Wartorn news & patch notes

Hey everyone!

We have just deployed a fresh patch to Wartorn that addresses some bugs, feedback from the community, and other improvements. Please see below the list of notes:

• Shortened the text in several events

• Improved battle queuing

• Added ability to close tutorials with keyboard key

• Updated Localization pass

• Fixed a bug that was causing part 1 of the Vengeance fight to end early

• Fixed a bug where Vengeance was using the wrong animation

• Fixed a bug where a Hero trinket was being updated when it shouldn't have been.

Additionally, we are happy to be participating in this year's Steam Winter sale! We have discounted Wartorn by 50% for a limited time, so now is the perfect opportunity to hop in!

On behalf of everyone at Stray Kite Studios, we appreciate all the support you have given us and we hope that you have a Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

Thank you to everyone that has played since the release of Wartorn into 1.0 just a couple days ago. We have been closely monitoring your feedback and bug reports, and are happy to bring a hotfix patch with various changes and fixes. Please see below the list of changes and continue sharing your feedback with us in the official Discord!

- Fixed unit rewards and squads in merchants after Greed being tier 2. Now Tier 5.

- Fixed an issue that could cause Numah's conversation to play twice in the same meeting.

- Fixed an encounter when meeting Voxyra with Inkyra in the caravan that had no image.

- Fixed a bug with Sharpshooter's Called Shots where projectiles continued to home after the target died.

- Fixed a bug where Marksman's Rapid Salvos was firing too many projectiles.

- Added Tier 5 Hero weapons.

- Made repeat encounters on a single run much less likely

- Fixed Banshee's Scream not applying Fear.

- Fixed result in "Gone Fishing" quest that claims someone survived but can kill your entire 1 unit squad.

- Fix soft lock in Vengeance fight if all your squads die before Yara and Elani are released.

- Fixed an issue where Puny Creature not exploding.

- Balance adjustment to Tier 4 Behemoth's Puny Creature ability. Damage: 200->190, Fear Duration 10s->8s

- Fix bug where the Give Up button didn't work in Defend battles.

- Fix visual bug with Tier 4 Arbalestier's Explosive Arrow ability.

- T1 --> T2 unit upgrade now takes much less experience

- Increased the damage and range of the wagon during defend battles

- Fix summoned units not giving xp, damage, and kill credit to their summoner.

- Fixed typo in description of Hero spell Target Practice.

- Fix events sometimes getting skipped over when stopping and starting the caravan.

- Fix save metadata falsely flagging saves as having failed to load.

- Lowered the strand cost of hero weapon upgrades

- Lowered the difficulty of defense and pitched battles

- Fix section of Thyssic journey map not revealing properly

- Updated description of Inspire ability.

- Fix bug where View Details button didn't work in the Battle Report.

Welcome to Wartorn 1.0! Your caravan's epic journey culminates as you explore the new desert island of Thyssic, conquer three brutal new bosses, and finally reach the ancestral fortress of Beynün for legacy-building rewards. Rescue family members to make them permanent, convert end-run resources into Chord Crystals, and push units to Tier 5 with new traits, abilities, and trinket slots. Dive in now to claim victory!

New Features

• Thyssic Desert Biome: Explore a brand-new overworld map with fresh places to explore, quests, events, and encounters tailored for every battle mode.

• Reach Beynün Endgame: Guide your caravan to the fortress for true run completion. 

  • End-of-Run Resource Conversion: Leftover caravan resources (food, hope, coins, refugees) transform into Chord Crystals at Beynün. Build your meta-progression!

  • Rescued Family Permanence: Family members in the caravan when reaching Beynün are rescued and marked with a star on thier portraits in the Villa. Rescued family members are available to start future runs in the caravan. Bring as many of them as you like. 

• Tier 4-5 Unit Power: Evolve squads further—T3 grants a new selectable trait, T4 unlocks a fresh ability, T5 adds an extra passive trinket slot for ultimate builds.

• New Bosses: Battle Brutality, Greed, and a secretive third foe with unique challenges and rewards.

• New Family members and heirlooms: Find 7 new family members and unlock their heirlooms in your adventures on the Isle of Thyssic.

• New Names & Warlord Epithets: Reworked name fragments for goblins, trolls, pheign, and stygs. Warlords get custom epithets per mantra.

• Painterly Effect Toggle: New button in the first tutorial level to enable/disable the painterly effect on the fly.

• Match & Overworld Zoom Settings: Separate controls for keyboard/gamepad to customize your view.

• New Achievements: Challenge yourself with fresh achievements stretching across the new biome!

• Simplified Chinese: Added localization to support Simplified Chinese.

Balance Changes

• Hope Scaling: All hope losses/rewards from events now percentage-based on max caravan hope for late-game relevance (e.g., small losses: -1/-3/-5; large rewards: 8/10/11/13/15). Community Tree upgrades gain value!

• Starvation Hope Loss: While starving, the caravan now loses a % of max hope with each passing day. ⚔

• Refugee Food Costs: Dramatically reduced at encampments (40-60 → 8-12 food). ⚔

• Positive Hope Events: Random chance of these events reduced by 5%. ⚔

• Food Rewards: Scale with difficulty (day-based curve).

• Battle Rewards: Higher-tier squads offered as the run progresses.

• Merchant Squad Tiers: Higher tiers unlocked via run progression.

• Shop Hope Items: Grant % of max hope for better scaling.

• Hope Adjustments: All hope rewards and losses are now based off of the caravan’s Max Hope so they scale with run progression. ⚔

• Defend battles: Made adjustments to Defend battles to make them easier. ⚔

  • Dev note: We felt that Defend battles were causing a significant and random spike in difficulty during runs and have made some adjustments to enemy spawning and the damage the wagon deals to help smooth out these spikes.

UI Improvements

• Trinket Rarity Coloring: Merchants now colorize trinket icons by rarity. ⚔

• Squad Avatars: Impact shake on HUD when a squad dies for better feedback.

• Trait Display: Mouseover tooltips in squad inspector; multi-trait support; fixed template text hover bug.

• Family Tokens: Family tokens on the map are hidden for equipped and rescued family members, since you cannot meet them on the road if they are already in your caravan or safe in Beynün.

• Squad Advance Screen: Show base details, trinkets, tiers; fixed innate skills stacking/UI.

• Toasts: Overworld toggle option; hide 0-cost refugees/hope; squad wipe hope loss is now shown.

• View Heirloom Details on Gamepad: Press RS in the Family tab of the caravan menu to view heirloom details.

Progression

• Endgame Family Members: Rescued family members can be invited to join caravan (instead of auto-added).

• Expanded Stories: 

  • Voxyra/Inkyra scenes expanded.

  • Clucks’s story expanded.

  • Additional scenes for Time after run failures.

  • Additional scenes in the Villa with Yara and Elani reacting to Time.

Bugfixes

Soft Lock & Crash Fixes

• Fixed hangs in Voxyra and Inkyra scenes.

• Added a fail safe against soft locks when meeting Voxyra.

• Fixed wagons flying into the air at the end of Jhix map.

Narrative & Event Fixes

• Removed Turfus from caravan in "Heart for the Homeless" quest.

• Fixed Turfus’ name and phantom options.

• Fixed various typos.

• Pheign squads are properly returned to duty after being sent on the  "A Grisly Request" quest.

• Fixed no fireplace objective on new games.

• Fixed instances where you could get two copies of the fireplace objective.

• Fixed incorrect scene the 4th time you meet Redjirx.

• No refugee-required events appear if no refugees are available.

• Fixed duplicate Inkyra grants.

UI & Input Fixes

• All listed under UI; plus painterly toggle in tutorial.

• Fixed overworld objectives not being displayed properly.

• Allow Give Up button in raid maps.

• Fixed "Leave" button appearing at crossroads without a choice being made.

• Fixed bug where squad indicators would get reused and the squad stance icon would appear incorrectly over squads.

• Fixed scrolling data errors in Battle Reports.

• Suppress post-match toast notifications so they don’t appear in Battle Reports or Time scenes.

• Fixed reward spacing overflow in journal events.

• Fixed reward selector overlapping with resource bar.

• Fixed bug where squad HUD would shift up if the squad has passive abilities but no active abilities.

• Better text clipping.

• Fixed non-English text overflow.

• Added which type of battle you are entering on the battle squad selection screen

Other

• Fixed issue with Mantra Merchants not opening or playing correct audio.

