2026 Summer Live in Hilder Forest
Livestream Schedule: July 4th, 09:00 UTC
Livestream Platform: [KR YouTube Channel]
(All update schedules from the Livestream reflect the KR server schedules. Detailed schedules for other regions will be announced at a later date.)
■ Lookback of Updates from the past 6 months
The most appreciated update: Bulk opening of Destiny Boxes
First brought up during the previous December Livestream, the team was able to deliver this feature within the first quarter.
The most challenging update: Evie's visual update
As one of the oldest heroes in Vindictus, the team had to update her visuals to fit the current graphics quality and at the same time, make sure her core charm stayed intact. We had to discuss many details with the Art Director several times.
As visual updates are very challenging, we can't say for sure if there will be any more revamps in the near future.
■ What we're working on currently
Server and client optimization: Optimization is still ongoing. We've addressed this multiple times already, but we're continuing to look into ways to further reduce server lag.
Wardrobe Point expansion: More Wardrobe point rewards are in progress and scheduled to go live in July.
Inventory Revamp: Scheduled for September. It was originally planned for August, but development took longer than expected. In its place, we're adding an Outfit Recycling System in August.
Other announced updates from the December Livestream: The Breakoff mechanic revamp, Departure and Battle completion cutscene updates, potion usability improvements, and character survival utility improvements are still in development. These remain planned for the 2nd half of 2026, but have been temporarily deprioritized while we focus on other aspects.
■ New Feature Update: Photo Mode
Photo Mode is a brand-new Photo Mode is replacing the current in-game screenshot feature. As a visual retouching tool, it will bring the kind of editing many players currently rely on third-party software for directly into Vindictus.
Supported Features
Depth of Field, Sharpness, Hue & Saturation, and more.
You can save your settings as presets and export them as shareable codes for other players to use.
Camera controls are also getting revamped: move with WASD, look around with your mouse.
You can also adjust FOV and camera tilt. Gridlines will be supported for more precise, professional-looking shots.
Slow motion down to 0.1x speed and multiple screen resolutions (9:16, 1:1, 21:9, and more) will be added to bring variety to screenshot results.
Screenshot Examples from the Development Build
■ New Feature Update: Options UI Revamp
The cluttered Options menu is being reorganized so each tab covers a distinct category, such as graphics, sound, or controls, making it easier for every player to find what they need.
The Photo Mode's visual retouching effects can now be kept on by default through the Options UI, even during regular gameplay. Note that this may cause significant frame drops, especially during combat.
■ New Feature Update: Wardrobe Point Expansion
New rewards are being added for players who accumulate Wardrobe Points.
The new rewards will not be limited to high point thresholds. New rewards are also being added at lower point ranges to make the system more accessible to all players.
Example of New Wardrobe point rewards
■ The 28th Hero of Vindictus: Lumielle
Meet the 28th Hero of Vindictus: Lumielle, the first half-elf archer to join the roster.
Her playstyle centers on charging up in close combat, then unleashing burst damage from range.
Her weapon, the Arc, uses elemental magic to let her fight both up close and at a distance. Using the Arc, Lumielle doesn't fire physical arrows. Instead, she conjures arrows from magic each time she draws her bow.
Playstyle
Lumielle manages two resources: Stamina and Communion.
Attacking, Smashing, and Dodging up close builds her gauge, and at 100% she can activate Communion to unleash an enhanced ranged Smash.
This enhanced Smash can be used up to 4 times, with the 4th usable either immediately or after a full charge, depending on the situation.
After the 4th Smash, use TAB to disengage from the enemy, recover Stamina, and restart the combo.
Her combat was designed to be approachable and intended to work well for both new and returning players.
Lumielle's Exclusive Equipment Preview
■ Update Roadmap for the 2nd half of 2026
■ Outfit Recycling System
Players will be able to disassemble unused outfits from your inventory in exchange for Special tokens.
As we've identified that an excessive amount of unused outfits in one's inventory is one of the leading causes of server lag, we expect this to improve overall performance.
With the special token acquired from disassembling, you can exchange them for special items from the in-game exchange shop.
Disassembling an outfit will not reduce your Wardrobe Points.
■ Inventory Revamp
The inventory UI revamp will take place in the later half of 2026.
The revamp focuses not only on refreshing the current outdated UI, but also improving how items are stored and managed overall.
■ New Raid Boss, Morphessa
Morphessa, guardian of the fourth and final treasure required for Nuadha's return, will arrive as a new raid boss.
A new story will unfold once all four treasures are acquired.
Defeating Morphessa yields materials for weapon and foot armor, plus a second new ring and its matching enchant scroll will be added to the loot table.
■ Item Tradability Revamp
The item tradability system is being simplified.
