Greetings, Warlords!
We will conduct maintenance updates during the following time: APAC: June 19, 0:00-15:00 (UTC+8). EU/AMS: June 18, 17:00-June 19, 8:00 (UTC+1). The maintenance is expected to last for 15 hours. After the maintenance, we will distribute Bronze Coins *30000, Honor *1500, and Unit Medal *75 as compensation. Warlords, please arrange your playtime accordingly.
The update will contain the following:
Pack Details:
Four-Star Unit – [Halberd Elite] Deluxe Preorder Pack
  Includes:
    [Halberd Elite Challenge Token] x5 (The item can be used starting from June 30, 2025.)
    Exclusive Avatar x1
     [10% Discount Coupon] x2 (Tradable)
 
  Five-Star Unit – [Empire Chariot] Deluxe Preorder Pack
  Includes:
    [Empire Chariot Challenge Token] x7 (The item can be used starting from July 14, 2025.)
    Exclusive Avatar x1
    [20% Discount Coupon] x2 (Tradable)
Event Duration:
  [Halberd Elite] Deluxe Preorder Pack available time: June 19 (After maintenance) – June 30, 00:00
  [Empire Chariot] Deluxe Preorder Pack available time: June 19 (After maintenance) – July 10 (Before maintenance)

Event Introduction:
Sign in during the event to get [Silver Warrant] ×1, [Blessing (7 Days)] ×1
Complete 7-day sign-in quests to unlock additional rewards: [Seasonal Rare Doctrine Selection] ×1
If you unlock the [Dynasty Awakening - Battle Pass] during the event, you will receive [Limited-Time Doctrine Selection Chest] ×3, each Chest includes powerful Doctrines such as [Epic Leadership Doctrine] and [Epic Combat Doctrine]. These Doctrines are available during the new season (expiring after the season ends), and can be removed for free, but cannot be used for Doctrinal Alchemy or other consumption actions.
If you have preordered the [Dynasty Awakening - Battle Pass], you will receive the same rewards when the season begins.
Event Time:
June 19th (After maintenance) - Next New Season (Before maintenance)

Event Introduction:
(1) The limited purchase quantity for the [Epic Leadership Doctrine] has been reset, with a maximum exchange limit of 1.
(2) [Epic Balance Doctrine] is added into the [Rare Doctrine Selection].
Doctrine Introduction:
[Epic Balance Doctrine]
  Quality: Epic
  Type: Defence
  Doctrine Effect: When above 50% Health, damage dealt is reduced by 5% and damage taken is reduced by 6%; when below 50% Health, damage dealt is increased by 6% and damage taken is increased by 5%.
How to Obtain the [Eclectic Doctrine Selection]:
(1) Reaching level 100 in the current season's free Battle Pass grants 1 [Doctrine Spirit].
(2) Completing the fifth stage of the current season's five-star unit challenges grants 1 [Doctrine Spirit].
Event Time:
June 19th (After maintenance) - Next New Season (Before maintenance)
 
Event Introduction:
[Thundercloud], [Destiny Judgment], and [Lei-Loong] Attire Chests are now available. The legendary Short Bow attire [Thundercloud], legendary Poleaxe attire [Destiny Judgment], and legendary Mount attire [Lei-Loong] are back for a limited time!
Event Time:
June 19th (After maintenance) - July 10th (Before maintenance)


Item Introduction:
Legendary Short Bow Attire - [Thundercloud]
   Exchange Price: 300 Curio
Available Time:
June 19th (After maintenance) - July 10th (Before maintenance)

Event Introduction:
  (1) The Antique Attire Chest will remove the [Eternal] season sealed attires and add the [Avalon] season sealed attires.
  (2) After maintenance, new attires will be available in the [G] - [Attire Exchange] shop: [Snow Stag Samurai(Sealed)], [Shadow Muraji (Sealed)], and [Yoriki Unit Attire (Sealed)].
Event Time:
June 19th (After maintenance) - Next New Season (Before maintenance)

Available Packs:
(1) Hand-pick Eastern Season Unit Pack
  Includes:
    Token for Namkhan Archers
    Token for Crescent Monks
    Token for Onna-Musha
(2) Hand-pick Western Season Unit Pack I
  Includes:
    Token for Janissaries
    Token for Berserkers
    Token for Myrmillones
(3) Hand-pick Western Season Unit Pack II
  Includes:
    Token for Condottieri Guards
    Token for Symmachean Paladins
    Token for Kriegsbruders
Limited-Purchase Time:
June 19th (After maintenance) - July 17th (Before maintenance)
 

View the Full Changelog Now

Stardock Entertainment and Oxide Games, in partnership with Xbox Game Studios, today announced the release of a major update to their ambitious new turn-based strategy game, Ara: History Untold today. This update marks the first significant content release for the title since Stardock assumed direct oversight of the game's ongoing production last month. Titled the "Living Strategy Update," version 1.4 has been developed based directly upon months of extensive community feedback and introduces a substantial array of new features, gameplay enhancements, and quality-of-life improvements.