• Fixed issues where certain rare trinkets were not being granted / offered as rewards.

• Fixed units running in circles after knockback/stun/fear.

Feedback

This 1.0 release is one that we are proud of, refining the core loop while adding layers of replayability and satisfaction. We hope that you are excited to check it out!

We cannot thank you enough for being on this journey with us throughout Early Access. It is with your feedback, videos/streams, and ideas that we were able to adjust the experience along the way while adding and implementing the new Overworld map, bosses, Tier 5 units… and more as we came to 1.0! Be sure to continue sharing with us in the Discord so that we can continue to refine the experience. 

The Stray Kite Studios Team

Hey Wartorn community!

I know just recently we teased that the 1.0 launch of Wartorn was near and the moment you've all been waiting for is locked in: Wartorn 1.0 drops November 11th, marking the end of Early Access and the full realization of Yara and Elani's epic journey!

Quick heads-up on pricing: To celebrate the massive addition of new content, we're increasing the price by just $5 to $34.99 on launch day. Grab it now at the current $29.99 Early Access price (your purchase includes 1.0 upon release).

If you have not, please be sure to read our latest blog post that shares the many details of what is coming with the 1.0 launch, but as a refresher:

Explore the New Island: Thyssic!

• Brand-new desert biome with new overworld map and battles for every mode

Epic New Encounters and Story Depth

• Battle three new bosses: Brutality, Greed, and a mysterious third.

• Fresh events, quests, family members, and heirlooms to deepen the lore.

Reach Beynün – The Grand Finale!

• Guide your caravan to Beynün for end-of-run rewards: Bonus Chord Crystals from leftovers, permanent family unlocks, and the complete story (multiple runs required!).

Ultimate Power-Ups

• Upgrade units to Tier 5: New trait at Tier 3, ability at Tier 4, passive trinket slot at Tier 5.

• New achievements to chase.

This is our biggest update yet, built on your feedback for maximum replayability and satisfaction. Full patch notes drop with the launch.

Whether you're a squad-building pro or new recruit, 1.0 is your chance to conquer Talaur once and for all. 

See you in Beynün!

• The Stray Kite Studios Team

Hey Wartorn community!

We've been on an incredible journey together since Early Access launched, and your feedback has been the driving force behind every tweak, balance, and addition. From mastering elemental combos to building unbreakable caravans, you've helped shape Wartorn into a world of endless strategy and surprises. Now, we're beyond excited to announce our upcoming 1.0 release is near! This is the culmination of continued adventure, packed with new content that brings the full story to life and takes your squads to new levels!

Now, you may be asking… “I thought there was another Content Update (like Content Update 1) that would come before 1.0?” Well, that was the original plan. But along the way through development, we realized that splitting this content was inefficient and would actually slow down bringing everything planned on the road to 1.0. So, to best bring all of this content to you quicker and more efficiently, it is best to bundle it all together as we reach our 1.0 launch! And here we are, planning to bring 1.0 to you here in the first half of November!

This update marks the end of Early Access and delivers the true conclusion to Yara and Elani's quest. Here's a high-level overview of what you can expect:

Explore the New Island: Thyssic!

• Dive into a brand-new desert biome with fresh maps tailored for every mode.

• Journey across the new Overworld map of Thyssic.

• Thyssic isn't just a new landscape—it's home to new quests, events, and more.

Epic New Encounters and Story Depth

• Face off against three formidable new bosses: Brutality, Greed, and a mysterious third.

• Discover new events and quests that weave deeper into the narrative, offering unexpected twists and strategic decisions.

• Recruit new family members and unlock powerful heirlooms to enhance your runs and reveal more of the Wartorn lore.

The Grand Finale: Reach Beynün!

• Finally guide your caravan to the ancestral fortress of Beynün—the endgame you've been fighting toward!

• Earn end-of-run rewards that carry over: Convert leftover resources (coins, food, refugees) into bonus Chord Crystals for future runs.

• Family members you rescue and bring to Beynün become permanently available in your caravan for new runs, building your legacy across playthroughs.

• Uncover the complete story—but you'll need multiple successful journeys to piece it all together. 

Game-Wide Upgrades and Polish

• Push your units beyond Tier 3 all the way to Tier 5 for ultimate power:

  • Gain a new trait at Tier 3 to evolve your strategies.

  • Unlock a fresh ability at Tier 4 for game-changing combos.

  • Add a new passive trinket slot at Tier 5 to fine-tune your builds.

• Hunt for new achievements that reward your mastery of the elements, squads, and Isles.

This 1.0 release is one that we are proud of, refining the core loop while adding layers of replayability and satisfaction. We hope that you are excited with all that is to come!

Full patch notes with every detail, balance change, and fix will drop alongside the release. Stay tuned for the exact launch date announcement soon!

Thanks for being a part of our journey!

See you at Beynün!

The Stray Kite Studios Team

Save 40% on Wartorn now during the Steam Autumn Sale!

The Steam Autumn sale is here and if you have yet to pick up Wartorn, or have friends/family that have shown interest, now is the perfect time to get in being 40% off for a limited time!

We have delivered multiple patches that continue to improve the user experience, implement community feedback, and address various bugs. Additionally, we have rolled out our first large content update, that brings new features, modes, and more! So, if you haven't checked things out since this update, now is a great time as well! Content update 1 info:

Thank you for all the support!

Hey Wartorn community!

We have just deployed a new patch to Wartorn that brings a wide range of fixes, adjustments, and additions based on your feedback and recommendations! This includes changes to the original content as well as the new content added from Content Update 1!

Patch - September 25

• Fixed various dialogue sequences in the villa.

• Addressed feedback regarding overlapping VO lines. Now only the top selected squad will play command barks. 🏆

• Added the ability to manually set the hardware cursor size in the options menu. 🏆

• Cleaned up code for playing the initial startup movie to address a crash.

• Changed the raid battle enemy spawn pattern. After the initial spawn, enemies will now spawn off screen and flow into the battle. 🏆

• Gameplay and dialogue will now pause when overlay is opened.

• Added the pause menu if a controller disconnects.

• Added native support for the PS Dualshock4 and Dualsense controllers.

• When a PS controller is active, the UI will now show the correct PS icons.

• Fixed a crash that could occur if a dualshock controller is disconnected while Wartorn is active (whether the controller is in use or not).

• Updated the squad selector and inspector screens to use RT / R3 instead of select, as it is an easier button to press (especially on PS controllers).

• Updated game's credit scroll.

• The options screen now shows the correct controller image (Xbox, Playstation, or Steam Deck) depending on what is active.

• Dialogue Audio will now pause when the controller disconnects.

• When playing with the steam deck, the UI will now show the correct steam deck icons (and not Xbox icons).

• Added an option to change which gamepad icons are displayed if you wish to override what gamepad is automatically detected.

• Fixed a bug where when keybinding and a duplicate bind was detected, it wouldn't let you cancel and would instead spawn the same dialog a second time. 🏆

• Fixed an issue where the hotkey to open the Caravan menu did not work because Center Camera was bound to the same key.

Feedback

Thank you for your continued support with Wartorn! Please continue to report bugs and share your feedback with us by joining the official Discord Server! 

Happy Friday everyone!

As you head into the weekend, we hope you checked out the big Content Update 1 that we released just over a week ago. This brings new battle types, a new-user experience, and much more! Here are the patch notes:

Also, we have just pushed an additional hotfix that was addressing a few more issues! Please see below these fixes:

• Updated to Unreal 5.6.1

• Fixed a crash in save migration

• Fixed a gamepad issue where journal text was unreadable because it required a scrollbar

• Updates to journal text presentation

• Fixed missing localized text

• Fixed an issue where the cursor was incorrectly being displayed during a cutscene

• Fixed an issue where trinkets were incorrectly displaying usage count

Patch Notes - Update 1

Hey Wartorn Community! We are very excited to finally have Content Update 1 for you to enjoy in the world of Wartorn! This update brings new content such as the new battle types, a reworked new-user experience, along with new features, balance changes, and bug fixes. We are excited to be on this journey with you and cannot wait to see what you think!

Of note, users should NOT experience a hard reset/wipe, and your progression should still carry forward after the update. As a precaution, we have provided how to backup your save file at the bottom of these notes.

Items listed with the 🏆 next to them signify that they were found or suggested by the community!

