Today, we are excited to announce a major update.

VALHALL is entering Beta. The combat experience has been taken to a whole new level. We have implemented new diverse features for interactivity, improved procedural animations, changed, and tuned how certain systems work. There is room for improvement, and we are working on it further. However, we hope you already find it pretty cool. You can now control the interactive battle stance with your mouse. Additionally, there is a directional block available now.

We have also introduced a new arena map with a focus on performance, along with numerous significant gameplay improvements.

Take a look!



Here is a roadmap reflecting the main points of our current plans.

We will continue to make constant patches with new content, gameplay improvements, community requests, and bug fixes.

In the next updates, we will share more details about the Enherjar Challenge we are preparing. Overall, it is a unique combination of Survival, Extraction, and Battle Royale. Its first appearance will be as a new world event system in Survival.



In today's patch:


Your mouse movement changes the battle stance. There are not just 3 stances, but many more.

Currently, it only works for one-handed weapons. This feature has multiple goals, some of which are yet to be developed. It provides a foundation for a much deeper feint play.



This allows you to move your weapon by moving your mouse. It has different phases for varying levels of control, such as the default phase, battle stance or during an attack.

However, it's not just about hand-weapon movement, it affects different body parts differently. So head now has controllable moves too.



Almost all combat sounds have been updated. They now have more cinematic accents.



Different body parts make the character react to hits more realistically. As you can see in the video, they now shake, bend, and touch wounds.



Now you can control the block direction, choosing which side to cover more.



This new mountain peak map is focused on performance and is available in Deathmatch and Battle Arena modes. It comes with new music.



They block and dodge more often now.

They walk unpredictably during fights.

Fixed their stopping attacks and getting stuck mid-combat.

Adjusted wave types.



Added to Survival. You can find a hiring point by a marker on the compass and hire your warriors.



Fixed a foundation building quest bug.

Stone ore gives more stone.

Lowered animals' maximum health.

Brighter light on medium and low settings.

UI improvements.

More frequent settlement raid attacks.

Added a shield as a building object.



Bears no longer get stuck in the hole in the middle.

Less bright post effects.

Earlier lighting change to sunset.



They attack your buildings again.


Hope you enjoy this update!


Skål!
Blackrose Arts

Today we have a significant update. Here is what the Pre-Beta 0.9.9 patch brings!






We are introducing a building system upgrade that brings freedom to your expression. Previously, the way you could build was too limited, and there wasn't anything special about it.

This update allows you to be more creative by changing the way you place elements. Now, there are no strict snapping and limitations on where certain build types can be placed. Instead, if an object touches something, it can be placed. This approach is more casual in a certain way, but it provides huge possibilities.

There are new options for object movement during placement. You can rotate the building element along different axes, and you can also move it higher and lower. The user interface will show when these options are available during placement.

There is no height limit anymore, and the problems with fence placement have been solved. We have also updated the building visual effects for more satisfying. Objects that couldn't be placed on the ground before can now be placed.





First of all, the new building objects are using Nanites, and the previous ones have been converted as well. This means that you can place a lot of them without experiencing significant performance impact. Of course, we will continue to monitor and improve overall optimization in other aspects.

We have added the first essential objects, such as logs and beams, in different sizes. You can rotate them to your desired angles. Additionally, some of the previous objects have received updated looks.



We will be adding more elements for you to build with in the upcoming updates. Some of them will be also essential, while others will be more unique and even weird. Feel free to share your feedback on which objects you would like to see added the most.



Issues that were preventing raid bots from tracking you through the map have been fixed.



Enemies will now target your settlement again (they had stopped doing so after the map transition). They will come in waves over the course of the game days and attempt to break your buildings, and kill you if you are there. To make it less easy for them, we have reduced the damage caused by burning arrows.

If you feel that there are too many waves or if vice versa, please let us know.





There is now a chance that your last hit will trigger a death animation that depends on the body part hit. However, most of the time, it will still transition into a ragdoll immediately.



