Fall has come to the world of Albion... the shadows are growing longer... and the Harvest Challenge is back! For the entire month of October, earn points for open-world activities, unlock chests to get spooky loot, and claim your very own Spectral Bat. This time around, in addition to the mount and avatar ring, you can also claim up to six new Halloween-themed furniture items that have a chance to appear in weekly chests.

SPECTRAL BAT: This month's Challenge offers another chance to claim the amazing Spectral Bat. In addition to its spooky appearance, this winged menace comes with a powerful Blink spell that allows you to jump to a target location in the blink of an eye. (Note: like all mounts, the Spectral Bat cannot fly over obstacles or gaps.)


AVATAR RING: Adventurers who rack up enough total Challenge Points will also earn the Harvest Challenge avatar ring, featuring a pair of eerie, grinning skeletons. This non-tradable item permanently unlocks this avatar border for one character, or can be traded to the Vanity Merchant for one Vanity Token.


SEASONAL SPECIALS: All month long, reach weekly point totals to unlock Harvest Challenge Chests. Along with valuable rewards like Adventurer's Tomes, Silver, resources, and other loot, you'll also have a chance to unlock six brand-new eerie furniture items: the Scary Pumpkin Lantern, Friendly Pumpkin Lantern, Halloween Lantern, Halloween Cauldron, Halloween Scarecrow, and Halloween Pyre.

As always, you can earn Challenge Points by gathering, fishing, farming, and killing monsters. Points count simultaneously toward a daily bonus, a weekly unlockable chest, and the monthly mount and avatar ring reward. So log in, head out into the open world, gather points, and claim these rewards while they last!


 

Territories will be reset this weekend - and we'll be covering it live on the AlbionTV Twitch channel starting Saturday at 17:30 UTC. Join our hosts Lewpac, Bogul, and Shozenwon as they cover the Invasion Day madness live! All fights are broadcast live with a 15-minute time delay.

Starting at 18:00 UTC, guilds will have new opportunities to claim territories and launch attacks. Those in the North and South American time zones can also tune in for the second round of territory resets on Sunday at 00:30 UTC with hosts Bogul, Shozenwon, and Robinhoodrs, with territories becoming claimable at 01:00 UTC.

Between the two reset broadcasts, we'll also be broadcasting Level 5-7 Crystal League fights with no delay at 20:30, 21:00, and 21:30 UTC.

For the complete Guild Season schedule, check out this forum post.

Today's patch brings numerous fixes and quality-of-life improvements to gameplay in Albion. Here's a bit of what's new:


Items sold to the Black Market will now retain their "crafted by" info. This means that a great deal of item loot from mobs and in treasure chests will now show who originally crafted the item. In addition to helping active crafters make a name for themselves, persistent item info adds to the depth and continuity of Albion's ever-changing world. This patch also includes performance improvements to Black Market item distribution, correcting an issue where "split" party loot mode would sometimes not work when looting items.


Starting with Patch 5, the mobile version includes an additional "Custom Button" next to the spellbar, with one fixed option ("Inspect") and four additional customizable buttons that can be set via the Settings menu. This button allows for everything from Autorun to party member selection to emotes, and is among the most-requested features for mobile devices. This button is still in the experimental stages, so give it a try and let us know your thoughts on our mobile forum.

Additional improvements include the ability to connect a mouse for desktop-style chat scrolling, the ability to send feedback and bug reports via a new UI, an "Increase Brightness" slider in Settings, and various bug fixes.

• The health increase for Demonic Shards in Corrupted Dungeons that was intended for Patch 4 is now live.
• The combat log now displays combat data for mounted players.
• Repair Tables can once again be placed in Expeditions.
• Maxed-out specialization nodes now display the correct item power bonus.

For the complete list of changes, please see the official patchnotes.

Last month, Albion's best 5v5 teams faced off in the first-ever offseason tournament. The finals came down to the last moments, with June Esports pulling off a stunning victory. (You can read the full rundown of the tournament here). We're very excited to announce the return of this high-stakes Crystal League competition with the Season 10 Crystal League Championship.

Like the last tournament, this one will take place between Guild Seasons, on Saturday November 28 and Sunday November 29. This time around, we've updated the entry requirements to include more teams while still representing Albion's highest-tier 5v5 players: the Crystal League Championship will be open to any team who wins one Level 9 match or two or more Level 8 matches.

