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Post-Launch Roadmap
September 21, 2026 at 01:34 AM
Added the Ryza October teaser, the Othello Hero Quest and Hunt Hell Mode as the announced next items, and marked Retry, lock-on and the Codex preview as shipped
Hound13 published its post-launch plan on June 19, 2026, four days before release, as a recap of the fourth developer stream. The headline commitment is four new Heroes across the second half of 2026, all of them folded into the base game rather than sold as downloadable content. The studio was explicit that these four will be built regardless of how the game sells. The plan was then substantially expanded on August 10, 2026, when Producer Jang Yun-jin and project manager Hooon spent an eight-hour broadcast walking through development priorities and answering questions; the studio published all 408 answers four days later.
Ryza arrives first: a teaser trailer on September 16, 2026 announced her for October 2026, with no day given. The remaining three are scheduled sequentially, with the order still being settled internally.
Hero | Specialty | Described Kit |
|---|---|---|
Ryza | Shock | Throws her spear, then teleports to wherever it lands to keep the assault going. Positioned as the fast, showy option. |
Jerome | Knockdown | Small-statured greatsword user. Prioritised second because the launch roster has no dedicated knockdown specialist. Unleashes skills on Super Armor destruction and uses a three-stage grab. |
Veronica | Stun | Fires a gun at range and switches to martial arts up close. Built in response to forum requests for a bare-handed fighter. |
Logan | Tank | Attacks with a large shield and protects allies. Hound13 said it wants to make him more versatile before he ships. |
The preview video for patch 1.0.11, published on August 28, 2026, closed with a short list of what follows it: Ryza as a playable Hero, Othello's Hero Quest, and a Hell Mode for Hunt. The Ryza teaser three weeks later put a month on the first of those. The other two have no window yet, and Hound13 has published nothing about what Hell Mode changes beyond the name.
The August broadcast reset expectations on timing more than on content. Hound13 said plainly that new main-story chapters and new raid bosses take too long to build for anything to arrive in 2026, and that it is targeting the second half of 2027 for both, releasing only once it is confident the content is genuinely enjoyable. A new map expansion carries the same second-half-of-2027 target.
Nearer term the priorities are stability, quality-of-life work, and bug fixes, with new content prepared in parallel at a slower pace. Weekly patches land on Thursdays, developer broadcasts are planned every one to two months, and a written roadmap document is under consideration so players can reference the plan outside a stream.
Asked directly whether the floating-island region is free and arriving in December, the studio answered that it had never said so and that any rumours circulating are false. Nothing is decided. The region is introduced as a hook toward the end of the story and Hound13 said it plans to keep it at that stage for now, sharing update details once the shape is clearer. The earlier July 28 answer, that neither the pricing nor the timing had been finalised, still stands.
Hound13 built the Tower of Trials and Hunt on Nightmare difficulty as its endgame layer and said both are being consumed faster than expected. Additional endgame content is being prepared to fill the gap, alongside further Tower of Trials floors, more raid bosses, and difficulty tuning for content that already exists. A New Game Plus mode is being evaluated internally with no firm decision.
English dubbing is the studio's first target among the requested voice tracks because demand for it is highest. Hound13 said it is checking with dubbing studios and confirming costs, described an internal late-December target as ambitious rather than committed, and is prioritising a natural-language pass on the English main-quest translation first. It also said it is recruiting player volunteers to help with translation quality, with a formal call planned through the community server. Full voice acting for Hero Quests sits at the bottom of the priority list, behind the overseas dubbing work.
Platform ports start with PlayStation 5 because it has the larger user base. Xbox is a lower priority and Hound13 said it will not happen in the short term. Interest in a Nintendo Switch 2 version has been registered internally, but the studio pointed to the Nintendo developer status, Unreal Engine 5 porting work, and platform certification it would need to clear first, and gave no timeline. Several PC content updates are planned before the console version so it launches from a solid baseline. Crossplay is a long-term consideration rather than a near-term one. There is no macOS or Linux build planned; Steam Deck is served through the compatibility layer.
Hound13 acknowledged that much of the multiplayer layer was rushed to service and remains lacking. Open-world co-op with friends is described as included in the studio's final goals but a much larger job than expected, so it will not arrive quickly. Guild systems, voice and text chat, spectating, and save sharing are all ruled out for now on the grounds that the game is single-player first. Matchmaking work continues: Quick Entry shipped in 1.0.7, and the companion Retry feature followed in 1.0.11 on September 3, which also replaced the lobby search range setting with response-time matching.
An item deletion feature, scoped deliberately narrowly to Runes and cooking items including ingredients, so that a misclick cannot destroy anything else.
