Early Access

Romestead released into Early Access on May 25, 2026, with global availability staggered by region (around 08:30 Central European Summer Time on May 26 for European players). It is the debut title from Beartwigs, a six-person studio, published by Three Friends. Early Access lets the developer continue building the game with player feedback, a process the team credits for many of the game's existing features. Beartwigs has stated the game is expected to remain in Early Access for one to two years.

What the Build Includes

The Early Access build contains hours of exploration and town-building, including three progression biomes plus the Volcanic biome added for Early Access, five bosses, and over fifty dungeons and locations to explore. See Biomes, Enemies and Bosses, and Dungeons for detail on each.

Major Additions Over the Demo

Romestead had a public demo before launch (App ID 4407550). The developer notes that the game changed significantly since the demo, shaped by player feedback, and that demo saves are not compatible with the Early Access version. Everyone starts over together.

The biggest changes for Early Access include:

• Smoother onboarding with clearer quests, more detailed journal entries, better progression guidance, and adjusted early-game resource placement.

• A broad balance pass across combat, weapons, bosses, raids, food, citizen loyalty, and the worship system.

• The Volcanic biome with new enemies, two legendary bosses, exclusive dungeons, new resources (such as sulphur vents and ash), and a Magma Forge.

• A University for researching advanced recipes and crafting powerful scrolls.

• A Trading Post that automates resource transfer between settlements via player-created automated Trade Routes.

• A Sculptor for crafting stone furniture and ornaments.

• A completely overhauled furniture system with a Decoration Mode for inventory-free placement.

• Better inventory management, including expandable inventory and sorting functionality.

• Official Xbox and PlayStation 5 controller support with remappable bindings.

• A new World Map 2.0 (bound to N by default), with map markers, dungeon names on hover, and quest icons.

• Citizens that can now help with more tasks, such as the Carpenter helping to complete buildings.

Day-One Hotfixes

Within hours of launch, Beartwigs released two hotfixes:

• 0.25.1 addressed a crash regarding the Magus Ceres Scroll, fixed unenterable dungeons, fixed falling through dungeon floors, removed a stray arrow from one of the dungeons, and resolved a soft-locking issue inside a dungeon.

• 0.25.1_1 shipped further fixes to unenterable dungeons and falling through dungeon floors, addressed the Burning Fallen Horde appearing after the first boss in raids, plus icon and localization updates.

Launch Week

The launch drew a large crowd in its first 24 hours. Beartwigs shared early stats: a player peak that climbed from 10,700 to 18,000, with players killing 22,000 owls, building 116,000 towns, and harvesting 82,000 wheat across the community.

Across the following days the team shipped a run of hotfixes (0.25.1_2 through 0.25.1_6) addressing dungeons, bosses, crashes, citizen behaviour, and early-game balance. Notable changes included naming and stabilising the volcanic boss fight, making citizens temporarily immune to damage while their pathfinding is reworked, marking quest dungeons on the world map, showing the name of the town being raided, and tweaking quests so the Watermill and Clay Pit unlock earlier. Spears can now harvest crops, the Legendary Pilum became craftable, and a rare Gorgon was added to the desert. By one week after launch the community had grown to over 250,000 players, and the hotfix run continued through 0.25.1_10, adding a grave-recovery system, moving town automation earlier, and rebalancing citizen hunger and traits.

Controller support: partial controller support is live, while full integration and native Steam Input support are an active priority. A pre-launch claim that controllers worked was undone by a release-build setting that treated controllers as mouse and keyboard; that setting has since been fixed.

Roadmap Posture

The team stated that they would not provide a rigid roadmap immediately after launch, preferring to gather initial feedback before sharing a longer-term plan. Their immediate post-launch focus was hotfixing urgent issues and then establishing a steady patch schedule. The developer has mentioned internal plans for future progression biomes, building tiers, gear, and bosses, but those are not part of the current Early Access content.

A week after launch the team confirmed they still would not commit to a rigid roadmap while stabilising the foundation, and listed their immediate priorities: full controller support through Steam Input, Steam Deck verification, network optimisations with clearer connection-quality information, a more varied dungeon pool to reduce duplicates, and further quality-of-life and balance work such as sortable inventories and better citizen pathfinding. They did reveal their first major roadmap milestone: a fourth major biome with entirely new tiers of buildings, armour, enemies, dungeons, and bosses. That biome is not in the current build and is described as months away.

In late June 2026 the team shared a fuller plan in a development update from Beartwigs founders Sam Bloom and Björn Detterfelt. By that point the community had grown to over 400,000 players. The team framed the plan as a set of priorities rather than fixed ship dates, with the goal of patching the listed items in before the end of summer.

The stated top priorities for Act I are full controller support through the Steam Input system (binding any controller or keybinding to any action), network optimisations to help players who struggle with multiplayer, Steam Deck verification, a more varied dungeon pool to cut down on repetition, and quality-of-life and balance work such as chest sorting alongside other requested fixes.

The team also confirmed that a fourth major biome is on the horizon, describing it as a spooky region targeted for a winter release. It is planned to arrive with a new building tier, new armour sets, new enemies and bosses, and new dungeons. The biome is not in the current build, and the developer has not yet shared its name or stats.

On longer-term questions the developer outlined where several requested features stand. A Barracks building is planned for a future update so that villagers can be assigned to defend a settlement. Opt-in difficulty options are something the team wants to look at once the foundation is in place. Placeable boss loot chests are also wanted. Animal taming and breeding, an ocean or sea biome with boats, and fishing were all described as lower priority or outside the immediate plan, with the team focusing on features that lean into the Roman setting. The team gave no commitment on whether additional gods would be added.

See Updates and Patches for the post-launch patch list.