New Content

• Raid Battles: Raid battles give you a high-risk, high-reward opportunity to snag extra supplies for your caravan or villa. 

• Pitched Battles: For when you just want a no-holds-barred showdown, Pitched Battles pit your army directly against the enemy's in a straight-up clash.

We recently detailed these new battle types here on our blog, so check all the details:

• New-user experience: Based on your input from Early Access playthroughs, we've pinpointed that the first 30 minutes to an hour felt a bit slow and story-heavy for some, with extended dialogues and setup in the starting villa pulling focus away from the battles and caravan management. We've heard you loud and clear: less talking, more action! Starting today, this new-user experience is now available to players! 🏆

We also went into all the details on what this looks like here:

 New Features

• Gamepad Input Rework: We have reworked gamepad controls to allow gamepad players to do everything keyboard and mouse players can. This includes area select, queuing movement commands, and separating select and move. A LOT has changed, so gamepad players, be sure to check out the updated controls in the Options before you play.

• Aggressive/Defensive Stances: Replaced the hold command with toggleable stances (V on KBM, RB on gamepad)—Aggressive for proactive attacks (default), Defensive for staying put while fighting back. Plus, a new stop command (C on KBM, Y on gamepad) for precise control in battles. 🏆

• Show Upcoming Events: Tokens drop down on the road as you progress, allowing you to better anticipate when an event is coming. 🏆

• Passive Ability Cooldowns on HUD: Friendly squads now display passives with cooldowns in the squad indicator bar for better tactical awareness. 🏆

• Enemy Type Preview: See the types of enemies you'll face in the pre-battle squad selector to strategize your lineup. 🏆

• Steam Deck Optimizations: Introduced a Steam module for Big Picture/Steam Deck, including virtual keyboard overrides and support for custom configs to enhance portability.

• Homestead Casting Freedom: Yara and Elani’s squad portrait now shows in the homestead, allowing you to cast abilities from anywhere in the villa.

• Increased Battle Zoom: Raised the maximum zoom out distance during battles for a better overview of the skirmish. 🏆

• Villa Hero Speed Buff: Heroes gain a small speed boost while in the villa, making navigation quicker. 🏆

• Expanded Narrative Content: Introduced new conversations in the Villa reacting to spellbook, gallery, and heirloom progress; additional respawn scenes after learning about Vengeance; lore events on death; more Yara and Elani dialogues on respawn; post-Vengeance scenes; completed Turfus story; new Willum story arcs; 10 new Inkyra events exploring her relationship with Voxyra. 

• New Wagon Damage Events: Added 3 events that can damage your caravan's wagon, adding roguelite tension to travels.

• New Traits: Created a suite of mantra-based and other traits including Fierce, Cooperative, Ambitious, Cautious, Graceful, Harmonious, Calm, Communal, Lawful, Impulsive, Disorganized, Selfish, Organized, Amoral, Decisive, Unsteady, Fatigued, and Timid 

• Movement Tutorial Revival: Brought back the tutorial dialog for movement if not triggered early in the first level (Mouse and Keyboard only).

• Summon Animation Improvements: You will now see one unit animating per unit summoned, and if you interrupt a casting unit then the number of summons will be reduced by one. 

• New Trinkets: Added new active trinkets Sacrifice’s Barb, Flourishing’s Bud, Purity’s Handkerchief, Calculation’s Winding Key, and Dread’s Veil. Added new passive trinkets Frenzy’s Drum, Bravery’s Handwraps, Scrutiny’s Magnifier, Stability’s Bindings, Deceit’s Needle, and Ubiquity’s Lens.

• New Hero Spells: Added new hero spells Marked for Death, Shrapnel Grenade, and Iron Bastion.

• Trinket and Spell VFX: Added new VFX when casting hero spells or activating trinkets.

Changes to Hope system 🏆

• Losing all Hope no longer ends the run: When you run out of Hope the run doesn’t end but squads will now “Rout” during battles.

• Routing: 

  • When Hope is at or reaches 0 during a battle, a timer begins and is displayed around the Hope meter on the HUD. 

  • When the timer expires a random squad will flee the battlefield.

  • After a squad flees the timer resets at a shorter duration.

  • Routing squads cannot be commanded.

  • Yara and Elani never rout.

• Removed Retreating: You can no longer retreat from battles.

Dev notes: Players identified multiple “feel bad” moments in our Hope system. The first was failing a run due to running out of hope from an overworld encounter.  The second was losing a run because you lost enough Hope during the battle to lose the run despite winning the battle itself. The above changes to the Hope system were made in order to have run losses always occur due to losing all your squads during a battle. The goal of the routing feature is to accelerate you to that loss condition, unless you play fast and efficiently. It makes battles really tense but if you can win and then recover hope on the road it makes for a great player story!

We also removed the retreat feature as part of these changes because it was allowing players to skip battles and not take enough attrition to keep runs progressing toward Hope loss scenarios. We want you to lose due to running out of Hope and retreating was creating too much of a “get out of jail free” option for players. So now you must win the fight or die trying!

Balance Changes

• Enemy AI Adjustments: Enemies now have "inertia" (1s ramp-up to max speed after stopping) and slower rotation (540° to 180°), making flanking easier in melee. 

• Lightning Rod (Hero Spell): Made indestructible, always lasts full duration; updated description. 

• Shock Chain Rework: Chains can now branch to multiple enemies simultaneously, propagating faster; can chain off material areas like rain clouds, tar walls, and corpses with priority targeting. 

• Shock + Tar Interaction: Narrower area, travels farther, deals double damage. 

• Boulder Toss: Removed minimum cast range; impact no longer damages caster (still hurts other friendlies). 

• Target Practice (Hero Spell): Reworked to knock back units on impact and explode on each collision; added upgrade values. 

• Dip & Light (Bow Hero T4/T5): Explosion now only damages enemies (no longer sets environment on fire via AOE). 

• Explosive Trap: Increased hitbox radius from 50 to 100. 🏆

• Troll Berserker: No longer gains speed boost during Rampage.

• Lady Vengeance: Now staggerable except during abilities (can't interrupt them). Fire Line now sets off Explosive Traps. 🏆

• Player Aggro: Squads no longer aggro enemies outside their range, even if attacked. 

• Victory Conditions: Levels no longer require killing all enemy summons to complete. 

• Goblin Sappers: Fixed stacking Explosive Traps for instant kills. 

• Enemy Aggro Switching: AI more willing to change targets. 

• Troll Slammer: Immune to CC during Puny Creature animation.

• Water/Tar Spreading: Disabled between non-water/tar objects or identical material objects for performance and visibility. 

• Raincloud: Units don't get wet before VFX appears. 

Unit Balance Changes

• Troll Heavy Crossbowman:

  • Crit Multiplier: 5x → 2x

  • Crit Chance: 0% → 3%

  • Melee Basic Damage: 56.6 → 55.1

  • Max Health: 852.5 → 1066

• Normal Crit Units:

  • Crit Rate: 3% → 2.5%

UI Improvements

• Quest Clarity: Improved visual distinction between available and unavailable quests on the map. 🏆

• Battle Report Enhancements: Right-click selects squads; Y opens details view; fixed gamepad scrolling. 

• Hope Loss Toasts: Now show hope lost in Squad/Unit Lost notifications.

• Family Ability Toasts: Display relevant text for daily abilities. 🏆

• Summon Indicators: Fixed position under squads; ensured status headers (Enraged, Vulnerable, Fear) appear for summons; adjusted Target Dummy status header. 

• Ability Descriptions: Updated Fire Imp to clarify 3-imp squad summon; changed SpawnLimit text to "Max Active Squads". 

• Routing Vignette: Hidden during boss battles. 

• Day/Season Text: Changed style with transparent background for better readability. 

• Trinket Names: Updated capitalization and wording for non-English languages to better convey Chords and Avatars. 

• Reward/Toast Tints: Trinkets/heirlooms now tint to rarity color. 

• Squad Inspector: Fixed left-padding on equipped trinkets; added scrolling tabs to prevent overflow.

• Caravan Widget: Hero health now live-updates in overworld. 

• Hotkeys: Hide for routed/escaped squads. 

• Battle Rewards: Show gained trinkets from raids; consolidate similar types. 

• Cooldown Display: No animations on routed/escaped squads; grey out exhausted limited-use abilities. 

• Ability Stats: Now accurate to company upgrades, traits, and trinkets. 