Key new features of Ara: History Untold version 1.4 include:

• Living Strategy View: Now the primary default gameplay viewpoint, this feature blends elements of the detailed Living World close-up perspective with the broader strategic overview. The design enables players to seamlessly manage cities, armies, and resources with greater ease while remaining immersed in the game's detailed environments.

• Advanced Map Generator: Version 1.4 introduces a significant upgrade to the map generation algorithm, now featuring twice as many strategically distinct regions per map size. These enhancements deliver more intelligent resource distribution and improved player starting positions, offering expanded strategic depth and greater replayability. A newly updated Earth map makes full use of these improved generation mechanics.

• Strategy AI Player v2.0: The computer opponent’s artificial intelligence systems have been extensively overhauled to provide players with more meaningful strategic competition, especially during the late-game period. AI opponents will now make more nuanced decisions, better optimize their resources and challenge players with deeper strategic considerations.

• Significant Micromanagement Reduction: Leveraging the new AI systems and the citizen simulation system, the game's citizens can now automatically select items from the player's inventory to self-supply their dwellings, shops, factories, and other buildings based on their needs. Players can easily toggle this automated feature or guide citizen behaviors directly using in-game Policies, maintaining full control over their gameplay experience.

• Battle System Improvements: Combat mechanics have become deeper, longer-lasting, and more transparent, supported by a new Battle Viewer panel. This panel clearly explains battle outcomes and provides improved tactical clarity, helping players better understand and manage military encounters.

• Graphics Engine Optimization: Extensive updates have significantly improved game optimization, reducing GPU usage and significantly increasing framerate stability, particularly in later-game scenarios.

• Simulation Speed Enhancements: Optimizations to the game's simulation engine deliver faster turn times and improved UI responsiveness, contributing to a smoother playing experience.

• Gameplay and Balance Enhancements: Version 1.4 features numerous gameplay improvements, including pacing adjustment, recipe tuning, and extensive balance revisions. Additionally, dozens of community-reported bugs have been addressed, further refining the overall experience.

Ara: History Untold is developed as a historical 4X strategy title, carefully designed from first principles. Stardock, partnered closely with Microsoft and Oxide, has worked rapidly and collaboratively to make this update comprehensive and attractive.

"It has been a real pleasure working with our colleagues at Microsoft for this update. The teams at Stardock, Oxide, and Microsoft have so much energy going into these updates. Version 1.4 is just a taste of what we have in store," said Brad Wardell, Chief Executive Officer for Stardock and Oxide. “In an industry where true 1.0 products are rare, especially ones in established genres, this has been a wonderful opportunity to try out new ideas and concepts that we in the strategy community have been thinking about for decades.”

In addition to the major v1.4 Living Strategy Update, Ara: History Untold released Untold Scenarios DLC today, check it out here.

Think of it as more of a test build than a demo, but anyway I released the demo on monday and made a few small changes this morning, enjoy! I probably will take it down after the fishing festival is over so play it while its up! Thanks a ton - Ryan

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3495280/Ara_History_Untold__Untold_Scenarios/

Stardock Entertainment and Oxide Games, in partnership with Xbox Game Studios, today announced the release of the Untold Scenarios DLC for the historical strategy game Ara: History Untold.

Untold Scenarios includes several different situations to choose from, which place you right in the center of critical moments in human history as well as some hypothetical “what-if” scenarios that explore interesting alternative historical settings!

• Historical Scenarios: Players will experience detailed recreations of significant historical periods, such as the Bronze Age Collapse, the Clash of Hemispheres, and Europe at the Crossroads.
  
• Hypothetical Scenarios: The DLC introduces "what-if" scenarios designed to explore alternate histories.
  
• Custom Gameplay: Each scenario features uniquely crafted maps, distinct national characteristics, and event-driven gameplay designed to provide varied strategic challenges with every playthrough.

Untold Scenarios content requires the Ara: History Untold base game product.

In addition to the Untold Scenarios DLC, Ara: History Untold released the major 1.4 Living Strategy Update today. Check it out here.


Each Scenario includes new technologies and units that are custom to that scenario. For example, the Mongol Invasion scenario takes the player back to the ancient Steppes of Mongolia and lets the Mongols develop their unique Horse Archery and Horse Breeding technologies that are only available to the Mongols.


Other scenarios put the player at critical moments in human history. How might the American western expansion gone if just a few things were different?




Europe at the Crossroads takes 18th century Europe and replaces some of the key leaders of their name with the leaders from Ara: History Untold. How might events have gone differently with different leaders at this pivotal moment?


