truly sorry for all those that have not been able to play and or have had their experience diminished with these issues, we are working on it and will have a solution as soon as possible. 

Combat Desync & Phasing We are aware of the problems and bugs related to the combat system specifically those related to desync and weapon phasing, this is obviously not intended and being worked on, we hope to have a lot of these issues iron out in the coming patches. Of course combat is a complex beast so at times new issues can be introduced. We do our best to test our combat changes rigorously but things can always slip through the cracks.  Solo Duo Trio Servers It's of course not a lot of fun for solos or small groups to be completely overrun by a 10 man, with little to no possibility of coming out alive. 

We wanted to create a place for smaller groups to enjoy the game, this will come in the form of solo duo trio servers. Banners and teams will be limited to a max of 3 players, code locks won't be able to be crafted, research blueprints can't be crafted and shared.

Of course it will require moderation and reporting of players abusing the rules to create a good experience but it's a step in the right direction. 

Over time we will develop more systems to help keep people honest in this mode of the game and add better tools for our community hosts running them. Treasure System 

Work on the treasure system is still ongoing and almost complete. There will be a decent amount of balance work required before this is in a great spot, drop rates and trade prices will really dictate how quickly people can progress in the game. 

You can read more about each roadmap feature in our feature descriptions channel on our discord that will be coming soon! Server Events 

Winterhold has been a fantastic proof of concept for server events, though it was never meant to be the only one, we are working on 2 new server events, both underground themed and will lend itself well to the treasure system. 

We are also working on Renown's version of the airdrop and other randomly spawning events to draw players together. More information on both of these new additions is coming soon. -- Sneak Peak of our new Server Events -- Titles As our backers are aware they were promised in game titles to go alongside their skins, this functionality is almost complete, these titles will be applied to your dlc packages and immediately be accessible once added to the game. 

For those who are not backers we will be adding further systems that will allow you to unlock new titles for completing various feats in the game. Thank you so much for keeping up to date with the progress we are making, keep an eye out over the next few days for the roadmap update discussing the plans we have for the future. 

Thank you so much to everyone who has been playing Renown! 

We really love seeing all the comments, including the good and bad. The only way we can improve the game is by learning what works and especially what doesn't. 

Right now, our main goal is to improve the current experience as quickly as possible.  We want to make sure that the gameplay loop feels correct with what we have on offer right now. 

One of those major points was that 1x rates felt too grindy for what was intended. We will observe how things feel with increased gold coin drops and gold node spawns. 

Gear was also feeling a little too hard to craft so we have increased how much iron you can acquire. We have also decreased the research costs for some items. There is a chance things might be a little too easy now, but we will keep tweaking values until it feels correct. 

We recommend our 3x server hosts reduce from 3x to 2x as I imagine 3x might be a little fast after this patch. 

The Raiding economy was something we noticed felt a little off. When raiding, the player should always feel that there is at least a chance they will get a return on their investment. 

At the very least make something back, as it stands there is no need to acquire silver unless you were intending to raid, resulting in players feeling let down. We have added silver costs to more items in the hopes that all bases will at least have some amount of silver. 

We’re already changing and evolving our plans for the game going forward. Primarily this is focused on general optimization, fixes and balance passes. The goal of this being to remove any Jank and get the game running smoothly again. 

However, at the same time, we’re still working towards new content for Renown. 

As such I’d like to introduce the Treasure System! 

Treasure will be Renown’s form of dopamine hit when looting. While looting anything in the game, there will be a high chance that you will receive a piece of treasure. 

These will come in the form of gems, necklaces, rings, goblets and anything warranting valuable bullion, all in varying rarities, each able to be sold to a rogue merchant. 

These merchants are placed throughout the map and not in a safe zone. Players will have to do treasure runs to sell their haul. This system will become an integral part of the progression; as such, other loot rates will be lowered to incentivise taking part in this system to progress quickly. We’ll have a detailed blog for this topic, going soon.  