• Yara & Elani Health: Shown on squad caravan screen. 🏆

• Traits Display: Show for Yara & Elani in squad details characteristics tab. 🏆

• Give Up Menu: Moved further down escape menu; reworded prompts and defeat splash. 

• Text Size: Increased for in-game dialogue and objectives on Steam Deck. 

• Time Conversation: Fixed text wrapping length. 

• Global Toast Refactor: Combined toasts for notifications like Squad Recruitment so less notifications appear.

• Encounter Rewards: Fixed header text construction.

• Options Screen: Fixed Global Illumination Method consistency with quality presets. 

• Reward Selector: Fixed Back button visibility on gamepad when viewing Squad Details.

• Fog of War: Fixed abnormally dark fog when using non-Lumen GI. 

Audio Enhancements

• Lightning Rod SFX: Added sound for when the rod collapses. 

• Trinket Casting SFX: Implemented basic sounds for casting. 

• Time Sequences: Revised audio soundscape for immersion. 

• Dialogue Audio: Fixed issue where continuing with disabled button stopped conversation audio. 

Progression Changes

• Starvation Tag: Properly applied on load if at 0 food. 

• Quest Saving: Only save quests in QuestsCompleted; fixed previously completed quests not showing on map until retriggered. 

• Orphan's Tears: Adjusted outcome weights. 

• Event Fixes: Fixed grammar/spelling in multiple events (Into the Darkness, All Bets are Off, Canyon Rescue, etc.); fixed Rumor Mill rewards mismatch; prevented full squad loss in A Nest of Strands and Extended Hunt when text indicates survivors.

• Hope Loss Events: Added new events for running out of hope.

• Squad Training: Now saved in data. 

• Skip Raid Rewards: No choice rewards (run, meta, squad, trinket) for raid battles. 

• Persistent Damage Healing: No longer heals while starving (0 food) in overworld.

Bugfixes

Crash and Soft Lock Fixes

• Fixed crashes/soft locks from caravan-stopping effects on reload. 

• Fixed save migration crash.

• Fixed encounters triggering saves during quit, causing invalid states. 

Unit and Ability Bugfixes

• Fixed Vital Strikes not dealing damage on Elf Fencer; added hits per unit display for Shear, Reaver Dance, Combo Attack, Vital Strikes. 

• Fixed Invigorating Fugue not healing friendlies when stunned. 

• Fixed Lightning Riders’ teleport being inconsistent on slopes and maintaining aggro after. 

• Fixed Kaboom Crew grenades stopping enemy movement. 

• Fixed shields absorbing damage after deactivation. 

• Fixed Herbal Medicine incorrectly contributing to Healing Done. 

• Fixed Vengeance Scales using stale data; fixed targeting nothing. 

• Fixed single-unit squads not pushing overlapping units. 

• Fixed units jittering in regroup and cohesion loss. 

• Fixed summoned squad limits not being respected.

• Fixed Dummy Rigger animation for Destructive Decoy.

• Fixed Chakram Throw stopping incorrectly and rotated elemental trails. 

• Fixed Pin Down pitchfork always visible. 

• Fixed navigation pathing through thin walls.

• Fixed heirloom granted to enemies. 

• Fixed water healing non-plants when plant is present. 

• Fixed Elf Mender abilities passing incorrect levels. 

• Fixed Raincloud wetting before VFX. 

UI and Input Bugfixes

• Fixed input thrashing locking gamepad. 

• Fixed right click not canceling pending moves in ARPG controls. 

• Fixed veterancy display not showing current unit count/trinkets. 

• Fixed friendly fire tab counting fire damage incorrectly. 

• Fixed destination orientation being inaccurate near bounds.

• Fixed limited cast abilities drawing as castable when unavailable. 

• Fixed boss fights granting double rewards. 

• Fixed tutorials staying open during Time sequences. 

• Fixed spam clicking event rewards giving multiples. 

• Fixed skipping crossroads conversation with gamepad. 

• Fixed HUD visible on Overworld entry. 

• Fixed overworld camera movable with reward open. 

• Fixed squad name not showing on veterancy cards. 

• Fixed Recenter button not reappearing after panning at crossroads. 

• Fixed token drop/pickup jank on overworld map. 

• Fixed saving after multi-day events causing soft locks. 

• Fixed map bounds limiting movement orders in traversal objectives. 

• Fixed hourglass tutorial interfering with escape menu.

• Fixed quests not showing on map. 

• Fixed Lady Vengeance route disappearance issue. 

• Fixed no reinforcements if match not in progress or using hero slot.

• Clear slots for removed squads post-match. 

• Fixed Family Portrait icon black fill.

Narrative and Localization Bugfixes

• Updated intro cinematic. 

• Enable subtitles by default for non-English languages. 

• Fixed grammar/spelling in various events. 

• Updated "Open the Vein" description to match functionality. 

• Localization improvements.

• Updated gamepad controls layout. 

Feedback

Thank you for your continued support with Wartorn! This is just the beginning and we hope that this first round of content not only improves your experience, but also drives your excitement forward as we continue through Early Access. Please continue to report bugs and share your feedback with us by joining the official Discord Server! 

Backup your save files:

Make sure Wartorn isn’t running while you follow these steps:

Go to your save game directory. This is usually located at: %appdata%\\..\\Local\\WartornGame\\Saved\\SaveGames . 

Copy (Ctrl+C) your save (ends in .sav). Paste it (Ctrl+V) into another location, such as your desktop.

That’s it! If you need your backup save (for example, if your current save file gets corrupted) just copy+paste it from where you saved it back into the SaveGames directory.

Update 1 Incoming: New Battle Types, Revamped New Player Experience, and More!

Hey Wartorn community!

We're thrilled to announce that our first major content update is dropping this Thursday, August 28th, at 11:00 AM CT! This update is packed with exciting additions that we've been hard at work on, thanks in large part to your incredible feedback since our Early Access launch. You've helped us shape the game into something even more engaging and strategic, and we can't wait for you to dive in.

As a quick recap, this update includes the overhauled new-user experience we detailed in our last post. We've streamlined the early game to get you into the action faster. If you haven't checked out the full details yet, head over to our previous announcement here:

But that's not all! We're introducing two brand-new battle types to shake up your strategies and add even more depth to the Isles of Talaur. These high-stakes encounters will test your squad-building skills in fresh ways, offering new risks, rewards, and tactical decisions. Here's the breakdown:

RAID Battles

RAID battles give you a high-risk, high-reward opportunity to snag extra supplies for your caravan or villa. Here's how they play out:

• Your squads approach an enemy encampment, catching them off guard.

• Sneak in, raid caches for valuable resources like coin, food, strands, pages, trinkets—and even rescue refugees to bolster your crew.

• Enemies start light but ramp up over time (pro tip: it ties to how many caches you capture, but we'll let you discover the nuances!).

• Escape before the defenders overwhelm you—after you grab a minimum number of caches.

• Raiding takes time, so position your squads wisely for protection.

• Think strategically: divide and conquer for max rewards or regroup for safety?

These are perfect for those moments when you need a resource boost but don't want to commit to a full-on war.

PITCHED Battles

For when you just want a no-holds-barred showdown, PITCHED BATTLES pit your army directly against the enemy's in a straight-up clash:

• Armies line up face-to-face—no traversal needed. The fight kicks off immediately.

• Smaller, more intimate maps force intense, close-quarters combat.

• Retreat isnt an option, but escaping? Not so easy either (insert dramatic gif here 😉).

• Designed to push you into aggressive, decisive fights without room to run.

Whether you're flanking with goblins or unleashing elemental combos with treefolk, these battles will demand your best tactics.

Arriving August 28 

This update is just the start of our roadmap—we're committed to iterating based on your input, so keep sharing your thoughts on Discord or right here on Steam. Full patch notes with all the tweaks, balances, and fixes will drop alongside the update on Thursday, so stay tuned!

If you're new to Wartorn or jumping back in, now's the perfect time to harness those elements, build your fantasy crew, and push forward. Thanks for being part of this journey!

See you on the battlefield!

The Stray Kite Studios Team

P.S. Join our Discord for live discussions, dev Q&As, and sneak peeks:

https://discord.gg/7tkCbbXyga

Follow us on X, Bluesky, and TikTok for more updates!

