Greetings, Nobles!
Today we're providing a preview of what's coming next for Noble Legacy.
Up until now, players have faced very few survival challenges outside of combat. Our focus has primarily been on villager afflictions, illnesses, and death systems. That is about to change.
We're excited to announce our upcoming Survival Update.
Players will now have their own survival statistics, including HUD display bars and notifications for:
Hunger
Warmth
Afflictions
Hygiene
Energy
Your character will become hungry and need to eat, stay warm by monitoring environmental temperatures, interact with hearths and campfires, and maintain hygiene through bathing.
We're also introducing Energy, a new stamina-related attribute manager. As your Energy is depleted through activities, your maximum stamina will gradually decrease. To restore it, you'll need to rest and sleep. This will directly impact the rate of which you can harvest and be impacted by labor intensive activities.
You may notice that hydration is absent from this list. That is intentional.
We are not aiming to create a hardcore survival simulator filled with tedious micromanagement. Noble Legacy is first and foremost about establishing and growing a kingdom. While survival should add immersion and meaningful decision-making, we don't believe players should spend their time constantly boiling water or managing overly granular systems that distract from the broader experience.
What you wear will also impact your warmth, and we're introducing a new player stats panel within the inventory to help you track your overall condition.
We're introducing new sleep and save mechanics exclusive to Kingdom Mode.
Rather than relying on traditional manual saves, Kingdom Mode will now use a checkpoint-style save system tied directly to your character's bed. (Note that Custom/Creative will still allow for manual saving but flagship Kingdom Mode will now be character based)
As part of this update, players will be able to construct their own homes before reaching the Manor stage, allowing you to live among your villagers as your settlement grows.
Interacting with your bed will allow you to:
Save your progress
Rest and restore Energy
Recover from minor injuries and afflictions
Sleep through the night with time progression to the next morning
With the addition of these survival mechanics, we're introducing a brand-new Kingdom Tier
We're expanding the Kingdom Mode onboarding experience and narrative questline to better capture the struggle of surviving your first few nights in Greenwood before establishing a permanent settlement.
Tier 0 introduces a variety of new build parts and systems that will continue to serve players throughout later Kingdom Tiers.
Basic campfire cooking
Portable sleeping tents that can be packed up and carried during extended expeditions
Makeshift hunting and cooking shelters
Supply carts that provide temporary storage for encampment-related resources and structures
Players will now be able to construct their own early homes.
These homes will include player-exclusive furnishings and stations, such as the Steward's Workbench and Steward's Desk.
Beds, hearths, and other designated furnishings within your home will belong exclusively to your character—and, in the future, your spouse as part of the Marriage & Legacy systems.
Players will be able to interact directly with more build parts and furnishings throughout the world.
This is only the beginning. We intend to continue expanding interaction systems over time, including activities such as sitting on benches, relaxing around hearths, and socializing alongside villagers within taverns and other communal spaces.
We're expanding the opening questline to better bridge the gap between Encampment and Steward's Charge.
As you progress from Tier 0 into Tier 1, you'll encounter several new characters with their own stories and motivations. These individuals will join your camp and assist in your survival efforts as you begin laying the foundations of your future settlement.
This update also includes significant improvements to Kingdom Banners and land claims.
Placing a Kingdom Banner will now establish a sizeable and clearly defined land claim, providing ample room for settlement growth while helping prevent a number of issues we've observed during testing.
Previously, players could construct workstations and outposts across distant regions of the map. While creative, this often caused villagers to migrate excessively long distances, disrupted production chains, triggered quests in unintended locations, and introduced numerous bugs.
This change will also improve how bandit attacks are calculated, preventing situations where enemies appear in unexpected areas of player settlements.
By focusing key systems around a player's established land claim, we can provide a more reliable and consistent gameplay experience.
Before we discuss fixes and improvements, we want to take a moment to thank all of you.
We know Early Access has not been without its challenges. We've been neck-deep in development, rapidly building systems and content while simultaneously fixing issues as they arise. That means bugs, balancing changes, and sometimes even save wipes.
This update will require a new save (Creative Mode saves will not be impacted)
We know many of you have endured bugs, wipes, and major gameplay changes while supporting our vision. Your patience, enthusiasm, and feedback have played a critical role in helping us shape Noble Legacy into the game we believe it can become.
Thank you for sticking with us.
We've seen it.
We've struggled with it.
And we've finally beaten it.
The infamous bug causing villagers to clip through floors and foundations has been resolved.
Gone are the days of rescuing your hardworking villagers from a state of eternal submission beneath your buildings.
Special thanks to everyone who helped us track down and reproduce this issue.
We're continuing to refine controller support, including improvements to Livestock management and UI navigation.
We've also addressed several UI-related issues, including production cap functionality.
In addition, we're overhauling the production priority weighting system. Rather than relying on abstract weights, players will now be able to assign percentage-based priorities, providing much clearer insight into how villagers allocate their crafting time.
We've also addressing numerous issues related to crops, animal husbandry and UI.
We'll continue improving these systems throughout development.
This update also introduces several new building options.
Players will be able to place decorative Poplar trees throughout their settlements. These trees are purely ornamental and cannot be chopped down by villagers.
We're bringing back:
The Log Structure Set as an optional Tier 1 building style
The Plank Wall Set as an optional Tier 2 building style
We're also introducing structural frame pieces as standalone build parts, allowing players to create more unique architectural designs using the framing elements normally hidden behind wall construction.
Looking further ahead, we're continuing our expansion toward Tier 5 construction, including refined stone architecture and additional progression systems that we'll discuss in future updates. We’re also aware of requests for more support on half pieces (we are not doing quarter pieces, as they will not adopt to our grid system, our goal with building is simplicity and reliability for villager navigation) but will be able to supplement half doorways, etc as requested by the community.
We're incredibly excited to share this update with all of you as we continue moving toward our long-term vision for Noble Legacy.
Thank you for your continued support, feedback, and passion.
We'll have more to share soon.