The following is our week one patch notes: 

Options 

Streamer mode now toggles the Kill Feed off

Features

Added Player Ticketing menu where you can ask for support from devs directly

Added better error handling on the main menu so players know why they lost connection

Added a Wipe Time Indicator to the compass

Balance

Rebalanced some tools

Doubled the spawn rate of Plant Fibers

Changed ground stone to respawn at the same rate as trees

Gold Coins from lootables increased from 5 to 5-15 (AVG 10)

Reduced Research Costs of T2 & T3 Weapons 

Reduced Research Costs of Sappers Axe and Petard 

Reduced Research Costs of Steel Tools

Banner Upgrades now cost silver

Bench Upgrades now cost silver

Some T2 and T3 Weapons now have a small silver cost 

Iron Cook Recipe reduced to 1 to 1 (was 2 to 1)

Combat

Fixed a movement bug

Buffed Falchion Damage so its in line with other t2 weapons

Missed swing Stamina cost for all weapons is now 10

Fixed a bug with Parry into Riposte into Parry

Fixed a bug with Parry into Parry lockout

Fixed Parry into Parry mechanics

You can now Feint to Parry out of a Riposte Morph

Changed swing hit detection to use a box to reduce the amount of swing phases

Added better inputting queuing for Parry and Release

Fixed ground hits costing Stamina when you've already hit a player

Building 

Fixed upgrading a building causing it to regain its destruction timer

Owners are properly hidden in the building health menu where appropriate

Fixed spiral plaster staircase crashing people

Fixed an issue with the autoplacelock option

Fixed an issue with upgrade costs not being displayed properly on Optimized buildings

Fixed an issue where Gateways would decay sometimes

Fixed triggering siege mode on your own base Fixed being able to parry with a tool

Raiding

Fixed being able to pick up certain objects while being sieged

Petards can now be placed 2 seconds after another blows up (was 20s)

Fixed placement issue with Petards

Fixed Portcullis taking wrong damage amounts from siege weapons

Exploits

Fixed Safe Zone Exploit

Fixed Dupe Exploit

Removed selling animal hide and fat to the Vendors

Map Fixes

Fixed animal spawns to match icons on the map

Fixed some holes you can get stuck in

Fixed walkable beach ground being too low in some areas

Fixed moss on the riverbed being the wrong color

Fixed some tree imposters

Fixed some floating foliage spots

Fixed some floating loot on the map

NPCs

Fixed an issue with Bots not being able to attack

Fixed NPC Loot

Changed AI pathfinding so they stand closer to the player when attacking

Touched up some stairways so NPCs can navigate them

Servers/Community Hosting

Player cap to 100

Server Reboot time upped to 2 hours

Fixed IdleTimeOutTime, its now in the gamemode configs

Made the rebooting message more obvious

Fixed MaxPing using a byte, now it uses an int and can be set to values higher than 255

Fixed an issue where Map Rotations would bug out on GameMode servers

Fixed adding admin via RCON not taking effect till next boot

General Fixes

Fixed an issue with Weapon racks not replicating their weapons accurately

Fixed an issue voice chat

Fixed Lampposts 

Fixed the crosshair reacting to the player in 3rd person

Gave the Treasure chests in POIs a proper name

Cleaned up the Rename Building menu

Added additional Save validation

Added extra checks for Sleepers

Removed the ability to change your name from the settings menu

Fixed some instances of research bugging out

Improved the text in the tutorial

Updated localization

Updated the tutorial for better quality of life for new players

Fixed an issue with the server browser

At the time of posting, this patch will go live in a few hours.

If you've been enjoying the game, please don't forget to leave a review. It could really help the future of renown.

On behalf of the entire RDBK Studios team, another huge thank you to our amazing community. We’ve been blown away by the launch, and we’re super pumped to get Renown into its ultimate state. 

Hey everyone! We will be wiping the servers for the weekend, this will accompany a large patch which addresses a bunch of issues, patch notes for those will be posted in a couple hours. Unfortunately due to some regions being a day earlier than everyone else we will need to push those servers wipe to Saturday to allow time to properly test the patch. These are the wipe times in your local time: Sydney - Saturday 4pm AEST Paris - Friday 4pm CEST Hamburg - Friday 4pm CEST Dallas - Friday 4pm CDT LA - Friday 4pm PDT New York - Friday 4pm EDT Seattle - Friday 4pm PDT Singapore - Saturday 4pm GMT+8 Hong Kong - Saturday 4pm HKT

Hello folks

We just wanted to say another huge thank you to the entire community. We’re entirely blown away by how awesome the folks have been with reviews and the like.