AI enemies now block more frequently, and their approach to the player has been updated in terms of both the way and the distances at which they engage.

They move more during fights and retreat. Archers now retreat at a greater distance, so it no longer feels like they are simply waiting to be killed by melee weapons.

Following these changes, the Arena waves and enemy HP have been slightly adjusted.



Updated hit reactions have been implemented for archers, providing a better feeling when you defeat them.



All previous issues related to player swimming have now been resolved. Getting out of the water should happen smoothly, just like butter.



This functionality broke after transitioning to UE5 but now works again.



The lighting has been improved, resulting in less dark shadows and warmer colors. However, there is still room for further improvement in future updates.

Animals now have a higher chance of providing both meat and fat when harvested.

The visual effects for burning buildings, specifically when archers fire them with burning arrows, have been updated.

Changes have been made to the cooking UI to make it more user-friendly and easier to understand.

Issues with water opacity holes have been fixed.

Night time have been reduced.

The amount of wood obtained from different trees has been adjusted.

A new crafting recipe for a two-handed axe has been added.


We hope that these improvements enhance your experience and that you enjoy this update!


Skål!
Blackrose Arts

We've been working on some very special features, but unfortunately we haven't been able to solve all the issues that come with them for this patch. They will arrive in future updates. We won't hype them up too much now with the details, but here's a hint.



* The GIF above shows work in progress. It's not included in the current patch yet but will be available in future updates and will have a more polished look.

In addition to combat improvements, we have building upgrades on the way. You will be able to build freely even crazy structures without the current limitations and with new elements. That will most likely be available in the next patch.

Thank you for sharing your feedback with us. As usual, we have made tweaks based on it in this patch. If you find it difficult to reach the 10th wave in the Arena to reach Mjolnir and would like to play with it more, let us know.

Let's take a look at what today's Pre-Beta 0.9.8 patch brings!



Procedural animations have been stabilized. This means that attacks have slightly more weight, are more controllable, and for those who thought the wrist movement was weird, it has become less shaky. We're still planning to make the swings a bit longer with other changes.

Equip-unequip animations are now much faster, which brings more dynamics to the field. You can now switch weapons more easily during a fight.

We fixed some dodge distance mismatches. The foot kick wound decalss have also been fixed.

Dead body ragdolls are now interactable with weapons.

In Deathmatch, health has been adjusted, so you kill and die faster now.





When you successfully parry an attack, your enemy cannot attack for a short time, but you can attack immediately.

We improved the block animation to cover a larger area. We are also considering shortening the time needed to activate the block after pressing the button.

We made some tweaks to the stamina balance so that block stamina doesn't drain as quickly.



Battle Arena now has more diverse enemy wave combinations.

Enemies now have slightly more health than before, which allows for more reactions from them but they are not too difficult to kill as there is not only one opponent. It may be a bit harder to kill them, but there are fewer opponents at the same time in most waves.



The Survival map has received visual updates. The mountains have been adjusted slightly, foliage materials have been improved to be more organic in the whole picture, the fog has been improved, and floating trees have been fixed.

The Arena now has updated collision, hits and ragdolls will make contact with objects more naturally.

The time before dead bodies disappear has been reduced per game mode, which positively impacts performance in certain cases.

Sharp shadow glitches that were mostly visible on foliage have been fixed.

The tree regrow time has been adjusted and now takes much more time.



We know that getting out of the water is still problematic. Getting out of the lake should be much easier now. Shore has got little improvement, we will introduce a full solution in the next patch.



Some building objects had issues with the view distance, but now they are fixed and won't disappear in a strange way.


We hope these improvements feel better and you enjoy it.


Skål!
Blackrose Arts

Just a hotfix for Pre-Beta 0.9.7 that addresses the issue of the days and seasons cycle not working properly.

Additionally, it fixes some glitches such as flickering fog and optimizes game disk space.

