Night Harbor is the main starting city of Monsters & Memories. The official Early Access material calls it the Crown Jewel of the West, a massive port city on the western coast of Aethoril in the desert region of Szuur, and one of the four cities a new character can begin in when Early Access opens on October 1, 2026. It has been part of the game longer than any other place: the first published development update, from October 9, 2020, shows the earliest version of the Night Harbor and Shaded Dunes zone. See Starting Cities for the four-city system and Zones for the region.
Who starts here
The Early Access FAQ, updated September 15, 2026, says that good and neutral race, faith and class combinations will have the option of starting in Night Harbor. An older answer on the developer's account portal puts it as all good races and faiths starting in the human city of Night Harbor, with evil races and faiths starting below the city in the Underdocks; the September wording is the current one. The Underdocks is the seedy underground port district found far below Night Harbor and the conduit between the surface and the Deep, so the two starting cities are the same place seen from above and below. The developer has said that some starting locations for particular combinations will be updated before launch, and since August 4, 2026 deity choice also affects where a character can start.
Districts and features named in the notes
No official page publishes a district map. The beta patch notes, which mention Night Harbor in 12 of their 42 entries, name the following places and features; each describes the current beta build (see Patch Notes).
Place or feature | What the notes state | Date |
|---|---|---|
Garrison | Received population work on March 10, 2026; its gate was made easier to interact with on April 21, 2026; a stray ocean sound heard inside it was fixed on April 7, 2026 | March to April 2026 |
West Bank and North Bank | Each bank and its courtyard is a PvP suppression volume since July 2, 2026, adjusted on September 10, 2026. Campfires cannot be placed in any bank since July 2, 2026 | July to September 2026 |
West Gate | The first house on the left coming in from the West Gate had its interior volume fixed on July 2, 2026 | July 2, 2026 |
West yard | Used as a testing ground for footstep materials from April 7, 2026 | April 7, 2026 |
Temples | Music was added to the temples on April 7, 2026 | April 7, 2026 |
Chess and checkers boards | Added on August 4, 2026 as free-play tavern games: no turn order or move validation, pieces can be moved anywhere, captured pieces are set aside in side stacks, and several players can view and move pieces on one board. A sound plays when an opponent moves a piece since August 20, 2026 | August 2026 |
Housing | New housing was implemented in Night Harbor on August 20, 2026. The developer's known-issues list records, as of September 10, 2026, that the new door colouring system in the city causes culling issues. See Player Housing | August to September 2026 |
Customs agent | A customs agent, who recovers items lost from housing furniture, was placed in Night Harbor on March 20, 2026 | March 20, 2026 |
Kennel Master | Handler Terrem stores Beastmaster pets in Night Harbor since May 5, 2026 | May 5, 2026 |
Sewers | Expansion work on the Night Harbor Sewers is listed in the developer's July 2025 update | July 2025 |
Sandstorms
Night Harbor has sandstorm weather, a feature the developer listed among its systems as early as July 2021. On March 20, 2026 sandstorms were shortened to 2 to 4 hours of in-game time, down from 8 to 16, and Night Harbor's sandstorms specifically were toned down in intensity. A fix on June 7, 2026 shortened all weather durations again, especially sandstorms. Since August 20, 2026 designers can force an always-sandstorm state, and the notes tie one such state to Lord Ga'Duuz being in combat (see Named Encounters); his sandstorm was reduced in intensity on September 19, 2026.
Class starter quests
Every class quest fix that names the city treats Night Harbor as the place a class's starter quest begins, and the fixes are the only published detail about those quests. The February 25, 2026 pre-patch covered Rogues no longer being evicted from the rooftops of owned houses, the teleporter for Enchanters working again, Elementalists being able to summon their trial elementals without those elementals being attacked, Spellblades more commonly finding the pages they look for, an NPC named Njau Hansou referencing the correct Spellblade ability in his starting quest text, and an NPC named Leila Ghasem rewarding starting Beastmasters with simple animal feed. On March 10, 2026 some early class quest rewards in the city were retuned. On April 7, 2026 Druids were enabled to locate something with their Imbued Circle Coin, and the beginning of the Inquisitor starter quest was revamped. The July 2025 update also lists a fix to the Wizard starter quest in Night Harbor. See Quests.
Merchants and the Ga'Duuz discount
Since August 4, 2026 merchants can change the prices of specific items based on world conditions, and the developer wrote that the first use is an interaction where killing Ga'Duuz gives a discount on certain items in Night Harbor, explained in the fiction as easing trade with Calafrey. More world rewards for killing him were added on September 19, 2026, but the notes do not list the discounted items.
The split test
Module 1 Hotfix 1 (September 19, 2026) split Night Harbor in two. The developer described this as a test of its Night Harbor split tech, and stated that the two halves share chat. It is a beta test on the beta servers; as of September 21, 2026 nothing says whether the city will be split at launch.
Live population
The developer's public server metrics page reports live population in each starting zone, and Night Harbor is one of the four listed alongside Ail'vorith, Evershade Weald and the Underdocks. The figures change constantly and are not recorded here.
Development history
Night Harbor was the first zone built. The developer's first update post, dated October 9, 2020, presents the first version of the combined Night Harbor and Shaded Dunes zone, made in Blender at the end of September and start of October 2020 when the project was still called Project_N. A March 2021 post shows the city as a greybox environment filled with capsule NPCs used to test zone population tools, pathing, combat and looting, with the stated principle of gameplay before beauty, and an initial concept art post from the same month describes the Night Harbor block-out being reshaped to match the painted style the team had chosen. The city then became the standard load-test zone. In the first public stress test on April 28 and 29, 2023 its population passed 500 players without the server crashing and degraded significantly around 1,000 players in the zone, which drove a round of netcode work. The June 2025 playtest again held more than 500 players in Night Harbor at once, and the July 2025 update lists continued vertex painting in the city, expansion of its sewers, new shoreline and bay water sounds, and changes to the appearance and factions of its north bank bankers. The full timeline is on Development History.