Untold Scenarios even includes imaginary scenarios such as Islands, where each island has its own unique resources. Do players trade with each other to obtain these resources or build a mighty navy to control the seas and seize the resources for themselves?

Overview:
This patch officially launches the brand new, FREE demo for HSH: Vacancy! It also focuses on key quality-of-life improvements, significant multiplayer replication fixes, and squashing a host of bugs to refine the player experience. This update addresses visibility issues in multiplayer, corrects problems with saved games, and resolves several UI and backend errors.

---

• UI Visibility & Screenshot Tool [FREE-830]: A new "Hide UI" feature has been implemented, allowing Commanders to hide the user interface for more immersive gameplay. This tool also includes a one-click High-Resolution Screenshot button.
  
• Steam & Store Updates [FREE-813, FREE-830]: The Steam store page copy has been updated and the new gameplay video has been integrated. Work has also been completed on the new Demo Store Page.
  
• Website Update [FREE-160]: The new retail website has been launched.

---

Multiplayer & Replication:

• Addressed a replication issue where the Lurcur's tentacle was not visible in multiplayer [FREE-824].
  
• Fixed a bug where the Lurkur's "Whip" attack was not visible to clients [FREE-620].
  
• Fixed an issue where damage repair states were not being shared with clients [FREE-610].

Gameplay & Systems:

• Fixed an issue preventing the Ley Lumen from activating correctly on a loaded save [FREE-692].
  
• Resolved a bug where Ghast manifestation was being improperly limited by Snohe thresholds, preventing them from appearing as expected [FREE-621].
  
• Corrected a problem where the game state after skipping time was not persisting properly through saves [FREE-823].
  
• Fixed an issue where the Deep faction's home system was incorrectly visible from the start in Honored space [FREE-819].

UI & Visuals:

• Fixed an issue causing several advertisement and xenorama icons to appear corrupted [FREE-826].
  
• Resolved several errors related to the production Hero HUD that could occur during loading and gameplay [FREE-816].

Backend & Infrastructure:

• Resolved a critical backend DNS failure. After a two-week diagnostic engagement with Google engineers, the issue was corrected on their end, restoring full service to The Hotel and resulting in a formal apology for the downtime [FREE-815].

Trombone Champ has been updated to 1.26! This update mainly adds support for custom tracks via Steam Workshop.

[h5]Mod compatibility with 1.26[/h5]

As usual, we've had this update available as a beta for a few weeks so that the community can get a head start on updating their tools. But if you rely on mods that are broken by this update, you can load the previous version of the game by right-clicking the game in Steam, going to Properties, choosing Betas, and then choosing the "last_update" beta branch. But please hop on the newest version as soon as you can!

---

You can now browse and subscribe to custom tracks via Steam Workshop! For Steam users, this is probably the easiest way to get started with custom maps. You can view the workshop page here:

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=1059990

After subscribing to items, they should appear in a new "Steam Workshop" collection in the "Track Select" screen. You may need to restart the game, or click the "reload" button in the Custom Tracks section of Settings, to make newly-subscribed tracks show up.



We've personally made two tracks to celebrate the launch of the Workshop, with more to come soon. Vogons is a really fun Max Tundra track, and Item Shopping is a remix of a track from one of our old albums!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3480593643
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3480589806

The community has already uploaded a bunch of tracks to the game's Workshop... and now that the Workshop is public, we anticipate lots of new content soon!

Are you musically inclined?... if so, why not contribute yourself?...



We've written a guide on how to upload your incredible tracks to Steam Workshop here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3484303312
To summarize, there's a new button in the Tootmaker level editor:



... and when you click the button, you get a popup that should be self-explanatory. All you really need to do is point to a folder, attach a thumbnail image, and click "submit!"



We plan to hold some sort Workshop contest soon, so if you're interested, check it out!


At the moment, you can only upload custom tracks to Steam Workshop. However, we plan to continue experimenting with additional workshop functionality. For example, it would be great if users could upload and download gameplay mods in the workshop! However, this will be a bit trickier to implement since it will involve a lot more tracking and file management than custom tracks do.

---

We've been pretty busy over here... in addition to Trombone Champ stuff, we've started prototyping our Next Game (unannounced). Gotta make sure it's actually fun to play before diving in! But, in terms of Trombone Champ, here's what we plan to do next:

1. We need to update the Nintendo Switch version of the game to address a few (very minor, visual only) issues with the Switch 2 version. It works great, but a few animations run too quickly!
   
   
2. For PC / Mac, we've started going through a bunch of screens and making them look better in ultrawidescreen resolutions. People have been complaining about this forever and it will be nice to get it done!
   
   
3. We'd like to revisit input. We'd love to have nice controller support, mainly so we can get the game working as smoothly as possible on the Steam Deck. Trombone Champ does work on the Steam Deck, but it doesn't control nearly as nicely as it could. (The game was released at a time when the Steam Deck was heavily backordered — we weren't able to get one until much later!)
   