Skål!
Blackrose Arts

Today we have one more significant update!

First, we have improved combat and addressed various aspects mentioned in your latest feedback. Controlling attacks is now much easier, camera shakes can be adjusted using a slider, archers have been nerfed, and enemies are now more enjoyable to kill, among other improvements.

Our Deathmatch servers are now back online, you can fight with your friends.

The first iteration of the promised Survival map upgrade is here. It is larger and works on the UE5 World Partition system, which loads the world by chunks. Despite the increased size and updated appearance, there are some performance enhancements. All trees and stumps are now choppable, and the foliage is interactable, allowing your character to "touch the grass", among other changes.



Speaking of combat, this patch improves the experience a lot. However, we are preparing some exciting completely new features for upcoming updates. It's worth noting that the circle control system, which may feel a bit weird to some players at the moment, is still unfinished. It is a part of the features we are preparing, here's a sneak peek:



* The GIF above demonstrates a new physics control feature that is currently in development. It is not included in the current patch but will be available in future updates and will have a more polished look.

Now, let's take a look at the Pre-Beta 0.9.7 patch!



The Deathmatch servers are now back online. We have addressed the multiplayer issues that arose after the recent combat updates. The experience should now feel more responsive and smoother as well.



There are many systems that influence the feel of combat control, and we continue to improve them. In this patch, it is now much easier to aim your attacks while in motion and keep your opponent in view. We have also added the ability to control your movement during special attacks and dodges. The Circle UI is now turned off by default, but you can switch it on in the options.



We conducted a poll on camera shake intensity previously, but now we have the ultimate solution: the slider option. You can adjust it to your liking!



We have adjusted the system to allow for different dodges for each direction and added more animations. Additionally, we have implemented a small cooldown to prevent spamming and fixed the issue with dodging during a jump.



We have increased the speed of the next hit after a successful block and made the character move slower during it. We have also fixed the issue with blocking not working after a clash.



Added more hit reactions for different parts of the body.



Now you can adjust the field of view if you need.



The AI now feels more lively and has received a stats upgrade that changes the feel of fight. As many players requested, archers have become easier targets. We have also adjusted the arrow hits to be less deadly.



We have adjusted the types of enemy waves and their quantity to make it easier to reach Mjolnir (the 10th wave) and to enhance the overall gameplay experience. Should be more fun now.



This is the first iteration of a series of coming upgrades to this map. There are mountains, fjords, fields. The map is large, and some areas may appear empty, but we will be filling them. Some content such as warrior hiring will return in future updates. Performance has improved.



All trees, stumps, and rocks can now be chopped or gathered without exception.

If you encounter any issues, you may need to restart the save. Thank you for understanding.





The timber axe is no longer limited to two angles, and it has been improved to feel like it sticks to the tree. Additionally, its hit collisions have been corrected to make chopping easier.



There were several water-related bugs, such as the game losing track of water in certain areas, causing players to walk underwater. We have fixed these issues, so walking underwater should no longer be a problem. Additionally, swiming in random map point bug shouldn't be possible anymore. However, we know that swimming can still be a bit strange at times, we are working to improve it.



Spawning a ship should no longer be a problem. However, we are aware that there are still other issues with the ship that need to be fixed.



Animals used to drop incorrect items instead of meat and fat, but this has been corrected now.



Previously, when kicking with a foot, a bloody trail would appear on the weapon, and when chopping a tree or mining a stone, the leg would also give resources. These issues have been fixed now.



This includes effects, wounds and ground decals.


As always, thanks a lot for your feedback guys. Hope these improvements feel better and you enjoy this update!


Skål!
Blackrose Arts

We're excited to announce that our game has made the transition to Unreal Engine 5!



This upgrade brings a lot of significant improvements to the game. Some of the benefits you can feel today, while others will become available in the future.

Players can now experience a whole new level of graphics. To fully take advantage of these new visuals, we recommend to check out the new graphics settings that have been added.