That fact we’ve gone from 28% positive reviews, up to 62% at the time of writing, is truly like a dream.

I also wanted to mention we’ve got a new ticketing system implemented. While this isn’t the fix I wish i was announcing right now, it’s a key tool in working out what’s happening, namely with Easy Anti Cheat (EAC).

In this case it can be accessed any time in game, via the main menus. There will be a new button called “Submit Ticket”

If you’re experiencing a bug, where you click to join a server, it loads and puts you back to the menu, please put in a ticket for this.

Part of why this bug is so bad, is the error messages are failing to fire.

This means as a player you’re getting no feedback of why its not joining, but its also harder for us to track down the problem.

Other then that any crashes, stuttering or menu issues, this is the perfect tool to help us sort them all out asap.

We’re still working away at getting the EAC issue fixed.

Primarily we’re trying to get in touch with the developers at Epic Games who own EAC, to get some info on why this is happening. As you can probably imagine, being an Anti-Cheat, they don’t exactly give you a lot of information without an insider.

We’ll have patches and more community updates coming in as we know more.

From the entire RDBK team, thank you again awesome people.

From the Entire RDBK team, thank you so much for checking out Renown.

We’d like to humbly apologise to anyone experiencing issues with the current patch of Renown.

We’re getting some reports of folks getting kicked back to the menu, having EAC hang or not load properly.

We’re already reaching out to our contacts at Epic Games who own Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC).

We think we know the cause of the issue but have no ability to influence the outcome without Epic Games.

If you’ve ever played a version of Renown before, its best to try uninstall/delete/scrub any files remaining before installing the latest version.

Till then we’ve already posted this set of troubleshooting steps to try help the issue: If you’re having trouble launching or are being kicked from a server on join, this may be to Easy Anti-Cheat, try the following steps in order:

1) Verify or Reinstall the Game Use your platform’s file verification option to check for missing or corrupted files.

If problems continue, uninstall and reinstall the game.

2) Check Your Antivirus/Firewall Make sure your security software isn’t blocking Renown or Easy Anti-Cheat. Add the game’s installation folder to your antivirus and firewall exceptions list.

3) Close Background Apps Shut down unnecessary programs running in the background, especially overlays (Discord, Steam, NVIDIA, etc.) or system monitoring tools that may conflict with EAC.

4) Reinstall Easy Anti-Cheat Navigate to Renown’s installation folder. Run UninstallAntiCheat.bat, then run InstallAntiCheat.bat to reinstall EAC.

5) Update Drivers and Windows Outdated graphics, network, or system drivers can cause issues. Ensure your Windows installation and all drivers are fully up to date.

6) Remove Old Renown Folders If you previously installed an older version of Renown (Backer, Demo, etc.), delete the following folder before launching the game: %USERPROFILE%\\AppData\\Local\\Renown_Combat 7)

Physically delete any left over files after uninstalling Renown. If you’ve previously installed Renown, the game files will be located inside one of your Steam Library folders.

The default path is typically: SteamLibrary\\steamapps\\common\\Renown However, your Steam Library may be located on a different drive (for example, D:\\SteamLibrary... instead of C:...) if you’ve chosen a custom installation location or have multiple Steam Libraries.

If you’re not sure where the game is installed, you can always locate it directly through Steam by: Opening your Steam Library. Right-clicking on Renown and selecting Manage > Browse Local Files. Thank you again for supporting a small team of Indie developers such as ourselves.

We apologise again for any issues, and are actively working to get them fixed as soon as possible.

Hey, Renowners!

We're thrilled to announce that Renown is now available on Steam! We wanted to thank each and every one of you for all the support you've given us over its development. Whether it's being an original backer, a community member in our Discord waiting to pickup the game, or a new arrival - we're hugely appreciative to all of you. As a team of four people, it has been a huge undertaking to get Renown to this stage and we're just getting started on our roadmap. Lastly, if you encounter any bugs or issues, please don't hesitate to get in touch here or on our Discord, but in the meantime here's a couple of fixes for some known issues.

