Albion's fifth season of guild-versus-guild warfare kicks off this Saturday. This season, winning teams can claim exclusive rewards, including the epic, boar-drawn Tower Chariot mount.
While its exact stats, abilities, and appearance are still a work in progress, the Tower Chariot will offer its rider unique skills that will be usable in various battle settings. This mount will be awarded to guilds who reach Silver rank or higher during Season 5, with further rewards available to guilds who reach Iron rank or higher. We'll have more details on additional season rewards (as well as the exact requirements for receiving them) over the coming weeks, so stay tuned!
Watch Invasion Day Live on AlbionTV
We'll be covering Saturday's Invasion Day action live on the AlbionTV Twitch channel. Tune in Saturday at 17:00 UTC with hosts Lewpac and Shozen as they introduce the start of the season. At 18:00 UTC, the season officially begins, and guilds can claim territories and launch attacks. For the complete season schedule, check out this forum post.
Remember, you can also tune in every Thursday at 18:00 UTC for highlights from the previous week.
A new referral season starts today! From now until March 1, refer your friends and get three exclusive rewards: the brand-new Recruiter's Avatar Ring, the Recruiter's Trumpet, and the Recruiter's Husky Sled.
How to Earn Seasonal Referral Rewards
The new referral season lasts until March 1. There are three ways to collect referrals and earn your very own sled dog:
The easiest way is by sending Trial Keys to your friends. Each key redeemed on an account without a key on it will count toward your referral season progress.
Additionally, any Starter Pack that you buy and that gets redeemed on an account without a key will also count toward your progress.
And last but not least: if a friend registers through your referral link, then buys and redeems a Starter Pack on their account, you’ll also progress.
To get an overview of your current progress this season, and to see the FAQ for the referral system, click here. Note that you must be signed in to the Albion Online website to view your current progress.
Yuletide has come and gone and winter has settled into the land of Albion... and a new Adventurer's Challenge is here! For all of January, take the Frost Challenge to collect exclusive rewards. Earn points for open-world activities, unlock chests to get valuable loot, and claim your own unique Frost Ram.
A Chilly Challenge with Rich Rewards
NEW MOUNT: This month's Challenge introduces the Frost Ram, a loyal mount that hails from far-off frozen peaks. With an impressive leap spell, relatively fast move speed, and ability to carry a respectable amount of weight, it's the perfect companion for gathering missions.
NEW AVATAR BORDER: This month, reach your goals to win the Frost Challenge 2018 avatar border, a thematic decoration that will deck your avatar out with an exclusive wintry theme. This non-tradable item permanently unlocks this avatar border for one character.
SEASONAL SPECIALS: All month, unlock Frost Challenge chests to get valuable rewards like Adventurer's Tomes and Silver bags, along with a classic costume set and all-new ice sculptures that will bring the chill of winter all year long.
Challenge Point Updates
Starting with this month's challenge, the following changes to point calculation applies:
The Challenge Points required for the Daily Bonus will be reduced from 1500 to 1200.
The point multiplier for farming will be reduced from 1.7 to 1.3.
Effectively, this means that farming contributes the same percent to the daily bonus as before, while fishing and PvE now contribute more robustly to both the daily bonus and overall points.
Log in now and start gathering, fishing, farming, and killing monsters to earn Challenge Points and unlock your rewards!
With 2018 drawing to a close, it's time to look back on the major happenings of the past year. From big content updates to new platforms to an auspicious anniversary, the world of Albion has been through a lot in the past 12 months.
Game Updates: From Lancelot to Nimue
2018 brought three major content updates to the world of Albion: Lancelot in the spring, Merlyn in the summer, and Nimue in the fall. Each update brought new and exciting things to Albion Online to enhance the game:
Lancelot brought fishing, new guild features, new Hellgates and Expeditions, and Luxury Goods.
With Merlyn came Faction Warfare, resource updates, refining and crafting bonuses, and new costumes and trophies.
And most recently, Nimue introduced Crystal Realm Battles, the Party Finder, character markers and party roles, and numerous other quality-of-life improvements.
Looking forward to 2019, Oberon (the sixth major post-release content update) will bring new dimensions to the game, including random dungeons and a completely overhauled new-player experience.
Albion Online Joins Steam
On May 16, 2018, Albion Online launched on Steam, bringing thousands of new players into the greater Albion community. The influx of new players brought new dimensions to the Albion ecosystem, providing new economic (and combat!) opportunities for seasoned players. The Steam launch also provided a good opportunity to update Albion's official guides and to create new ones for incoming players, such as Lewpac's comprehensive video tutorials on starting out in Albion and earning silver (see video section below).