This patch will reinstall the entire game, so please be aware that this process may take some time. The existing saves should remain, but if you encounter issues, please clear them. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

We've taken care of most of the problems that came up during the transition, but there may still be some remaining issues or performance instabilities that we will work to improve. The Survival map will also see significant updates in the future utilizing the capabilities of UE5.

UE5 makes possible an unprecedented level of detail and we will use its power to change our building system and add a variaty of elements. Nanites will allow placing a big amount of them without killing performance.



Certain elements of the combat system, such as camera animations, were temporarily removed during the transition. Also, some animations may currently be stuttering in multiplayer. However, the upcoming patches will prioritize and greatly improve the combat experience with the new features that will be added.

Patch Pre-Beta 0.9.5 is here, let's take a look!



Next-gen Unreal Engine 5.1 features such as Nanite, Lumen, Virtual Shadow Maps, and Temporal Super Resolution are now available in the game.

We recommend to experiment with these new graphics settings to find the perfect balance between visual quality and performance for your hardware.

Nanite provides highly-detailed geometry rendered from millions of polygons without huge performance impact. DirectX12 is required to run Nanite.

Lumen provides real-time global illumination and high-quality ray traced reflections on glossy materials and water.

Virtual Shadow Maps enable highly detailed shadowing. Every leaf and modeled detail will cast a shadow, and the self-shadowing of characters is extremely precise.

TSR is an upgrade over Temporal Anti-Aliasing, a high-quality upsampling technique.

FSR is currently not available as we are waiting for it to be updated to UE5.1.

Going forward, players on PC will need to use Windows 10 or a higher version in order to play the game natively. Windows 7 and 8 will no longer be officially supported.

The graphics is one aspect of the transition, but it is not the only one - the physics, destructions, and all future updates will take advantage of the capabilities of UE5.















The Loki's Maze Deathmatch mode has been replaced with a requested more traditional arena-based Deathmatch mode. The Loki's Maze feature will be updated and re-introduced in a new form in the Survival mode.



We received a lot of feedback that the lightning during different weather conditions was too dark. We've made it brighter, so that storms should no longer cause complete darkness. The lighting during overcast and rainy weather has also been improved. Overall, the lightning and post-processing has been enhanced. We will continue to make further improvements.





You can now destroy and collect most of the stones on the map. Large rocks and small stones cannot be collected using a pickaxe.











The problems preventing the completion of the assault quest and sending the player to the end of the map have been resolved. If the issue persists, a save restart may be required.


We would like to thank you for your support and patience as we work to improve the game. We appreciate your feedback and participation in the form from the game. We can't wait for you to see what's next!


Skål!
Blackrose Arts

Today we have great news, we haven't mentioned it before, but we are finishing up the transition to Unreal Engine 5.

And this Valhall upgrade will be already available in the next patch!

What's to come is just mind-blowing. Next-gen graphics, a larger and more optimized world, improved physics and much more.



Despite how it looks, your computer won't explode, the visuals and optimizations stay balanced.






The electricity situation here in Ukraine is hard, but we keep pushing progress and the updates ahead will be significant. Today's patch is not very big, but some of you will definitely like it.

Patch Pre-Beta 0.9.3 is here, let's take a look!



Dodge got accurate movement instead of instantaneous, updated animation, smoother blending, lower stamina cost. You can see it in the GIF above.



New body parts based hit response with extra movement and longer recovery.



FOV now adapts to screen resolution. On the ultra-wide monitor, the field of view was distorted and uncomfortable to play, now it is as it should be.



A useful feature for when you accidentally get stuck somewhere, we've heard feedback that this is not uncommon.

Firstly, there is now an "Unstick" button in the pause menu, which will help your character get out. What is important, it does not just teleport you forward, but takes into account the environment and does not let you into locked places, for example, houses.

In addition, in some cases, it automatically detects the stuck position and helps you without need to press the button.