/Jesse, Alex, Charlie & Kaz

Renown Troubleshooting Steps

If you’re having trouble launching or are being kicked from a server on join, this may be to Easy Anti-Cheat, try the following steps in order:

• 1) Verify or Reinstall the Game

Use your platform’s file verification option to check for missing or corrupted files. If problems continue, uninstall and reinstall the game.

• 2) Check Your Antivirus/Firewall

Make sure your security software isn’t blocking Renown or Easy Anti-Cheat. Add the game’s installation folder to your antivirus and firewall exceptions list.

• 3) Close Background Apps

Shut down unnecessary programs running in the background, especially overlays (Discord, Steam, NVIDIA, etc.) or system monitoring tools that may conflict with EAC.

• 4) Reinstall Easy Anti-Cheat

Navigate to Renown’s installation folder. Run UninstallAntiCheat.bat, then run InstallAntiCheat.bat to reinstall EAC.

• 5) Update Drivers and Windows

Outdated graphics, network, or system drivers can cause issues. Ensure your Windows installation and all drivers are fully up to date.

• 6) Remove Old Renown Folders

If you previously installed an older version of Renown (Backer, Demo, etc.), delete the following folder before launching the game:

%USERPROFILE%\\AppData\\Local\\Renown_Combat

• 7) Physically delete any left over files after uninstalling Renown.

If you’ve previously installed Renown, the game files will be located inside one of your Steam Library folders. The default path is typically:

SteamLibrary\\steamapps\\common\\Renown

However, your Steam Library may be located on a different drive (for example, D:\\SteamLibrary... instead of C:...) if you’ve chosen a custom installation location or have multiple Steam Libraries.

If you’re not sure where the game is installed, you can always locate it directly through Steam by:

Opening your Steam Library.

Right-clicking on Renown and selecting Manage > Browse Local Files.

Hey, Renowners!

We're super excited to share that Renown officially enters Early Access on September 22 at 4pm BST / 11am EDT / 8am PDT for $24.99 USD with a 10% launch discount.

Following our phenomenally successful crowdfunding campaigns and the awesome efforts from both our development team and you - our amazing community - we've finally reached this huge milestone. As a small studio often operating with just three core developers, this journey has tested us in every way imaginable, yet your support has made every challenge worthwhile.

We take immense pride in what we've built together, and this is only the beginning of Renown's potential. While we know the game isn't flawless or as refined as our ultimate vision, we think we've crafted something special given our resources and tight-knit team. What we're delivering is not just genuinely entertaining, but a solid foundation that will evolve and flourish throughout the Early Access experience.

Thank you for believing in us and being part of this adventure and do be sure to check out our latest community video below.

/Jesse, Alex, Charlie & Kaz

Launch FAQ

General Questions

Q: What is Early Access? A: Early Access allows players to purchase and play the game while it's still in development. You'll get to experience the core gameplay and provide feedback that helps shape the final 1.0 launch.

Q: How much will the game cost in Early Access? A: $24.99 USD with a 10% launch discount.

Q: How long will the game remain in Early Access? A: We estimate 12-18 months, but we're committed to taking the time needed to deliver a polished final product rather than rushing to meet arbitrary deadlines.

Technical & Platform Questions

Q: What platforms will be supported? A: At launch, PC (Steam!)

Q: What are the minimum system requirements? A: We'd recommend

• A 64-bit processor and operating system

• OS: Windows 10

• Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-2600K / AMD Ryzen 5 1400

• Memory: 16 GB RAM

• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 3070 or AMD equivalent

• DirectX: Version 11

• Network: Broadband Internet connection

• Storage: 35 GB available space

Q: Will there be controller support? A: We have minimal controller support at launch, this will work somewhat well for combat but not for the survival systems, full controller support coming soon.

Q: Is there multiplayer/co-op support? A: Absolutely, Renown is a sandbox multiplayer experience similar to Rust meets Chivalry. You can absolutely play by yourself, but you'll encounter other real players.

