Hi everyone!
Today is Ravenfield's 9th anniversary on Steam which we celebrated with cake at the office! I figured this would be a good time to update you all on what we're working towards this year and beyond.
First things first: We are still working on Arcade Mode pt 2 which will release in the next EA update. In the last update post my plan was to get the update out before the end of April, but we've been taking our time to experiment with the design of Arcade mode to make sure it's as fun as possible. It turns out designing a fun and hopefully somwhat balanced rougelike mode like Arcade is pretty challenging for a moddable game like Ravenfield where the gameplay drastically changes based on what mods are being used. We're slowly but surely getting there, and you can try out the latest version of Arcade mode on the beta branch if you want to see where we are currently at. The latest build features a shop where you can buy extra equipment to even out your loadout if you're unhappy with the equipment or vehicle drops.
While the design process for Arcade is taking a bit longer than expected, we figure it's worth it as we both want to make a fun game mode and will also use the lessons learned for the next official campaign where we are rebuilding Conquest Mode from the ground up. Like Arcade, the New Conquest Mode will fully support modded content such as weapons, vehicles and maps, meaning a lot of the design challenges will carry over. We have already made strides in the development of Conquest Mode but we're not quite ready to show it off yet. Expect more info on Conquest Mode this autumn!
2026 Timeline
To give you an idea of what we have planned for this year, here's a rough timeline:
Spring/Summer:
- Arcade Mode pt 2 and 3
- Support for Custom Campaign creation via mod tools
- Release Arcade Mode source assets and scripts for use in the mod tools
- A rework of one of the official maps
Autumn/Winter:
- New Conquest Mode
- Support for Custom Game Mode creation via mod tools
- Finish up Citadel story mission
- A brand new map
On top of these features, you can expect weapon drops and improvements to gameplay/bots/modding throughout the year.
Ravenfield 1.0
Back in December 2024 in "The Ravenfield Release Plan" post I expressed a desire to release Ravenfield 1.0 before the end of 2026. This is still the goal, but we will only release 1.0 after we have gotten all features listed above ready and working well. As the most important thing for us is to deliver a really fun experience and to make sure modders can continue building on the gameplay and systems we create we'd rather take our time and do things right than to rush out a 1.0 release. This of course means we might need to push the 1.0 release into 2027, but we are taking things one step at a time and will keep you all posted on the progress thru EA updates and Steam posts.
...And Beyond
We're happy to announce that we will continue to support Ravenfield after the 1.0 release thru content updates, modding improvements and bugfixes. We're not entirely sure what type of content we will be producing for the game after the 1.0 release, nor the scope and release schedule, but we are determined to keep working on the game so long as people keep playing it! That said, we also have plans to create new games, meaning our development time will be split between Ravenfield updates and new projects. More info about this will be coming closer to the release!
I hope you're as excited about the features we have planned for 2026 as we are!
/Johan and the Ravenfield Team