Yes, parkour caused many problems, this time almost all of them should be fixed and your character should no longer fly erratically.



UI adjustments. Added Command wheel rebinding.


Thanks to everyone for sharing their feedback and filling out the form from the game.


May the upcoming holiday season bring happiness and joy to you!


Skål!
Blackrose Arts

Today's update is pretty big. New cool stuff and a lot of improvements based on the latest feedback.

Patch Pre-Beta 0.9.2 is here, let's take a look!





This is part of the Challenge system that we are preparing. It will rule world events like cataclysm and bring new activities that go to Survival and BR. We are now starting to test the shrinking zone in Survival and will share information about BR separately in future updates.

In this patch, a cataclysm comes and the zone starts to shrink on the 7th in-game day, then on the 50th and 100th day of survival. Later, this will be tied to the days of the Challenge and will only occur when it is activated.

There are several battlefields on the map, and the zone will randomly select one of them to make it your arena for that day.



When the zone begins to shrink, a marker appears on the compass. The intensity of the earthquake and sound should also help you orient. Be careful while running!



As soon as you arrive on the battlefield and the zone closes the arena, waves of enemies attack you. During the fight with these waves, you will respawn at a random point of the shrinked zone.



The zone will disappear after all the enemies of the last wave are killed.



Lighting has been updated in many ways to fix gameplay comfort issues and improve the overall look.

First of all, we fixed those random moments of darkness. The brightness has been adjusted for different weather conditions, so that even during a storm at night you can still orient. In addition, shadows are now of better quality, and updated post-processing makes the game more beautiful without compromising performance.



Most of the characters have been replaced with more optimized and higher quality models.



We also improved existing ones, updated textures, optimized them, and fixed issues with cloth physics.



Ragdolls no longer fly like crazy and explode on impact. The related issues have been fixed and it now works correctly in multiplayer as well. Impulses for different weapons and some other aspects of physics have also been improved.



Now you need to press the jump key to climb, auto-climb while sprinting is disabled. Adjusted NPC parkour abilities. Reduced unwanted parkour behavior.



We have moved Loki's Maze Deathmatch to new, more powerful EU and US servers provided by GPORTAL. Survival servers will also be there in a little while, we will announce about them in another update.



Raids have been changed to be more logical and less frustrating. Your house is now attacked less often.

Fixed an issue that caused Settlement raid bots to respawn after logging back into the game.



The spawn point you set is now displayed as a compass marker.

You can see the place of the last death, so you can come back.



You can pick up objects under drinking water, the selection outline will switch depending on priorities.



Now it can be placed without problems both in lakes and in sea water. Fixed accessibility issues.



Lakes no longer glitch and instantly kill, and are now easy to get out of.



Fixed issues with Mjolnir's hit causing it to not work.



High waves no longer pass through the ship bottom.



Warriors now respawn when revived.

• Vikings now always have something in their pockets.
  
  
• Fixed get up animation playing randomly.
  
  
• Fixed an issue where the get up animation would play randomly.
  
  
• Quest texts corrected.
  
  
• Optimized the performance of Loki's Maze Deathmatch mode.
  
  
• Fixed strange inventory sounds.
  
  
• Fixed hanging deer collision.
  
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the squad control wheel to appear and break the game in Loki's Maze Deathmatch.
  
  
• Speed up the respawn time of Weapon test bots.
  
  
• Fixed collision of trees that blocked attacks.

Thanks to everyone for sharing their feedback and filling out the form from the game!


Skål!
Blackrose Arts

Before we take a look what today's patch brings, we'd like to show a part of the larger content we're preparing.



This is an epic shrinking zone. We will share the details about it in the next update. It will have multiple roles in the future and we will start testing it in Survival mode first in the next patch.



Patch Pre-Beta 0.9.1 is here, let's see what's in it!



We received a lot of feedback about the movement, in short, it was too slow.