Enhancing the New Player Experience in Wartorn

Hey Wartorn community,

We've been hard at work behind the scenes, listening closely to your feedback and diving deep into player data to make sure your journeys across the Isles of Talaur are as thrilling and engaging as possible. One area that's come up a lot in discussions on our forums, Discord, and social channels is the opening moments of the game—specifically, how we can get new players into the action faster without overwhelming them with too much story right out of the gate. 

Today, we're excited to share some big changes we're making to the “early game” experience, all designed to ramp up the pacing, reduce initial friction, and let you dive straight into the strategic chaos that makes Wartorn great.. You know… The core loop of battling hordes, losing runs, and coming back stronger with heirlooms and squad enhancements. This is where the magic happens, and we want everyone to experience that addictive rhythm as quickly as possible. Especially new players hopping in for the first time!

Your Feedback:

Based on your input from Early Access playthroughs, we've pinpointed that the first 30 minutes to an hour felt a bit slow and story-heavy for some, with extended dialogues and setup in the starting villa pulling focus away from the battles and caravan management. We've heard you loud and clear: less talking, more action! This overhaul wasn't easy… it involved reworking cinematics, tweaking battle sequences, and balancing progression paths—but we're committed to evolving Wartorn with our community at the forefront. Your play data showed drop-offs in those early stages, and your comments inspired us to streamline things without losing the narrative depth that ties everything together.

Here's a breakdown of what's changing:

• Revamped Opening Cinematic: We've condensed the initial story setup into an updated punchy, concise cinematic that covers what we previously had users navigate through in the villa prior to getting to a battle. This includes, you fleeing from home, the attack on the villa, key interactions with characters like Redjrix, barring the door, and those pivotal conversation beats. This sets the groundwork efficiently, so you get the lore without the lengthy start-and-stop feel of the previous walking and chatting.

• Straight into the Fray: Once the cinematic wraps, you'll jump directly into the opening battle. We've kept this one short and sweet, serving as a gentle tutorial to introduce core mechanics like squad positioning, elemental interactions, and basic ability use. No more lingering in the villa at the start. 

• Overworld and Wagon Journey: After that intro skirmish, you'll transition seamlessly to the overworld map and start your wagon trek. We've sprinkled in a few light events here to build atmosphere, hint at the world's dangers and get players into the flow of overworld events and battles. The goal is to get players to the first crossroad much quicker, where the core loop of the game begins in earnest.

• Skipping Ahead for Better Flow: We've decided to bypass what was originally Battle 2 entirely. Player feedback and our data revealed it felt too similar to the first encounter, dragging out the early game without adding fresh strategic layers. Instead, your second battle will now be the original Battle 3 (the Recognition Stone clash). This is where things really heat up: battles become more chaotic, enemy waves demand clever elemental synergies, and you start flexing those tactical muscles with your growing caravan.

These tweaks shave significant time off the new player ramp-up, dialing back the upfront story exposition while propelling you faster into Wartorn's roguelite heart: experimenting with squad builds, chaining elemental attacks, looping through failures, and unlocking upgrades that make each run feel epic. Whether you're igniting tar with fire or shocking wet foes with lightning, you'll be experiencing the best of what our game offers sooner, leading to that oh-so-satisfying "just one more run" feeling.

What can previous players expect?

All of the above is designed for the new player experience, but what about those of you who are  past your first run? There are big changes to how the beginning of each run plays out for experienced players as well.

• Streamlined first road experience: The tutorial events and battles on the intro road before Herald Junction get phased out over the first three runs until you essentially start your new runs in the aftermath of the Recognition stone battle. No more fighting the trivial battles over and over again.

• Squad Randomization: With Update 1 we are also moving forward the time at which the intro squads start being randomized from run 4 to run 3. This allows you to start getting more custom and interesting builds earlier and kicks off each run with a little burst of rewards for you to choose from at the start of a new run.

What’s Next - The First Major Content Update

We can't thank you enough for your honest feedback! It's what drives us to iterate and improve. This update represents a ton of effort from the team, from redesigning sequences to playtesting, all to ensure Wartorn feels welcoming yet brutally challenging right from the start.

When can you expect these changes? They'll roll out with our first major Content Update, slated for later this month. This Update will also introduce two brand-new battle types to shake up your strategies even further! We'll be dropping more details on the exact timing, those fresh battles, and additional goodies very soon, so keep an eye on our Steam page, Discord, and socials.

We hope that these changes offer perspective to our awesome community that we are listening to you and that through Early Access we are working together to make Wartorn the best that it can be! How can you help? Keep giving us feedback, tell your friends about Wartorn, and drop a review on Steam!

Thanks for joining us on this adventure—we're just getting started.

The Wartorn Team

Patch Notes - Patch 2

Greetings, caravan leaders! The latest patch for Wartorn is here, bringing a focus into enhancing the experience based on your feedback! Thanks to your feedback, we’re making your journey smoother and more immersive. Let’s explore what’s new in this patch!

Items listed with the 🏆 next to them signify that they were found or suggested by the community! 

New Features

• Improved visuals in The Villa: We have made some adjustments based on player feedback to The Villa being “Too blurry”. These improvements should assist with overall visual clarity, but players can also disable the “Painterly Effect” in The Villa using the new options. 🏆

• Painterly Effect Options: You have been asking for this, so here it is! Control the painterly effect with new settings—turn it on or off completely, or use it only in battles or the villa for a tailored visual experience. 🏆

• Candle Flicker Accessibility Toggle: Customize your overworld journey map by enabling or disabling the flickering candle effect. 🏆

• Migration to Unreal Engine 5.6: We have migrated all engine work to Unreal Engine 5.6 – which should improve overall performance and includes many crashes for users using NVIDIA 50xx series GPUs. 

Balance Changes

Unit Balance

• Updated various unit stats to align with our latest balance pass. These changes fix missing or misnamed entries, ensuring all units perform as intended. 

Unit Balance Changes

Health Adjustments

• Human Vanguard Spearman: 173.25 → 165

  • Human Bannermen: 273.735 → 261

  • Human Dummy Riggers: 248.325 → 237

  • Human Elite Bannermen: 342.195 → 326

  • Human Elite Dummy Riggers: 310.38 → 296

• Human Hydro Pugilist: 336.6 → 337

  • Human Water Acrobat: 316 → 317

  • Human Elite Hydro Pugilist: 420.75 → 421

• Elf Elite Healer: 235 → 294

• Troll Elite Berserker: 1100 → 1375

Damage Adjustments

• Elf Elite Fencer (Melee): 16.14 → 15.6

• Troll Heavy Crossbowman (Ranged): 46.43 → 44.1

Critical Hit Adjustments

• Elf Fencer: Critical Multiplier: 5 → 2

  • Elf Elite Fencer: Critical Multiplier: 5 → 2

• Elf Elite Healer: Critical Multiplier: 5 → 2, Critical Chance: 0 → 0.03

• Troll Elite Berserker: Critical Multiplier: 5 → 2, Critical Chance: 0 → 0.03

Resource Management

• Elf Fencer: Food Upkeep: 0.5 → 0.4

  • Elf Elite Fencer: Food Upkeep: 0.5 → 0.4

  • Elf Elite Healer: Food Upkeep: 0.5 → 0.4

• Troll Elite Berserker: Food Upkeep: 2.5 → 4

Morale Impact

• Elf Fencer: Hope Loss on Death: 1 → 2

  • Elf Elite Fencer: Hope Loss on Death: 1 → 3

  • Elf Elite Healer: Hope Loss on Death: 1 → 3

• Troll Elite Berserker: Hope Loss on Death: 10 → 30

UI Improvements

• Fixed a bug where the heirloom icon occasionally displayed a placeholder image, ensuring your equipped heirlooms always show correctly.

• Resolved gamepad navigation issues in the family tab for caravan and squad selection menus, making menu browsing seamless on controllers.

Audio Enhancements

• Adjusted voice-over sounds, ensuring they respond correctly to the dialogue volume slider for a balanced audio experience. 

Bugfixes

Unit Bugfixes

• Fixed Lightning Rider getting stuck in the casting state after teleporting by prioritizing command completion, ensuring smoother ability execution. 

• Removed blend-out on Water Brawler’s custom death animations, guaranteeing the notification triggers reliably. 

Narrative Bugfixes

• Fixed the Turfus conversation not playing on the second meeting, ensuring he’s properly granted to your caravan. 🏆

Gameplay Bugfixes

• Corrected difficulty adjustments, ensuring difficulty multipliers work as intended.