Content & Features

Q: How much content is available at Early Access launch? A: All the foundational elements of a pvp survival game, Building, Raiding, Combat, Looting, PVP, PVE, Crafting, Researching, Progressing, Multiple Mixed Modes, Raid Mode, Voip, Community Server Hosting, Customization, Skins and much more.

Q: What features are planned for future updates? A: Firstly polish all the existing features then we have a lot of systems we want to add, RP Items, Further Raiding Equipment, Transport (horses and carts), Boats, Instruments, Missions, Reputation, Leader boards and much more, check out our road map on our discord for more.

Q: Will there be regular updates during Early Access? A: Yes! We plan to release updates as often as possible, with both content additions and bug fixes based on community feedback.

Q: Can I provide feedback and suggestions? A: Absolutely! Player feedback is crucial to our development process. You can reach us through Discord or via Steam's forums.

Purchase & Access

Q: Where can I buy the Early Access version? A: The game will be available on Steam on September 22nd.

Q: Do Kickstarter backers get Early Access included? A: Yes, all backers at will receive Early Access keys before the public launch.

Q: Will there be regional pricing? A: Yes, we support regional pricing to make the game accessible to players worldwide.

Q: Is there a refund policy? A: Standard platform refund policies apply.

Development & Community

Q: How can I report bugs? A: Please use our bug reporting system in game with detailed descriptions and screenshots when possible, or drop us a line on Discord.

Q: Will you add features that weren't in the original plan? A: We're open to community suggestions that align with our vision, though we'll prioritize completing planned features first.

Q: How often will you communicate updates? A: We'll provide development updates bi-weekly through Discord and Steam, plus immediate communication for any critical issues.

Q: What if I don't like the direction the game is heading? A: We value all feedback and encourage open dialogue. While we can't accommodate every request, community input significantly influences our development priorities.

Happy September, Renowners, Mr. Z speaking here. Release is extremely close now and we'd like to keep everyone updated on our latest exploits.

Last week we did a huge stress test with our crowdfund backers to see how well the servers would hold up for launch. We'll also be discussing some of the work we'll be doing to prepare for launch.

During our stress test we tried to see how well the game would hold up with the most players we've ever had on a single server. We're pleased to announce that the game held up convincingly at 80 players, but we were able to reach even higher to 100 with some instability.

The goal was to discover all the performance and stability issues we could to fix things before release. We discovered a few key things, mainly that buildings are still a large source of performance degradation, but also there were many minor pieces of the code that became incredibly expensive with so many players online at once, as well inefficiencies in the way our save system functions that could only have been seen with lots of player activity.

We had to keep a strict building limit for performance reasons, but even with that included, we had over 25 thousand building pieces in the server.

Its important to note that the goal of this stress test was to see if the game could hold up under load, that being said we learned a few gameplay problems that we'll be addressing in the next few weeks. We really appreciate all the bug reporting and feedback we've been getting lately, its helping us tremendously to improve the state of the game. With that said, we will be holding another stress test soon, although this next one will be focused more on improving the gameplay experience.

We have a few things coming soon, for the game, namely; New melee animations are on the way, Backer rewards, gameplay balancing, bug fixes and improvements to the melee combat. We'll keep you updated as they get completed, but for example we've already begun optimizing some of the performance issues we recorded and have started work on a 1 hand sword animation set that will feel like a tremendous improvement.

Thank you so much to all the backers that participated in the stress test and everyone who has contributed towards our crowdfunding campaign. Your support means everything to us, because of you we have been able to stay independent this whole time, without a publisher conflicting with our creative vision for the game.

We hope to see you on early access launch very soon. Stay tuned for our next announcement.

Mr. Z here, we've got a bit of news to go through for this update so lets get right into it. We've had a few breakthroughs development-wise, we've been quiet lately on the community front but also very busy behind the scenes as release approaches.

To begin we'll be discussing the final pass on Combat mechanics. Currently we're overhauling the combat system, by tweaking and adding new mechanics so the combat feels release ready. Additionally, the Longsword combat animations are receiving a full update as the last pass didn't meet our combat standards.