Albion Turns One
On July 17, Albion turned one year old. In this article, we looked back on some of the major events of the game's first year, from the highs and lows of launch week to the introduction of the Arena and GvG seasons, and looked forward to the second year of Albion. With a steady stream of content updates and a goal of remaining transparent about future plans, the team has also released a steady stream of Dev Talks (all viewable on the Albion Online YouTube channel) and Roadmap posts on the forum.
Albion's Guilds: Friendship, Betrayal, and War
The past year saw a huge amount of content from Albion's guilds, varying from friendly group PvE to small-scale interguild skirmishes to all-out backstabbing and warfare. Where guilds are concerned, there's never a shortage of intrigue, and 2018 brought the full range of drama. Money Guild, undisputed champions of Seasons 1 and 2, finally fell to Team Casualty in Season 3 despite the latter losing numerous home territories and a large portion of their gear (read all about it here).
In November, the Nimue update brought Crystal Realm Battles, an expansion of guild warfare that allowed new teams to try their hand at 5v5 GvG fights. Season 4 also saw the introduction of new seasonal rewards, including exclusive mounts and a permanent place in the new Conquerors' Hall, now open for visitors near the Caerleon Realmgate.
Season 5 begins on January 5, 2019 - click here for the complete schedule.
2018 Video Highlights
2018 has been an incredible year for Albion video content, with exciting, engaging, and often hilarious video content coming from the community week after week. While it would be impossible to include all the year's video highlights here, we've chosen just a small selection of our favorite pieces to include here.
First off, Gugusteh presents a classy take on black-zone combat with a "Claymore Ballet", complete with classical soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-WwCBaHfOI In anticipation of the new fishing system that arrived with Lancelot in Spring 2018, The Kuschelchen (with help from several other AO mods) created this comedic teaser about the true meaning of "fishing" in Albion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFUbkQGqm3I Along with his excellent new player guide (featured above), Lewpac created numerous other guides throughout the year. Here, he gives some solid methods of earning silver, and like many of his video guides, it's helpful for both new and experienced players: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syPRBBqXPdg And last but not least, Nausk (recently featured here) continued his popular Black Zone Tales series, bringing high-level PvP combat to the masses. Here's an episode from last summer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1epCr14av3U
Onward to 2019
We want to thank you, our fellow Adventurers, for making Albion what it is today. Your passion for the game makes what we do possible, and we want to wish you all the best for 2019. We hope you're as excited as we are for the next year of Albion Online, and we hope to see you soon ingame.
Albion's fourth GvG season has come to a close, with Blue Army as the decisive winners, having bypassed the traditional path to victory by focusing primarily on open-world content. With recent changes to energy and mage raiding, castles and raiding suddenly became a higher percentage of season points, and BA was able to use their open-world strengths to their advantage.
More broadly, BA's secret to success seemed to be prioritizing content over victory, with their main goal being to ensure a battle takes place and winning being only secondary. Particularly in ZvZs, BA was often willing to wait and fall back until the right opportunity presented itself. Ultimately, their readiness to lose an engagement in order to create enjoyable experiences for their members allowed them to sustain morale and momentum throughout the season and claim victory.
Battle Rhinos Charge into Albion, and Conquerors' Hall Opens its Doors
All guilds that achieved at least Iron Rank have received their season 4 rewards, with Bronze or higher-ranking guilds receiving the coveted Battle Rhino mount. These ferocious beasts increase in ferocity with each tier, culminating in the ultimate Albion fighting mount: the Crystal Battle Rhino.
Also, starting today, Conquerors' Hall is open for business! Located next to the Caerleon Realmgate, this cavernous new building pays tribute to Albion's greatest guilds with statues of all past season winners. Stop by today to see the new Blue Army statue, pay your respects to the guild warfare champions of bygone days... and maybe even see where your guild's own statue will someday stand.
Christmas trees and presents fill the cities, the candles are lit, and the Yuletide Challenge is in full swing!
As 2018 winds down, we at Sandbox Interactive want to take this opportunity to thank you for your ongoing support. The world of Albion is shaped and defined by its players, and each and every one of you makes it possible.
To celebrate Albion and its inhabitants, we've brought back Uncle Frost to hand out his namesake hat and plenty of fireworks. To claim your presents, just log into the game between December 24 at 9:00 UTC and January 31 at 9:00 UTC. All characters with active Premium status will automatically receive their rewards via in-game mail.
Wishing you all the best for a joyful holiday season, and stay tuned for a year-end wrapup covering all the major happenings of 2018!
The Steam Winter Sale is underway and Albion Online is taking part. Whether you've waited until now to join the world of Albion, or are looking to upgrade with an Epic or Legendary pack, we've got you covered: the base game and all DLC packs are now 34% off.