• Merchant Spawn on Load: Merchants now spawn correctly when loading a save at a junction, ensuring you never miss a trade opportunity. 🏆

• Fixed an issue that was causing performance drops when in a “Warlord Battle”. 

Localization

• Applied minor localization updates for keybinds and controller actions, improving clarity and consistency across languages.

Feedback

This update refines your Wartorn experience with community-driven polish and new customization options. We’re grateful for your input on Discord and Steam—keep it coming! 

Please continue to report bugs and share your feedback with us by joining the official Discord Server! 

Hotfix - Deployed 7/10

Hey everyone! We hope you have been enjoying Patch 2 and we appreciate all the additional feedback! As mentioned with the patch, there were a few Known Issues that we wanted to address, so we have now deployed a hotfix with these changes -- Please see below. Also, we are continuing to work toward future patches and our first content update, so stay tuned for more details! Some large things we are addressing that take more time include, re-working "abandoning a run" so that you do not lose resources, along with some changes to the pacing of the beginning of the game. Hotfix changes:

• Fixed an issue where Lightning riders using shock chain would cause the game to freeze.

• Fixed an issue when abandoning a squad in the squad inspector would not remove it from the squad list.

• Fixed an issue where a user could navigate outside of the bounds of the squad selector causing it to lose focus/control - On Gamepad.

• Improved performance

Hi everyone! We hope that you have been enjoying all the changes we have rolled out in Patch 1, which just released a couple days ago! Please see the link below to read the full patch notes.

As you head into the weekend, we also wanted to share a brief overview video with you that highlights some of the key items in this patch. Check out the video above and enjoy!

Lastly, we did deploy a small hotfix addressing a few issues that we noticed since launching this patch, so please see below those fixes:

• Fixed an issue where Turfus conversation does not add Turfus to the Caravan,

• Fixed the issue where units get stuck "T-Posing" on death,

• Fixed an issue where Heirlooms show placeholder icons on old saves,

• Fixed an issue where if a user sets an individual audio slider to 0, it bleeds in some sound from UI and Reverb.

Thank you for being on this journey with us and for making the first full week since launch great! If you haven't yet, please join the official Discord so you can share your feedback, report bugs, and engage with the devs and community!

Patch Notes - Patch 1

Hey everyone! We are excited to share with you our first patch to Wartorn since we launched into Early Access last week! This patch brings new features, balance tweaks, bug fixes, and a ton of polish to enhance your journey through the perilous lands with your caravan. 

Items listed with the 🏆 next to them signify that they were found or suggested by the community!

New Features

• Speed Options in Overworld: Added the ability for players to increase the speed of their Caravan when moving through the Overworld. 🏆

• Minimum & Maximum Range Indicators: A transparent white circle now appears under units when casting abilities, showing the minimum and maximum range for precise targeting. Perfect for planning your squad's next move! 

• Offscreen Enemy Indicators: New icons alert you to enemies just out of sight, ensuring you’re never caught off guard in battle. 🏆

• Camera Control Options: Customize your experience with new settings for camera shake intensity and a pan speed multiplier for Gamepad/WASD/mouse edge-of-screen panning. 🏆

Balance Changes

Developer Notes: It has been an eye opening first week and it’s been amazing to see the different strategies that have been employed and to hear about what units and family members are standing out. On the whole we are seeing some units stand out as the clear “best” units and players are not exploring some of the other units as a result.  The changes below are an attempt to nerf the ones that are head and shoulders better than the others so that more units feel like viable options.

You will also notice that there are a lot more nerfs than buffs in this list.  Turns out you all are very good at the game and are, honestly, not failing enough! This is leading to our story not unfolding as quickly as it should and the meta progression doesn’t get to shine because you don’t feel like you need it that much.  These changes are all part of trying to get the overworld resources, battle difficulty, and challenge level where we think it will provide the most entertaining Rogue-lite experience.  We welcome your feedback after you have had a chance to try out these changes. In general we are finding healing too powerful and not allowing for the levels of attrition that we want which should encourage players to try more units and bring units in “off the bench” to allow their best units a chance to heal on the journey and keep battles fresher by causing players to try different strategies while their units recover. Some of the tanks are also underperforming at their role so a few of the tanks have received HP buffs.

Unit Balance

• Health Adjustments:

  • Human Spearman: 165 → 173.25

    • Human Signifer: 261 → 273.735

    • Human Builder: 237 → 248.325

    • Human Elite Signifer: 326 → 342.195

    • Human Elite Builder: 296 → 310.38

  • Elf Student of Collective: 135 → 148.5

    • Elf Believer of Collective: 200 → 220

    • Elf Heretic of Collective: 400 → 440

    • Elf Elite Believer: 250 → 275

    • Elf Elite Heretic: 500 → 550

  • Human Water Brawler: 235 → 212

    • Human Hydro Pugilist: 374 → 336.6

    • Human Water Acrobat: 352 → 316.8

    • Human Elite Hydro Pugilist: 468 → 420.75

    • Human Elite Water Acrobat: 440 → 396

  • Goblin Angry Mob: 140 → 130

    • Goblin Torch: 203 → 188

    • Goblin Reaver: 181 → 167

    • Goblin Elite Torch: 253 → 234

    • Goblin Elite Reaver: 225 → 208 

• Damage Adjustments:

  • Demon Crone Melee: 16 → 13.6

    • Demon Witch Melee: 20 → 17

    • Demon Harbinger Melee: 23 → 19.6

    • Demon Elite Witch Melee: 24 → 20.4

    • Demon Elite Harbinger Melee: 28 → 23.8

  • Troll Heavy Crossbowman Ranged: 129.997 → 123.48

    • Troll Elite Heavy Crossbowman Ranged: 162.4 → 154.28 

• Healing Adjustments:

  • Elf Mender Heal: 0.25 → 0.2

  • Elf Healer Heal: 0.5 → 0.4

    • Elf Elite Healer Heal: 0.5 → 0.4 

• Ability Damage: (T1 is base ability → T5 is fully upgraded ability)

  • Meteor Strike T1: 100 → 80

  • Meteor Strike T2: 125 → 100

  • Meteor Strike T3: 150 → 120

  • Meteor Strike T4: 175 → 140

  • Meteor Strike T5: 200 → 160

  • Hydrojet T1: 50 → 60

  • Hydrojet T2: 75 → 75 (no change)

  • Hydrojet T3: 100 → 90

  • Hydrojet T4: 125 → 105

  • Hydrojet T5: 150 → 120 

• Specific Units:

  • Chakram Throw Elf Bleeders: Damage 10 → 8, Heal per bleed 0.25% → 0.5%

  • Rampage Berserker Troll: Damage 45 → 20

  • Troll Berserker: Melee attacks adjusted for better hit consistency

  • Reduced food upkeep for all units by 20% 

Hero Balance

• Linen Bandages (Healing Taken): 50% → 25%

• Efficient Preparations (Cooldown Reduction): 12.5% → 15%

• Scouting Lens (Sight Range): 25% → 50%

Family Member Balance

Developer Notes: Clucks and Voxyra have proven to be the best of the family members. So much so that players are only taking one route to get to Tabenrahzi. To start to address this and give other family members some room to shine we have removed their starting food and coin bonuses from Voxyra and Clucks, respectively.  This change should also bring more value to the Community Tree upgrades since that is the only place to get them now. We also added an interval to how Clucks and Voxyra grant their resources so that there are some gaps in the income and we can essentially give fractions of coin and food per day. This change is particularly important for Voxyra as the previous method did not allow any window for a player to starve. We also added a level 2 “speed bump” to family Chord Crystal costs to encourage players to spread out their meta progression across more family members instead of rushing to the end- game level stats for a single family member after their first run. Fear not, if you are already past that point you get to keep the discount.

