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Pre-Alpha Tests
July 11, 2026 at 07:09 PM
Corrected Test 46 start to 20 July 2026 and summarised the July 2026 development update preview of upcoming Test 46 features
Anvil Empires is in pre-alpha at the time of writing. Pre-alpha is not a single window: it is an ongoing series of scheduled tests that the studio uses to validate new systems, gather feedback, and play out competitive wars under live conditions. Pre-alpha access is free and there is no NDA: results, screenshots, and feedback may be shared publicly.
The first pre-alpha test ran in April 2023. As of late June 2026, more than forty-five numbered pre-alpha tests have been completed. The most recent completed test was Pre-Alpha Test 45, which as the MS 66 release ran from 10 to 17 June 2026 and hosted War number seventeen. Most early tests lasted about five to seven days, with the world running continuously for the duration. Recent tests frame the same window as a single persistent war, with the world state preserved within the test and reset between tests.
A war is the competitive frame inside a pre-alpha test. Each war has a number, a start and end date, the test version it was played on, and a recorded outcome by faction. The war system was introduced alongside victory conditions in early 2025; since then, more than seventeen completed wars have been played to a conclusion and an eighteenth is scheduled for the next test. Outcomes are tracked per faction, with categories of victory, stalemate, and defeat. Wars are the primary unit by which the studio compares balance changes between tests.
See the Victory Conditions article for the full rules. In brief, a war ends when any one faction satisfies one of three paths:
Military victory: Capture a defined number of enemy Town Centers or Keeps. The exact count has changed across wars; recent wars have required three Town Centers, while earlier wars demanded all of them.
Cultural victory: Build and hold Temples for a sustained period. Cultural victory requires a large pool of faction resources and cooperation, since Temples are expensive and must survive the war.
Religious victory: Earn enough influence through worship and faction-cultural play. Religious paths overlap with cultural play but track a separate metric.
Pre-alpha access is free. The official path is to wishlist Anvil Empires on Steam and join the studio's community channels for test schedules and pre-alpha keys. Spots can be limited at first, but the stated goal is to onboard as many participants as possible, with no payment required and no pre-order. Once granted access, players install through Steam and connect on the test windows announced by the studio.
Persistence in Anvil Empires is per-test, not per-account. Settlements, homesteads, avatars, and inventory are scoped to the active war world; once a war ends and a test wraps, the world is reset for the next test. Account-level achievements and progress systems are still being designed and may change before early access.
Each pre-alpha test ships a named build that pairs to the wider war. The most recent tests are summarised below.
Test | Build | Window | War | Headline Changes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Pre-Alpha Test 45 | MS 66 | 10 June 2026 to 17 June 2026 | War 17 | Pagan faction re-enabled as a playable alliance; Short Sword variants (Superior and Masterwork) added; Heavy Armour gains the shipped arrow-deflection and not-staggered-by-light-projectiles behaviour and becomes vulnerable to Piercing; Avatar combat attributes no longer increase player-versus-player damage and instead gate which weapons an avatar can equip; barreling stations removed in favour of packing inside Homesteads, Town Centers, Fortresses, and Large Camps; Bronze now smelts from Malachite while Cassiterite becomes Tin Ingots for Longswords; Religious win condition reworked around front-line Relic Sites mined for turn-in Relics; animals and vehicles tradable on the Marketplace. |
Pre-Alpha Test 44 | MS 65 | 13 May 2026 to 20 May 2026 | War 16 | Persistent war on the same competitive ruleset bridging the Test 43 bounty build and the Test 45 economy rework. |
Pre-Alpha Test 43 | MS 64 | 16 April 2026 to 23 April 2026 | War 15 | Bounty boards in Taverns; bandit camps and forts added to the map; incapacitated avatars; charging mechanic when guard is held above sixty percent stability; fifty percent reduction in tool and weapon durability loss; Call to Arms requires three attackers to unlock public inventories. |
Pre-Alpha Test 42 | MS 63 | 5 March 2026 to 12 March 2026 | War 14 | Avatar visual overhaul (skin tone, hair, facial hair, sex); new clothing and ammunition slots; faction-specific armour in four tiers (Auxiliary, Light, Medium, Heavy); Superior weapon tier introduced; Underworld level two added; Homestead specialisation into Town and Wild branches; player muting controls. |
Pre-Alpha Test 41 | MS 62 line | 18 December 2025 to 21 December 2025 | War 13 | Avatar food consumption inside structures; stagger on enemy collision; House Manager alliances; fifty percent increase in upkeep; tripled starvation rates; smoother layout snapping for homestead structures. |
Build numbers are the studio's MS series tags; war numbers reference the persistent war that the test hosted. New systems shipped in a given test may be balanced or replaced in the next, so values quoted on the live wiki always describe the most recent observed test rather than a fixed launch state.
Several features previewed in the late-May 2026 development update have since shipped to the live build in Test 45: the return of the Aranic Pagans as a selectable faction, the two-handed Longsword as a melee answer to heavy armour, the Heavy Armour arrow-deflection rework, and the expanded bounty system with new creatures such as the Mánadýr and Stonwulfe. Pre-Alpha Test 46 is scheduled to begin on 20 July 2026 and will host War number eighteen. The bolt-firing Crossbow remains previewed but is not yet in a live test, so its stats stay unconfirmed until a build ships them.
A July 2026 development update has since previewed the work being built for Test 46, which the studio describes as still under development and subject to change before it ships. The headline items are a rebuilt world map with more even terrain and additional space for homesteads, fortresses, and battles; a redesigned Town Keep that gains built-in fort walls and gates and becomes visually and structurally distinct from the Fortress Keep; and a reworked combat system that adds three selectable attack types and turns raising or lowering the shield into a deliberate action. The same update adds a ventilation mechanic in which enclosed fuel-burning structures give off harmful smoke unless a chimney is fitted, along with quality-of-life additions such as a secure player-to-player item exchange and a streamlined repair flow. None of these are in the current live build; the studio will publish release notes when the next test goes live.
Anvil Empires is in pre-alpha. Every system on this wiki is subject to change between tests; mechanics that are currently in builds today may be reworked or cut before the early-access launch. Wiki articles describe the most recent observed state and should be cross-checked against the current test before treating them as final. When the studio publishes a devblog or patch summary that contradicts an article here, the live build wins.
Factions
Victory Conditions