Once the Longsword animations are completed we'll begin combat testing again immediately so we can fine tune all the values and see what other changes are needed to improve the combat feel. Shields and ranged combat will also be receiving a pass. As well, the One Handed sword and Shield variant will be getting an animation pass as we feel they also don't quite meet our standards for combat.

We're currently in the middle of doing a localization pass on all the text in game. We currently support the following languages.

We hope to get this in by the next patch and we'll be requesting community assistance with improving the localization.

We’ve added a new music system to really enhance the immersion of the game, with a variety of tracks that play and change over time. This keeps the soundtrack feeling fresh throughout your play sessions and adds an extra layer of atmosphere to the world.

We have a server queue now, you will no longer have to compete for the single open slot on a server while joining.

KZ has been busy doing many art fixes this month, as well as improving the performance of the survival map.  World Polish & Fixes KZ here, I’ve been combing through the maps, cleaning up and refining hundreds of small details to make everything feel sharper and more immersive:

• Fixed foliage clipping into rocks and adjusted foliage placement across the board for more natural landscapes.

• Addressed LOD issues and made smoother transitions to reduce visual popping.

• Cleaned up dozens of clipping issues and performed general map touch-ups.

• Gave the UI a round of polish passes to make it feel more consistent.

• Fixed asset-related crashes, corrected broken rotations, and resolved collision issues.

• Fixed blood mask issues across characters.

• Corrected loot spawns that weren’t working as intended.

• Adjusted animal spawn placements for better gameplay balance.

 AI & Level Design Updates

• Improved AI placement and refined their pathing for more believable movement.

• Built an entirely new Training Map from the ground up.

• Revamped and rebalanced the Moss Map for better flow and visuals.

• Completed the Cathedral Credits Map, featuring backer statues and gravestones to honor supporters.

• I have Re done all the cliffs on the maps with better assets now collisions are more solid and they just generally look better

 Audio & Environmental Immersion

• Enhanced river and waterfall sound effects for more depth.

• Tweaked wading sounds and adjusted movement speed when moving through water.

• Extended ocean ambience so waves can now be heard closer to the shore.

Performance & Optimization

• Huge performance jump — from ~30 FPS in the last demo to 90–100 FPS in current tests this of course varies on different hardware but this is based off mid range pc results (still a work in progress).

• Conducted extensive asset and texture optimization to keep performance smooth.

• Reworked beach blocking volumes for cleaner gameplay boundaries.

Ongoing & Upcoming Work

• Finalizing hair physics (still to be implemented).

• Continuing work on tree LODs to make transitions even smoother.

• More Optimization

• More Polish across the board Generally trying to get a solid base for EA

Volker and Phanzor have been busy putting together an official Wiki for the game. We hope to populate the wiki with as much information as we can to help players get past the learning curve in the game more easily. If you would like to help out, please contact them directly as we need some volunteers to help maintain the wiki.

https://rdbkstudios.fandom.com/wiki/Renown_Wiki

We are also pleased to announce that the dedicated server tool is now available on steam for everyone to download. You will not be required to own the game to host the server as it is available on the anonymous package for anyone to install. We also put together a guide for Linux server hosting on the wiki https://rdbkstudios.fandom.com/wiki/Community_Server_Hosting_-_Linux It is also possible to host on Windows though there is no documentation currently for that. We will be updating the server page as more features are added for server admins. For any large communities interested in testing the dedicated servers before launch, please get in contact with our Community Manager Volker so we can understand your needs better and possibly schedule some tests.

The customization system now supports new skins, including all the backer skins. Backers will be getting their skins on launch day.

We would like to thank our gracious backers for helping our team make it this far, its been through your support that we've been able to develop this game as a small independent team. Release is almost around the corner, its time to start getting your friends hyped up for launch and we hope to see you raiding each other on launch day.

Hello again renowners, its Mr. Z speaking here with an update on what we've been up to lately. KZ and I have prepared a short explanation of what we've been working on lately as launch approaches. KZ has been very hard at work preparing the art side of things for launch, specifically there's been an optimization pass, an external walls rework, and stability fixes. In his words:

A big chunk of time has gone into optimizing the map. I’ve been tackling texture memory usage, cleaning up LODs, utilizing static mesh instances, and making sure key points of interest are running smoother across the board.