We adjusted sprinting, running and walking with new speeds, corrected animations, blending and updated the boost system (at first you don't start running at full speed and you need time to accelerate).

It still has the balancing features for combat, such as moving backwards more slowly and stopping sprinting in some cases, but now feels more dynamic and satisfying.



Since there is a movement update, there is also a stamina update. However, it's not just about the new sprint costs. This improves the overall balance of stamina. As for the sprint, there is now a tangible cost of initial acceleration.



The torch is now brighter and covers more distance. We also heard a lot about how it looked like it was from the last decade, so here are the new visuals.



The wall torch and some other effects have been updated too. The effects won't become blurry like it used to be from time to time.

Light no longer passes through walls in some strange way.



Post-effects and some other aspects related to graphics have also been improved. Reduced motion blur, adjusted and reduced head bobbing, fixed small but annoying visual glitches.



There is no longer a limit on the number of light sources that can be placed at the same time. Light up your settlement.



Raid spawning has been adjusted to avoid enemies spawning in your house if you have a large house. Also added more wave days.



One of the quests that was causing issue has been replaced. A little later we will add more quests along with world events.



Fixed issues with character disappearing and game breaking after falling.



The character no longer flies away or falls under the map. However, bot ragdolls can still have this issue and we will fix it soon.



The bug that caused a crash after the death of the player should now be gone, but to fully prevent this problem from happening again, we will make some additional changes in the next patch.



The landscape now has better detail and looks smoother. Also, small floating rocks and grass that weren't level with the ground and were casting strange shadows now sit well in place.


Guys, thank you for sharing your feedback and filling out the form!


Skål!
Blackrose Arts

The Pre-Beta 0.9 patch is here! New content, important fixes and improvement. Let's check it out!





Today's update adds waves of enemies that are looking for and attacking your settlement.

AI navigation now covers the entire map, which means they will find your house anywhere. And they will try to destroy it!



Settlement raiders can come at any time of the day. They aim to destroy your respawn.

There are different waves with different enemies. The more days you survive, the harder enemies visit you (although there are a few random relax waves).



First, several Vikings with swords will knock on your door, but after a few days, fiery arrows will fly into the house. There is a chance that even a bear and other animals will become your guests.





NVIDIA DLSS uses the power of the NVIDIA RTX Tensor Cores to boost frame rates and generate sharp frames that approach or exceed native rendering.

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 works across both Radeon and GeForce graphics cards, and on older models such as the GTX 10 and 16 series too.

You can find their customizable options in the Video settings.



We've heard from many players about an issue where swapping slots stopped working. Now it's fixed.



Previously, the torch could stop igniting. Now this is fixed, also in the Control settings there is a slot for changing the ignition key of the torch.



The scoreboard will no longer open randomly in Survival.



A collision while mining an ore caused the character to fly into the sky when you try to climb it. This has been fixed.

However, we know that this problem also occurs with other objects, causing the character to fly into the sky when trying to parkour. This will be fixed in the next patches.



After you cut down trees and mine ore, they respawn in this area after a certain time. The respawn of stones stopped working correctly at some point and is fixed now.



Attack timings have been adjusted to improve combat.







You can find it in the Craft menu.



In the previous patch we broke landscape and water in the main build when we were working on the new coastline, sorry about that. It will appear in the next patches, but for now the landscape and water have been fixed. There should no longer be holes in the water next to mountains.





Raid bots looking for the player, not the attacking settlements, were already able to shoot fire arrows and attack buildings, but they stopped due to numerous problems. They are now fixed and if you hide from enemies that are targeting the player they can attack that building and also switch to fire arrows to fire at it.



It was a bit of a fun bug, if one of your enemies accidentally hits the other, they start fighting each other. Now they share the same fighting spirit and stick to the goal. Also hostile vikings now can attack you with their wolves, they will fight together.


Thanks to everyone for sharing feedback and filling the form!


Skål!
Blackrose Arts