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.