   
4. We're working on some cool secret stuff that we can't share yet! At the moment, we're not even sure how much of this stuff will pan out!
   
   
5. After that, we're probably done in terms of significant updates, but we'll still continue to support the game, fix bugs, and add new tracks.

Thank you for your continued support!!

Forever in your service,


Holy Wow Studios

Jane’s been asked to shoot a TV program called “Cooking Strike” to show off her incredible cooking skills, and she needs to complete five levels in a row to make sure she’s ready!

While you complete the levels to get ready for the show, the TV crew will bring some more professional equipment.

If you fail a level, your progress will be reset and you’ll have to start from the beginning!
You can try as many times as you want. The TV show’s paying for the food, so you won’t be using yours up.

When you finish the fifth level you’ll receive a big reward that includes booster parts, Coins, Rubies, and blog points!



If you don’t complete all the levels before the event ends, don’t worry. You aren’t losing anything, and there’ll always be another TV program!

Greetings, Mages! 👋🧙‍♂️ Here’s what’s changed for Tales of Fablecraft v0.24.5!

• We've upgraded the game state, resulting in a more resilient Battlemap and overall gameplay.

• We've added a Lock and Key to the available emotes: Heist Society, here we come!

• All Arena results tooltips are now correctly labeled.

• All Hero Demo rolls now cannot be cancelled, which did indeed break the game.

• A Wildwood Combat Scenes (no spoilers!) has a fixed summoning team issue.

• A Wildwood GMG tooltip for one of the creatures was broken and now is fixed!

• A Tipsy Pearl voiceover went missing and has been found.

• MacOS deeplinks now work whether or not Fablecraft is open.

• iPads on Combat Scenes now have extra side padding to account for the tray.

• In-game chat on both tablets and phones has been updated for smoother UX.

• iPhone Feature Tour in the Combat Scene has been refreshed.

• Tilting on mobile now correctly triggers landscape views for static environments and fullscreen character art.

• Reconnecting after a disconnect does not always function properly. If you see the reconnecting popup, we advise you to fully close Fablecraft and restart the app.

• Video chat connection labels may or may not persist after throttling starts or ends.

• Hero Demo camera button activates the mic toggle, both are deactivated post-scene.

• Demo completion data may be removed when switching devices.

• GMG default avatars have a light grey box surrounding their profiles.

• Battlemap data may not persist across scene changes and played sessions.

• Game Log entries may appear hyper-layered.

• Combat Scene turn tracker has its tooltips pushed offscreen.

• Hero portraits cannot be updated once selected. Choose wisely!

We’re releasing an update that will make claiming items take half the time! This event runs until July 2nd, 2025, at 3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. We’ve also introduced a new task!


1. Fixed a visual bug where merging items would not remove them from your inventory.

Alongside the many smaller updates we've been putting out to address balance, stability, and other issues, we've also been working on completing achievements and adding in fast travel!

• Achievements now come with rewards on completion - when you load up your save file, some of them may be auto-completed based on what you've done already!

• The blueprint books in shrines that used to house crafting recipes have now been moved to achievements. Much better, no?

• Quests, logs, and achievements with unclaimed rewards will now show a ! beside the journal tab when you open it up

• There are 101 achievements in total, so we hope you enjoy collecting all of them!

• There's a special Star Trophy when you get all the achievements, so do your best~

• Contests and events will now give a trophy instead of the Star Trophy; if you've obtained a Star Trophy from our building event from the past, it is now a Builder's Trophy

• Completing all the Cultural Center rooms will now reward you with a banner!

• Portals can be unlocked after completing the achievement The Cat That Leapt Through Mines by resetting the mines layout ten times

• The crafting recipe automatically crafts a set of them. You need to put two down and label them with the same name in order to fast travel between them

• Once they are linked up, changing the name of one will automatically change the other

• You place Portals using the Builder's Kit, so there are also no restrictions... Just remember: if you break the game on purpose, you deserve to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Player beware if you choose to get cheeky!

• You can place portals in different maps and indoors, including townhomes. Townhome building areas have now been fixed and should properly display the items you've placed into them

• Sigh... Fine. You guys win. You can now eat Glue. It'll take away a bit of HP. Please don't eat glue irl.

• 

• For those who haven't booted up the game in a while, you can now view which storage container you're going to open. They will highlight with an outline!

• 

• Another feature we added a few small patches back is the ability to search for crafting recipes in the work bench and crafting tab now! Huzzah!

• 

Hooray! We're finally at the end.

We really hope you enjoy the new achievements, they were tons of fun to think up and create.

Don't forget, our Discord is full of friendly community members who will help you with any questions or bully me into making glue edible. And of course, us, the devs, are always lurking as well.