Equipment loadout save and swap, bulk crafting, and a reforge shortcut from the inventory.
Lock-on and targeting improvements rolling out in stages, plus clearer feedback on the perfect dodge window. Both landed in 1.0.11: a rebuilt Lock-On scheme and the new Just Dodge mechanic.
An acquisition effect for Heroes obtained from the Exchange Shop, flagged as likely within a week of the broadcast.
More cooking recipes, more weapon skins, and progressive drop-rate information in the Options menu.
Several requests were closed off rather than deferred. There is no plan for item trading, item durability, equipment shared between Heroes, macro support, or automated resource gathering, and the six-stage Awakening ladder is not being extended. Hound13 also said the peak power difference between team compositions is small enough that no short-term composition balance patch is planned, since bosses have differing weaknesses and content clears without a specific line-up.
A new strand of story content covering the Heroes whose backgrounds the main campaign does not reach. Othello's quest is being prepared first, followed by one tied to Ryza. These sit alongside the Bond Quests that already ship in the launch build.
Rifts open across the Continent of Orbis and let a party cross into other dimensions to fight. Hound13 has held back the details, noting that the system carries story spoilers, and has not given it a patch window.
The studio named this its top post-launch priority and said it was the most requested category by a wide margin. Some of it landed in the launch build; the rest continues after release.
Combat feel, gamepad support, and hit feedback.
Less floaty jumping, instant sprint, and an auto-run option.
Camera work: free view, view distance, separate vertical and horizontal sensitivity, and lock-on.
A UI hide toggle and a photo mode.
An expanded in-game help system.
Producer Jang Yun-jin later singled out lock-on as the biggest single controller improvement, with better targeting and tracking on unlocked basic attacks behind it. The rebuilt Lock-On shipped in patch 1.0.11 on September 3, 2026, alongside a Hero Codex preview of each Hero's combat style and offline achievement unlocks. See [[Update History]].
Hound13 framed ongoing balance work as an obligation of selling a premium package rather than a live-service title: if any part of the game eats an unreasonable amount of time or simply annoys, it gets adjusted. The first pass arrived in patch 1.0.4 on July 30, raising World Boss and Sudden Mission rewards and putting low-grade crafting materials in the Gold Shop. See Update History for the detail.
The longer plan is to finish the Orbis story and then open a new region built on the floating islands. That region has been the named next destination since before launch and still has no date.
How that content will be sold changed between the launch FAQ and the August broadcast, and the later answer is the current one. The July 28 FAQ described expansion packs featuring new characters and worlds as something that would be sold. On August 10 the studio said instead that major story content is planned as free updates rather than paid downloadable content. The floating-island region is the one piece explicitly left open: asked directly whether it will be free or paid, Hound13 said nothing had been decided. Store-side monetisation otherwise stays on costumes and Familiars, as covered in Downloadable Content.
Console versions are in preparation. In the July 28 post-launch FAQ the studio said neither the platforms nor the timing had been finalised. Two days later it told press that the platforms had been decided, naming PlayStation and Nintendo, with only the specific console generation and the timing left open. The August broadcast then set the order: PlayStation 5 first, Xbox a distant second, Switch 2 dependent on Nintendo developer status, Unreal Engine 5 porting and platform certification. There is no mobile version of the Awakening build and none is planned. See Platforms and Release for the full platform picture.
Request | Studio position |
|---|---|
Steam Workshop support | Direction reset. A support plan and full Mod Guidelines were published on August 24, 2026 and retracted on August 25; the studio said nothing had been enacted and that it would reconsider Workshop support from the beginning. See Mods and Steam Workshop. |
Player-to-player chat in towns | In planning and development review |
Japanese voice acting | Ruled out for launch on cost and time. Hound13 said it would like to add it if results allow but would not commit |
A separate easy or core difficulty mode | Cut for launch on priorities. Difficulty instead scales with adventure rank and can be lowered manually |
Costume DLC for every Hero | Not finalised, though the studio says it has a number of costumes prepared |
The one roadmap item that moved backwards this month was mod support. On August 24, 2026 Hound13 published an advance notice describing Steam Workshop support as being prepared, together with a detailed Mod Guidelines document setting out permitted and prohibited mod categories and a rule that would have disabled Co-Op in any modified installation. It withdrew the entire document the following day, said none of it had been enacted, and committed to reconsidering the direction of Workshop support from the beginning.
Workshop is therefore not a scheduled feature and no longer has a settled direction. The sequence, including what the withdrawn guidelines actually said, is covered in Mods and Steam Workshop.
Update History for what has actually shipped.
Heroes for the launch roster.
Buy-to-Play Model for how the roadmap is funded.