• T2 Family Member passive upgrades cost increased: 1 → 3 Chord Crystals

• Clucks:

  • Removed starting coin from family ability

  • Now grants coins every 5 days: T1=5, T2=10, T3=15, T4=20, T5=25 

• Nanny Voxyra:

  • Removed starting food from family ability

  • Now grants food every 10 days: T1=30, T2=50, T3=75, T4=100, T5=150 

• Sapinee:

  • Healing Per Day: 1%/2%/3%/4%/5% → 0.4%/0.8%/1.2%/1.6%/2% 

• Community Tree:

  • Healing Per Day: 0.5%/1.5%/3%/5%/8% → 0.2%/0.4%/0.5%/0.8%/1% 

Heirloom Balance

• Everbloom Heirloom: No longer heals enemies

• Pecking Stone Heirloom: Fixed upgrade limit beyond level 2

Trinket Balance

• Intimidation’s Mask:

  • T1: 12% → 5%

  • T2: 14% → 7.5%

  • T3: 16% → 10%

  • T4: 18% → 12.5%

  • T5: 20% → 15% 

Difficulty Balance

Developer Notes:

As mentioned earlier, our players are too good at the game! These changes make the average and maximum difficulty harder to provide greater challenge for our stronger players without changing the game for players who are struggling.

Increased target hope lost per battle for dynamic difficulty: 4 → 7 

• Increased max and average battle difficulty curves 

Overworld Balance

• Reduced positive hope event chance at crossroads: 7.5% → 3.25%

• Increased food event chance at crossroads: 12.5% → 16.75% 

• Reduced base squad decayed health healing per day: 2% → 1%

Progression

• Prevent traveling on already-visited roads or junctions, streamlining your caravan’s journey 🏆

• Fixed narrative progression inconsistencies between sessions

UI Improvements

• Added background brush to squad inspector for hero spells and trinket names 

• Show “No Abilities” in wagon’s squad details 

• Display hope lost text on defeat screen when losing from hope 

• Show total hope loss when abandoning squads 

• Added full name and trait to Pre-Battle Squad Selection tooltips 

• Added vertical space between spells and trinkets in squad inspector 

• Fixed heirloom icon not updating in homestead when swapping 

• Fixed squad selection deselecting on button clicks 

• Fixed passive ability icons using incorrect frames 

• Removed lock icon from family member widgets in caravan menu 

• Fixed UI layout issues for various resolutions in Overworld, Battle, and Homestead menus 

• Fixed delete button running off-screen in profile menu 

• Fixed spell card description overflow and unlock animation issues

Audio Enhancements

• New SFX for gaining/losing hope 

• Revised SFX and music for veterancy screen 

• Separate volume sliders for VO barks and story dialogue 🏆

• UI notification and victory sounds can now be turned down using the UI volume slider 🏆

• Improved Chakram Throw SFX 

• Added audio to intro splash video 

• Implemented VO for Torn intro cinematic, first loop, and taunts 

• Added missing VO when defeating Vengeance after a loop. 

• Fixed VO dialogue and subtitle mismatch at game start 

• Updated VO damage barks to trigger less frequently with improved mix 🏆

• Fixed sounds playing in reverb with volume sliders down 

• Fixed combat audio leaking behind battle report menu and cinematics 

• Clucks no longer “clucks” when absent 

• Disabled auto-advance for non-voiced conversations 

Art & Animation

• Troll Berserker now swings axe constantly in Rampage mode, even when stationary 

• Added curve to Troll hand for proper Rock Throw animation alignment 

• Improved transparency of villa objects when heroes are obscured 

• Improved rain visuals for Cloud Seeder heirloom without blocking battlefield view 

• Added customized trinket casting animations for all units 

Text & Localization

• Reworded Final Stand description for clarity 

• Updated Persistence’s Gauntlets description

• Updated Thorny Sapling ability description to match functionality 

• Updated Community Tree upgrade names: “Healing Taken Multiplier” → “Healing Affinity”, “Sight” → “Sight Radius”, “Cooldown” → “Ability Cooldown Reduction” 

• Fixed Yara and Elani squad inspector text for Basic Attack and Ability Damage upgrades 

• Fixed typos in overworld events 🏆

• General localization improvements

  • Large Korean translation improvements with extensive manual Localization QA, including victory/defeat text, spell names, and more 

• Updated localization for seasons, days, and datetime formatting

Bugfixes

Crash Fixes

• Addressed Lumen crashes reported by players 🏆

• Submit current save file with crash reports for better debugging 

Unit Bugfixes

• Fixed various units getting stuck behind obstacles

• Fixed Hurlers not exiting cower state when targets move out of range 🏆

• Fixed Hurlers casting abilities while cowering 

• Fixed Troll Berserker not destroying objects while rampaging 

• Fixed Treefolk interrupting basic attacks with swipe 

• Fixed units facing the wrong way when attacking 

• Fixed units interrupting attack animations when killing the last unit in a squad 

• Fixed Kaboom Crew projectile missing large units 

• Fixed summon preview flickering with obstacles in path 

Boss Bugfixes

• Lady Vengeance Map: Moved pillars and added nav modifiers to prevent units getting stuck 🏆

• Fixed Vengeance’s Fire Line cast issue during enrage 

• Changed Vengeance’s guards to Average size for Puny Creature ability 

  • With the change in size, the dead guards will no longer block pathing 🏆

• Fixed Vengeance’s Scales preview lingering after enrage interrupt 

• Adjusted Torn sweep attacks to match preview decal 

Narrative Bugfixes

• Fixed duplicate Rainmakers conversation on 3rd+ run 🏆

• Fixed incorrect family member condition in “The Golden Drouse” 

• Fixed “Grisly Request” quest giving wrong Sapinee result 

• Fixed “Say The Magic Words” event text to avoid scrollbar issues 

• Fixed squads not returning to caravan after going on “Orphan’s Tears” quest 🏆

• Ensured second squad (Neighbor Talmi’s Focused Rainmakers) has consistent identity 

UI Bugfixes

• Fixed double tutorial screens and potential soft locks from UI cleanup 

• Fixed dialogs not reporting closure with ESC/B on no-cancel dialogs 

• Fixed battle rewards being skippable with keybinds 🏆

• Fixed heirloom stats displaying as level 1 in homestead/overworld 

• Fixed Hero Weapon Unlock Progress Not Updating on Return to Homestead

Achievement Bugfixes

• Fixed Steam Achievements not tracking and granting consistently 🏆

Overworld Bugfixes

• Fixed Merchant Introduction events appearing twice 

• Fixed Stachelek’s Tavern not triggering merchant 

Hero Bugfixes

• Fixed Thousand Cuts permanently refunding all hero ability cooldowns 

Homestead Bugfixes

• Fixed edge panning not resetting the return-to-heroes timer 🏆

Animation Bugfixes

• Fixed Absolution’s Salve trinket animation stopping squads 🏆

AI Bugfixes

• Fixed enemies casting multiple abilities simultaneously 

Map Bugfixes

• Fixed collision on Recognition Stone map to prevent units getting stuck 

• Fixed pathing on traversal maps and scaled down trees on traversal and Torn boss maps 

Movement Bugfixes

• Fixed rendering move feedback for invalid move orders 

• Made unit movement snappier while rotating 

Family Member Bugfixes

• Fixed not adding Wamah to caravan on 2nd+ encounter 

• Turfus: Fixed wagon health healing only when gaining resources 

Options

• Added triggers to gamepad controls image 

Known Issues

We have been continuing to update our Known Issues list in the Official Discord, so please continue to refer to this list and report bugs with us as you see them! Most notably, thanks to community members, we have discovered and addressed an issue that was causing save files to bloat in size and impact performance. This has been resolved in Patch 1. In order for this fix to take affect, players will need to either complete a run or start a new run and get to the fireplace battle. Additionally, we are still working toward fixing the crashes that are affecting players using 50xx series GPUs.

Feedback

Thank you for your continued support with Wartorn! This is just the beginning and we hope that this initial patch not only improves your experience, but also drives your excitement forward as we continue through Early Access. Please continue to report bugs and share your feedback with us by joining the official Discord Server! 

Wartorn fans! ⚔

The day we’ve all been waiting for is HERE! Wartorn storms into Early Access RIGHT NOW! We’re beyond thrilled to unleash this fantasy tactical-roguelite adventure into your hands, and we can’t thank you enough for joining us on this epic journey. From the Stray Kite Studios team to every one of you who’s wishlisted, shared, or hyped us up—YOU are the best! 🔥

We are a small, indie team that set out to create something unique and different. Being self-funded and self-published, we knew there would be risks, but with your excitement and your help, we think we are onto something special. But, this is just the beginning. 🙏

Before we dive in, we wanted to remind everyone that in celebration of launch week, we have a special price for the first week. So, get it while you can! <3

What’s Wartorn All About?

