Update 0.2.2 — Dual Wielding, New Enemies, Hollow Star & Major QoL

Update 0.2.2 is a fairly large step forward from 0.2.1, adding new combat possibilities, new enemies and encounters, faction content, improved travel tools, a redesigned inventory flow, and another substantial performance pass.

As always, I’ll start with the changes that affect gameplay the most.

Dual Wielding is now available

The biggest combat addition in 0.2.2 is a completely new two-hand equipment system.

Weapons can now be assigned independently to your left and right hands.

• Left Mouse Button attacks with the left hand

• Right Mouse Button attacks with the right hand

• Each hand has its own weapon selection

• Weapons keep independent screen positions

• Bows, crossbows and other weapon types follow the same hand rules

• Selling or dropping a weapon now correctly removes that exact weapon from the hand using it

This opens up combinations that simply did not exist in 0.2.1.

The weapon/hotkey HUD has also been redesigned to make the two-hand system easier to read during play.

New enemies and dangerous encounters

Ravenglaire has received a significant expansion to its hostile content.

0.2.2 adds new creature and boss-related content, including enemies such as:

Orrery Warden
Hollow Roots Matriarch
Veil-Touched Devourer
Reassembling Colossus
The Empty King
Horned Apostle
Flayed Hound
Chainborn
Mourning Bride

…and more.

These are part of the ongoing effort to give exploration and character progression stronger late-game threats instead of simply increasing the number of ordinary enemies.

The Hollow Star

The secret Hollow Star organization has been significantly expanded since 0.2.1.

Once discovered, the faction is now integrated into the normal game systems rather than behaving like isolated content.

Its improvements include:

• proper Journal integration;

• clearer assignments and objectives;

• faction-specific progression;

• improved quest targeting;

• proper map and travel integration;

• new related enemies and assets;

• improved faction locations;

• fixes to Hollow Star dungeon transitions.

Hollow Star locations are also correctly recognized as organization destinations in the new map filtering system.

Enemies now drop more equipment

Humanoid loot has been expanded.

In 0.2.1, equipment drops were much more limited.

Enemies can now drop additional wearable equipment such as:

Helmets • Gloves • Pants • Boots

Bandits have also become a much more dependable source of lockpicks, making lockpicking considerably more practical as a playstyle.

Much better destination finding

Fast Travel and Accelerated Travel now have a completely new destination filtering system.

You can filter the world map by:

Taverns • Settlements • Organizations • Dungeons • Properties • Landmarks

Selecting a category now hides both the markers and names belonging to other location types.

For example:

Select Taverns, and the map becomes a tavern map.

Roads, geography and your position remain visible, so the world map still retains its usefulness for orientation.

Selecting All restores the normal map.

This is particularly important as Ravenglaire continues to gain more discovered locations.

Inventory redesign

Inventory navigation has changed considerably since 0.2.1.

The inventory now always opens directly in All, so accessing your items remains immediate.

Instead of permanently displaying every category across the interface, there is now a Choose another category option in the item column.

Selecting it temporarily replaces only the left-hand item list with:

All • Weapons • Equipment • Consumables • Food • Materials • Special • Other

Choosing one immediately returns to the item list with that category active.

The rest of the inventory stays in place, including equipment and item details.

Item artwork and equipment presentation have also received improvements, particularly for armor and food variants.

Journal overhaul

The Journal has been reorganized to handle the growing number of systems and activities.

It now separates information into clearer areas such as:

Active Work
Quests
Organizations
Discoveries
Personal
Debts
History

Organizations such as Hollow Star can now be tracked much more naturally.

Long contracts and faction assignments have also been reformatted so that location, reward and objective information no longer gets crushed into giant single-line entries.

Tavernkeepers load more reliably

This ended up being a deeper problem than simple NPC draw distance.

In some cases, the tavern itself could begin loading before the tavernkeeper NPC had even been created.

Tavernkeepers are now treated as essential service NPCs and can be prepared independently from much of the tavern decoration.

Additional safeguards also prevent them from falling beneath the world while terrain is still being prepared.

The result should be much faster and more reliable access to tavern services.

Performance improvements

0.2.2 contains another large optimization pass.

Several systems were doing more background work than they needed to, especially on lower graphical settings.

Work in this update includes optimizations to:

• procedural world streaming;

• terrain chunk counts on low settings;

• vegetation density and distant forests;

• wildlife simulation;

• NPC update frequency;

• terrain collider updates;

• merchant background processing;

• prisoner-system processing;

• distant cooking stations;

• weapon-hand updates;

• several recurring scene-tree scans.

Performance work will remain an ongoing part of Early Access, but a number of hidden costs present in 0.2.1 have been removed.

Cooking — Cook All

Cooking now includes:

COOK ALL ×N

This is not a shortcut that treats an entire stack as one roll.

Every piece still performs its own normal cooking calculation, skill progression and time advancement.

It simply removes a large amount of repetitive clicking.

Interface improvements

A large number of UI elements have been cleaned up since 0.2.1.

Among the changes:

• cleaner pause and travel menus;

• improved text centering and hierarchy;

• shorter and more consistent interactive underlines;

• better handling of long dynamic text;

• improved font-size setting coverage;

• cleaner Inventory, Character and Journal layouts;

• combat log improvements;

• better separation between contracts and combat information;

• improved weapon/hotkey display.

Main screens also rely more consistently on Esc for closing instead of wasting large areas on dedicated Close buttons.

Bug fixes

0.2.2 also includes a large number of fixes, including:

• fixed a bug where pressing Esc on the death screen could return control to the character at 0 HP;

• fixed weapon visuals remaining after the weapon was sold or dropped;

• fixed several dual-hand equipment inconsistencies;

• fixed inventory scroll positions resetting after actions;

• improved terrain collision safety after resting;

• improved Hollow Star quest tracking;

• improved Hollow Star dungeon exit responsiveness;

• fixed several NPC animation issues;

• improved travel destination selection;

• improved combat log behavior;

• fixed several UI clipping and layout problems;

• removed obsolete development and test resources from the release export.

0.2.2 contains considerably more than balance changes or bug fixing: several systems that were not present at all in 0.2.1 — particularly dual wielding and map destination filtering — are now part of the game.

There is still a great deal planned for Morhval during Early Access, and feedback continues to directly influence what gets prioritized.

Bug reports, performance reports and suggestions are always welcome!