The goal is to ensure we squeeze out every bit of performance without sacrificing visual fidelity, by using the tools the engine has provided us with.

The exterior castle walls are now fully functional and finalized. It’s been a long road getting them just right. However, they’re now in and working as intended. I'm just fixing up the last touches before another patch. We have a set of High walls and Low external walls now, each with their own advantages.

The Backer content is nearly ready! All the backer statues, headstones, and skins are being implemented and polished to ensure everything looks great and is in place for launch. Thanks again to everyone who supported the project — your in-game presence is coming to life.

My main focus right now is getting the client stable and polished for launch. That includes art bug fixes, performance improvements, and making sure the experience is as smooth as possible for everyone on day one.

That’s all for now — back to the grind. Appreciate everyone’s support as we push through these final stages.

As for my section I will be discussing a few things, Namely: The engine upgrade, code improvements, New animations, Combat overhauls, Localization, customization overhaul.

As many know, I've been working very hard towards upgrading the engine version to the latest version of Unreal. Unfortunately, the engine upgrade was not successful. We ran into many new unknown issues with the way the Steam SDK works with that version of Unreal. We also had many plugin incompatibilities that caused us to lose key functionality.

Every time we made progress with the engine upgrade we were met with new issues to resolve. Ultimately the new version of Unreal had too many fatal crashes and incompatibilities and so we had to roll back to 5.3. This means we'll be missing out on some useful optimizations we were going to take advantage of but, ultimately optimizations are not useful if the game no longer functions.

This cost us a lot of time but now we're back to normal and updates will resume very shortly. Lately we've been backporting the work we had done on the newer version of Unreal and we've almost completely wrapped up recovering all that work.

During the engine upgrade I spent a lot of time improving the code base of Renown. Many pieces of code have been optimized. Specifically a lot of the subsystems that run in Survival mode have been made to run much faster on the server which should help improve server stability. There has also been a lot of code clean up that should reduce the CPU time on the client as well.

One very highly anticipated thing that's been in the works is new combat animations. During our last demo we were short on time and released some new combat animations prematurely.

Unfortunately the state of those animations worsened the combat feel quite noticeably and we humbly apologize for that. We have a new and improved set of animations on the way for 2 handed swords coming very soon. After that you can expect to see a new set for 1 handed weapons and their shielded variants.

On a similar note, there has been much work done on overhauling the combat mechanics themselves as well.

Animations and the combat systems are very tied together so they're being overhauled together. Specifically there's a new system for server side melee hit detection, this should noticeably improve parry responsiveness. The point of view of the defender will be more accurate essentially, which should lead to less missed parries that looked correct on their screen.

Many players complained during our last demo, that the movement was too sluggish, so its now been made more snappy like it was in the past. Timings for attacks and parries are being fine tuned currently, so we will be starting combat playtests again to really nail down the timings for launch very soon. Finally, the way shields are used will be getting a final pass once the animations are completed.

Last but not least, the customization system has received full overhaul. The UI most importantly, has been redone to facilitate a much better user experience. You can now customize armor that is currently equipped and be able to visualize it accurately in the preview.

There has been changes to differentiate between "skins" and "templates". Skins are essentially a raw version of a new model for an item, while templates are a skin with the additional customization saved locally for ease of use. In the future we'll make it possible to share "templates" with your friends so you can create and share matching clan outfits for example.

There was support added for Steam Item dependent skins, so all skins will no longer be unlocked by default. What this means is that the backer reward skins will be getting distributed very soon so keep an eye out for when we announce that. Of course backer rewards included weapon skins, so naturally, we now have support for weapon skins as well.

With all that out of the way, you may be wondering whats coming next for Renown. We'll begin again to do internal playtests with our backers, to try to iron out all the issues we can before launch. Specifically we need help testing; combat mechanics, building mechanics, and a quality pass on the points of interest on the main map. We'll be announcing shortly some playtimes for when we'll be doing these tests so stay tuned for that. Our immediate goal is to get the game ready for a large survival playtest before launch.