For those just joining the battle, Wartorn throws you into a world shredded by conflict, where sisters Yara and Elani fight to avenge their ancestors and reclaim their destiny. Here’s the rundown:

• Elemental Chaos: Wield fire, water, and lightning in real-time battles where every move counts. Combine elements for devastating combos that’ll leave your enemies in shock!

• Build Your Crew: Recruit and upgrade over 20 unique unit types, from fierce warriors to mystical creatures. Build out your Caravan to best fit your play-style or to strategically face what the pathway ahead may bring.

• Tactical Glory: Level up your squad, tweak your strategies, and face ever-changing challenges in a visually stunning fantasy world.

• A Story of Heart: Follow Yara and Elani’s saga of love, loss, and vengeance across magical lands that’ll stick with you long after the battle ends.

Check out our official launch trailer above to see the action in all its glory!

Early Access: Your Voice Shapes the War

As an Early Access title, Wartorn is just the beginning of our adventure together. Your feedback is our battle map, guiding us toward the 1.0 release. Got ideas for new units, balance tweaks, or epic features? Join our Discord and let’s forge this world side by side! We’ve also shared our Roadmap blog post to give you a sneak peek at what’s coming. Take a look if you haven't yet:

Additionally in the Discord, you can report bugs, keep up with our 'Known issues' list, stay up to date with any teasers or upcoming patches, and of course interact with the community! This includes, sharing content and even taking a quiz to know what Mantra you are!

Steam Deck Compatibility

Ready to wage war on the go? Wartorn is playable on Steam Deck right out of the gate, bringing Yara and Elani’s epic quest to your handheld! Our team’s worked hard to ensure smooth controls, legible text, and tactical chaos for the Steam Deck. That said, we’re still fine-tuning to make the experience even sharper and smoother. Want to help us polish it to “Verified” glory? Share your Steam Deck feedback on Discord and let us know how it’s running. Let’s make portable battles legendary! ⚡

Thank You, Heroes!

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for believing in Wartorn. Whether you’re slinging lightning bolts or just cheering from the sidelines, you’re part of this world now. Let’s make some unforgettable battles together!

See you on the battlefield, The Stray Kite Studios Team

P.S. Share your wildest battle moments on Discord or tag us on X (@Wartorn_Game)! We’re dying to see your strategies in action!

Hey Wartorn Community!

We’re excited to finally pull back the curtain and share the roadmap for Wartorn’s early access journey and we want to keep you in the loop about what’s coming next. Early Access is all about building something epic together, and your feedback is going to be the heart of this adventure. So, grab your sword, bow, or magical staff, and let’s dive into what’s on the horizon!

Our Journey Forward

Our roadmap is packed with four key milestones, each bringing new content and features to make Wartorn even more thrilling. Here an overview:

• Early Access Launch Launch is imminent and soon you will be introduced to the core gameplay and the vibrant, fantasy world of Wartorn. From mystical creatures to epic battles, there are tons here out the gate. With a wide array of unit types, paths to choose, and the beginning of our epic story, you will have plenty to mess with as you find your perfect run.

• New Battle Type (Update 1) Get ready to feel the heat! Our first major update introduces a brand-new battle type… or maybe more than one? We shall see. This update will add fresh tactical depth, challenging you to rethink your strategies and dominate the battlefield in new ways. We cannot wait to share more with you soon!

• Isle of Thyssic (Update 2) Next, we’re whisking you away to the Isle of Thyssic—a mysterious and breathtaking new area to explore. Expect stunning environments, new challenges, and secrets waiting to be uncovered. This update will expand the Wartorn world and give you plenty of reasons to dive back in.

• 1.0 Launch The grand finale! The full 1.0 launch will bring Wartorn to its complete form, with new features, refined gameplay, and the full story. This is when the game will shine at its brightest, ready to deliver the ultimate fantasy experience.

From new unit types, trinkets, bosses, and more… our journey to 1.0 will be sure to keep bringing you back! Stay tuned as the game progresses as we will be sure to keep you updated on the timing of these updates, the specific details that each will bring with it, all while continuing to refine the experience, fix bugs, and listen to community feedback!

Your Feedback Shapes the Journey

We can’t stress this enough: your feedback is everything. Every update or patch we roll out will be impacted by what you, the players, tell us. Whether it’s a suggestion for balancing combat, a cool idea for the Isle of Thyssic, or just letting us know what you love, we’re all ears. Jump into the Steam discussions, or join our community on Discord — every bit helps us make Wartorn the best it can be.

A Note on Timing

These are our current (high-level) plans, but game development can be a wild ride. Timelines might shift as we polish things up and incorporate your feedback. Rest assured, we’re committed to delivering these updates as soon as they’re ready to dazzle you. We aim to fulfill our promise of not being one of those games that sits in Early Access forever… but rather to bring you the full experience in a timely manner, while not rushing things either. 

Thanks for Being Part of Wartorn

We’re so grateful to have you along for this journey. Wartorn is as much your game as it is ours, and we can’t wait to see what you think. See you on June 17th and keep exploring, keep fighting, and keep sharing your thoughts. Together, we’ll make Wartorn a legendary adventure!

Stay tuned for more updates, and happy adventuring!

— The Stray Kite Studios Team

Hey, Wartorn community!

As I am sure you are well aware — Wartorn is launching into Early Access on Steam on June 17, 2025! That’s right—your journey through the wartorn Isles of Talaur is just around the corner, and we can’t wait for you to dive in.

Since launch is rapidly approaching, we wanted to share a very brief update with you today, including a short video-version (see below), but be sure to be on the lookout for additional updates this week, including some additional information about our Early Access Roadmap. 👀

So, let's dive in:

Why Early Access?

Early Access lets you play Wartorn while it’s still in development, giving you a chance to help shape its future. Your feedback will guide us as we polish gameplay, balance the elemental system, and expand the story. Games like Hades and Valheim became incredible thanks to their communities, and we’re eager to follow that path with Wartorn. Since our Steam Next Fest demo, we’ve made big strides—polishing combat, adding new units, and building out key systems—and we’re excited to hear your thoughts on the latest version.

What’s in Store at Launch?

When Wartorn hits Early Access, you’ll experience:

• The Villa Hub: Your home base for upgrading heroes, swapping weapons, and unlocking powerful passive abilities.

• Roguelite Progression: Discover heirlooms, trinkets, and upgrades that persist across runs, making every playthrough unique and rewarding.

• Dynamic Combat: Command squads of goblins, elves, demons, and more, using the elemental system to outsmart enemies with strategic combos.

• A Rich Narrative: Follow Yara and Elani as they face tough choices and emotional moments on their quest to reunite their family.

• The Overworld Map: Explore branching paths, manage resources like hope and food, and care for your squad as you navigate the Isles of Talaur.

We actually shared a ton of details in a recent post that you can still check out:

How You Can Get Involved

We’re building Wartorn with you in mind, so we want to hear from you! Join our Discord to connect with fellow players, share your ideas, and stay updated on the latest developments. Your feedback will be crucial as we continue to refine the game.

Wishlist Now

Don’t miss out on the action! Wishlist Wartorn on Steam to stay informed about the launch and get updates as we approach June 17. We’ll be sharing more details soon, so keep an eye out! Oh, and be sure to follow us across social media so you can share your screenshots, videos, and streams with us!

Thank you for your support and enthusiasm. We can’t wait to see you command the elements and forge your legend in Wartorn!

— The Stray Kite Studios Team

Exclusive Opportunity for Content Creators

• Game Keys: Get your hands on a copy of Wartorn to play and share with your community.
• Early Access Slots: Be among the few to first experience the game before the official release.

How to Apply

Why Cover Wartorn?

What to Expect in Wartorn

Brand-New Reveals

Want a peek? Check out some raw gameplay, showing these new features in action!

Why Early Access?

Join the Fun!

Squad Controls: More Power in Your Hands

Options Menu Overhaul

Visuals That Pop

More Missions, More Units

Smoother Pathing & Navigation

Melee Combat & Unit Roles

What’s Next?

What to Expect in the Combat Demo

• Elf Bolt Mage
• Elf Rainmaker
• Goblin Grenadier
• Goblin Limb Thrasher Rabble
• Goblin Angry Mob
• Goblin Novice Brewer
• Human Vanguard Spearmen
• Styg Fire Acolyte
• Styg Ichor Defender
• Pheign Heartwood Stomper
• Troll Club Clomper

What’s Not in the Demo

We Need Your Feedback!

Wishlist & Get Ready to Fight!