Today, tradability is split across 'Bound to Character,' 'Account Sharable,' and 'Tradable,' depending on how an item was obtained, which makes the system confusing to navigate.
In-game Gold is also becoming account wide instead of character wide, removing the need to transfer gold between characters on the same account.
■ New Currency: Bound Gold System
'Bound Gold' is a new currency designed to ease the burden on new and returning players.
The current reward system of Vindictus is heavily focused on endgame content, which reduces the relative value of rewards for veteran players, while new and returning players lack a sustainable way to gear up.
'Bound Gold' can only be spent on character growth, such as enhancement and tuning, and cannot be used for trading purposes.
■ The 5th Space Time Distortion: Garvan
Garvan is a boss who needs no giant weapon or magic. He shatters space itself with his bare fists, with motions focused on grappling and martial arts styles like Karate, Muay Thai, and Kudo.
Every part of his body, fists, feet, shoulders, back, and head, can become a lethal weapon, and each void-infused strike tears space itself or unleashes a shockwave.
In order to differentiate Garvan from other bosses, his fights are slow and heavy rather than fast or stylish.
His moveset is unlike any boss we've introduced before. We wanted a fight that rewards reading each motion and meeting it face to face at exactly the right moment, the kind of signature action longtime players will remember from Vindictus's early years.
One of his key patterns will slow down time on the entire field.
■ Expertise & Display Stand revamp
Expertise will be updated to address points of inconvenience where too much repetitive actions were required to level up, and only certain characters in an account could learn them.
Expertise will be open so all characters will be able to use them, and its leveling process will be reduced.
Display stands will be updated to reduce to inconvenience of having to open a stand in order to sell an item, to a more modern system.
■ More updates planned for 2027
A new character is planned for January.
Max level expansion and a new growth system will be introduced in February.
Both updates will be announced with more context with a different Devnote or Devtalk Video.
■ QNA Session
Q. What's the standard behind balancing? Is community feedback or in-game data considered?
A. Our balancing criteria haven't changed since last winter's livestream ─ We check each Hero's pure performance and the deviation resulting from handling difficulty when deciding balancing. For each Hero, we treat the performance of top-tier, highly skilled players as that character's maximum potential, while also working to keep the gap between top and mid-tier performance from growing too wide. When comparing mid-tier performance across different Heroes, we treat the differences as coming from handling difficulty and boss-pattern quirks rather than raw power, so we take a more cautious approach there and always validate changes on the test server. Alongside in-game data, we continue to factor in community feedback and player reports.
Q. Can we expect regular, monthly balancing updates in the future?
A. We believe pushing out unverified changes just to hit a schedule risks causing more problems than it solves, so we're taking a careful approach and currently not planning fixed monthly balance patches. That said, we recognize that with so many Heroes, some go a long time without attention. This is mostly because rather than working through a fixed rotation, we prioritize Heroes where the data shows a clear issue. Every Hero is monitored on an ongoing basis, and we intend to make the wait worthwhile with meaningful balance changes.
Q. What sustainable, long-term vision do you have for Vindictus as a live-service game?
A. Vindictus has stayed live for 16 years thanks to all of our players that enjoy the game. We're continuing to build the foundation for long-term service, and we're already discussing plans beyond what we've announced today. We'll share those as they come together. Vindictus is here to stay.
Q. Are there any plans to switch game engines?
A. We agree that a lot of the server lag, frame drops, and loading delays could be solved by switching engines, but that kind of work takes an extremely long time. Rather than set expectations we can't act on quickly, we're focusing on improvements we can deliver right now, so an engine change isn't currently on our future plans. Going forward, we'll keep taking the same approach as today's Inventory or Expertise Revamp: resolving long-standing legacy issues through continuous improvement rather than one big overhaul.
Q. Any plans to add a cutscene skip for Redeemers battle?
A. We're aware that mid-battle cutscenes break the flow of combat. Right now, some intro and ending cutscenes can be skipped with ESC, but mid-battle cutscenes use a different implementation logic which is why they aren't supported yet. Since the frustration is real, we'll look into shortening or removing these cutscenes in the second half of this year.
Q. Can we expect any improvements to older content like Reverent Tower or Niflheim?
A. We recognize the fatigue around older content like Reverent Tower, Abyssal Arena, and Niflheim, and we agree that being forced to repeatedly run this content for essential rewards, like bracelet gems, makes it more of a problem. Alongside the max level expansion planned for early 2027, we're actively reviewing an overhaul of not only what was just mentioned, but also other legacy contents such as Royal Army, Redeemers, Guild Dungeon, and Red Moon's Energy, including reward redesigns aligned with the current meta and consolidating overlapping content. The exact direction isn't finalized yet, but we'll share details through a Devnote or DevTalk video once it is.