Prizes for the first- through fourth-place winners are as follows:

• First Place: Each player on the winning team will receive the extremely rare Sabertooth Rex Swiftclaw skin unlock item and 10,000 Gold
• Second Place: Each player will receive the White Tiger skin unlock item along with 5,000 Gold
• Third Place: Each player will receive the Jousting Horse skin unlock item along with 5,000 Gold
• Fourth Place: Each player will receive the Armored Bonehorse skin unlock item along with 5,000 Gold

Regarding first-place prizes, our current plan is to offer a new first-place skin every calendar year. This means that this championship will be the final one where the Sabertooth Rex is awarded, and an all-new skin unlock will be introduced for 2021.

We'll be publishing more details on our forums soon, so stay tuned!

Back in May, we reported on the massive population growth that Albion Online saw in the first part of 2020, starting with the Queen Update in January and growing further with worldwide quarantine measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, even as many of these measures are easing, the ingame population continues to grow: this month we surpassed the lockdown population peak to achieve a new Daily Average User count of over 125,000 players.

This boost comes in large part from the Rise of Avalon Update, which launched on August 12 with a host of massive new features like Roads of Avalon, Corrupted Dungeons, and Avalonian Weapons. The update also introduced Chinese and Korean language support to the game, which has brought a huge influx of new players from these regions and grown the Albion Online community into a truly global one.


As mentioned in our last update, we've been focusing not only on supporting the content introduced with the Queen and Rise of Avalon updates, but also on improving the gameplay experience for all players as population numbers increase.

In tandem with new features and upgrades coming to the world of Albion over the coming months, we've set our sights on an expansion of the Royal Continent. The ongoing growth of the player base has made Albion's blue, yellow and red zones fuller than ever, and we're currently hard at work on a comprehensive plan to expand these Royal zones while deepening the gameplay experience they offer.

We're also hard at work improving and streamlining the mobile version of Albion Online, with continual improvements to mobile-based controls and menus being rolled out since the Queen launch, and more to come. We'll soon have further updates on the mobile version, including the next steps towards a Play Store beta launch in the final leadup to the official Apple and Google store launches, which will finally fulfill our vision of a truly cross-platform MMORPG experience with platform-optimized content updates. For now, though, we're focusing on making the mobile experience as fun and intuitive as possible.

Thanks for being part of the ever-growing Albion Online community!

We're very excited to announce the official release of Albion Online: Rise of Avalon OST. This new addition to the official game soundtrack features six new songs from the world of Albion, created for the massive expansion of the gameworld that began with the Queen update in January and continued with Rise of Avalon in August.

This new batch of songs includes two songs by Jonne Valtonnen, composer of the original Albion Online soundtrack, and four songs by Marie Havemann, Audio Designer for Albion Online. She describes her process for creating these new tracks:

"The goal of the music was to capture the essence of the new faction and locations, and to give the players a hint of how to feel about them. We also went further with the interactivity and had the music adapt more to changes in settings and situations in the Roads of Avalon as well as the Corrupted Dungeons. Thus we have a darker and more primal feel in the Mists, and a sense of order and Avalonian influence on the Roads. Similarly, the music in Corrupted Dungeons changes if there is an invasion."

You can listen to these new songs on Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, Amazon, and Deezer- click here to see all the links in one place. (And check out the first official soundtrack release, featuring 22 orchestral tracks by Jonne Valtonnen, here).

And for those who prefer to listen on YouTube, we've also uploaded the whole soundtrack as a playlist.

Check out two new tracks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnx_ZJva5UA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwFHEHX8TLQ

The chill of fall is beginning to creep into the air... and the Heretic Challenge is back with a whole new mount! Earn points for open-world activities, unlock chests to get valuable loot, and claim your very own Heretic Combat Mule.

HERETIC COMBAT MULE: This month's Challenge introduces a brand-new war machine from the twisted minds of Heretic saddlers. The Heretic Combat Mule fires a powerful cannon shot that knocks back and slows targets, but watch out for its massive recoil!


AVATAR RING: Adventurers who rack up enough total Challenge Points will also earn the Heretic Challenge avatar ring. This non-tradable item permanently unlocks this crazed, ramshackle avatar border for one character.


SEASONAL SPECIALS: All month long, reach weekly goals to unlock Heretic Challenge Chests. In addition to valuable rewards like Adventurer's Tomes, Silver, resources, and older Heretic-themed furniture, you'll also have a chance to unlock three new furniture items: the Heretic Lantern, Heretic Junk Pile and Heretic Construct.
 
As always, you can earn Challenge Points by gathering, fishing, farming, and killing monsters. Points count simultaneously toward a daily bonus, a weekly unlockable chest, and the monthly mount and avatar ring rewards. So log in, head out into the open world, gather points, and claim these rewards while they last!

Saturday marks the beginning of Albion's tenth Guild Season, a major milestone that would not have been possible without the support of the Albion community worldwide. This season will be the first to include the new Avalonian Weapons and Roads of Avalon, and we're very excited to see how guilds make use of these new features. 

For the complete Guild Season schedule, check out this forum post.


Guilds that reach a high enough rank during the season can claim fantastic rewards including an avatar, avatar ring, and the fearsome new Goliath Horseeater mount with root, immobility, and poison spells. This mount will be awarded to members of guilds that reach Silver Rank or higher during the season. The winning guild will receive a statue among the past Guild Season winners in Conquerors' Hall, and the first through fifth ranked guilds will also receive a 90-day Fame Bonus.


As always, you can watch the season start live: the action kicks off on AlbionTV this Saturday, August 29 at 17:30 UTC, when hosts Shozenwon, Lewpac and Bogul bring you full coverage of Invasion Day.

At 18:00 UTC, guilds can claim territories and launch attacks. Those in the North and South American time zones can also tune in for the second round of territory resets on Sunday, August 30 at 00:30 UTC with hosts Shozenwon, Robinhoodrs and Bogul covering the next round of claimable territories starting at 01:00 UTC.

Fights are broadcast live with a 15-minute time delay.


Last weekend we hosted the first-ever Offseason Crystal Tournament, hopefully the first of many. If you missed it, you can read a rundown of the tournament and watch its thrilling conclusion here - or if you want to avoid spoilers, you can jump straight to our Youtube channel and watch the final match directly!

The Rise of Avalon update went live on August 12, bringing numerous major new features to the world of Albion. One such feature is Corrupted Dungeons, which have already been accessed over one million times since the update went live. Based on this tremendous amount of new data and community feedback, we've made some adjustments to how Infamy works:

• Players now lose half as much Infamy when killed, and gain slightly less when victorious
• A flat Infamy bonus has been added to PvP wins based on dungeon level
• Slayer dungeon unlock is now permanent and retroactive
• Matchmaking system adjusted and improved

Congratulations to Guild Season 9 winners Elevate on their decisive victory! You can visit Conquerors' Hall in all major Royal Continent cities to see the new statue in their honor, which appears both at the entryway and inside and also honors second- and third-place winners Bloco de Rua and RANG.

• 5 new Castles and 20 new Castle Outposts added to the Outlands
• Arena / Crystal League / City Fight Scoreboards now update more reliably
• Increased overall spawn numbers for Hellgates
• Various Combat Balance Changes and bugfixes

For the full list of changes, please see the official patchnotes.

Tune in to AlbionTV this weekend for the first-ever Offseason Crystal Tournament, where Albion's top 5v5 teams will face off for huge rewards. The tournament will pit the six teams who won a Level 9 match during the final round of Season 9 against each other, and will have the following structure:

Saturday 22 August:

• Round 1: 17:00 - 18:00 UTC
  
• Round 2: 18:15 - 19:15 UTC
  
• Round 3: 19:30 - 20:30 UTC

Sunday 23 August:

• Round 4: 17:00 - 18:00 UTC
  
• Round 5: 18:15 - 19:15 UTC
  
• Round 6: 19:30 - 20:30 UTC
  
• Round 7: 20:45 - 22:15 UTC

A few important details:

• The above times are approximate, and all teams participating should be ready for their rounds as soon as the tournament begins. We will try to abide by the timings above but all teams should be ready for matches to start or end at times other than those listed above.
• Rounds 1-6 will have a soft Item Power cap of 1500, with all IP above 1500 reduced by 80%.
• Round 7 will have a soft Item Power cap of 1700, with all IP above 1700 reduced by 80%.
• Examples of effective IP based on actual IP of 2000:
  • Rounds 1-6: 1600 (1500 + 0.2 x 500)
  • Round 7: 1760 (1700 + 0.2 x 300)
• The full rules, schedule, and rewards can be found in this forum post. NOTE: Any updates to the Tournament will be reflected in this post, so please refer to it for any questions.

You can watch the Offseason Crystal Tournament matches live on AlbionTV starting Saturday at 17:00 UTC. Join hosts Bogul, Shozen, Lewpac and Tazzik as they broadcast all the high-stakes action live!