Q. Resources feel hard to come by while gearing up through Eriu equipment after finishing Hero's Leap.
A. We take the growth burden facing new and returning players seriously. Because RPGs naturally concentrate rewards in endgame content, resource income at earlier stages can feel noticeably harder to come by. But simply boosting early-stage rewards would devalue items faster and hurt the game's long-term health, so instead we're introducing the previously announced Bound Gold, a non-tradable currency usable only for character growth, like enhancement and tuning. This should ease the burden on new and returning players while preserving the overall supply and value of tradable gold. We're also looking at adding more ways to earn non-gold resources and items across a wider range of content, so everyone can select a content of their taste to obtained the required resources.
Q. Entry stat requirements for new content keep climbing, and it's becoming a burden.
A. Entry stat requirements are the minimum bar we set to guarantee a new raid's intended difficulty, so we can't simply lower them. That said, we'll keep easing the path to reaching those requirements through Bound Gold and expanded resource routes, and we'll continue monitoring how quickly players are able to grow to meet them.
Q. Fusion appearances disappear when advancing equipment. Could they carry over or be preserved instead?
A. Losing Fusion appearances has been a consistent piece of feedback, and we never intended for players to have to skip Advancement just to preserve a rare item's look. We've spent a long time thinking through solutions, and we're currently exploring a way to extract the appearance from a Fusion item on its own. This would not only solve the appearance loss issue but could also give appearances their own trade value, which we see as a meaningful change. We'll aim to schedule this update within 2026.
Q. Are there plans to revamp the Seal shop?
A. The Seal of Bravery exchange shop, along with several other in-game exchange shops, carries items that haven't kept pace with the current game environment. The Seal of Bravery shop will definitely be refreshed with the next KR Live server update on July 16th, and we'll follow up by reviewing and updating rewards in other exchange shops, like the Guild Seal shop. Long term, we also plan to retire seals that have lost their value to make the overall currency structure more intuitive.
Q. Any plans to add more ways to spend surplus AP per character?
A. We understand the frustration of AP piling up with nowhere to spend it, especially for long-time players. At the same time, new players often find themselves short on AP, so adding more AP sinks could create a bigger barrier to entry for new and returning players, which is why we're being cautious here. We haven't found a clear solution to this gap yet, but we'll keep refining our approach based on your feedback. As a first step, we'll introduce a feature within the second half of this year that lets you transfer AP to other characters on your account.
Q. Are there any updates for outfit reruns?
A. Outfit reruns are something we constantly review with the business department. As much as we are aware that there are a lot of players who are looking foward to reruns of old outfits, most of them are something we are not considering a candiate due to their difference in quality compared to recent outfits. Currently we're looking over other alternatives, such as adding some of them to the outfit disassembly exchange shop, but nothing is confirmed at the moment.
Q. Can Lumielle's Elf ears be removed?
A. That is not something we've expected would have a request for, so it wasn't considered during development. Depending on what outfit or equipment currently worn, the elf ears may be covered up. But we haven't added a feature to remove them completely.
Q. Can the friend list be merged to be Cairde wide instead of Character specific?
A. We will look into this feature and check if this is available during the second half of 2026.
Q. Can old, dormant account character names be removed to be available again, or can a character name trading post be added?
A. Currently we're stabilizing our internal trading systems after the addition of Airgead to the game, so a character name trading system isn't something developed yet. But we will consider if either option will be available next winter.
Q. Can an outfit specific inventory be added to the game?
A. Yes. This will be implemented with the upcoming Inventory UI update.
Q. The current circuit party creation UI only allows us to enter the ADD DMG stat up to 9999.
A. We are fully aware that this is a problem when making circuit parties, and we will look into this issue and try to increase the max input to 5 digits during July.
Q. Can you add dye slots for wings or tails?
A. Wings and Tails have a different color system compared to outfits, which is why we chose to add more diverse colors to them instead of adding a dye slot. Simply adding the feature would likely cause a system collision, and we are looking into other options. As we expect this request to increase by the time the new Photo Mode is added to the game, we'll make sure to review this once more.
Q. Can more Weapon Fusion appearances be added to the game?
A. We actually did consider adding boss weapon appearances to the game. However, each boss had a specific weapon and this couldn't cover the vast diversity of weapons all of our characters had, so we decided that this would harm the equal opportunity of getting a fusion appearance. But we are still in active discussion, and currently making a list of what we can offer. Nothing is confirmed at the moment.
Q. Are there any plans for collabs?
A. Unfortunately we're currently focusing on stabilizing our internal development process, so a collab isn't planned at the moment.
Please Note
The Livestream will take place in Korean only. An English summary will be updated on the official Discord Server during the stream, and a full recap will be posted at a later date.
All English terms are not final and are subject to possible changes upon official update.
All update schedules announced in the Livestream are plans for the KR server update. Global update schedules may differ and will be announced at a later date.