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Greetings, Guildies!

We're happy to announce that update v0.8 is LIVE.

For the first time since your journey began, the seas surrounding Respite Island are no longer an impassable barrier. Your crew has gathered, your ship is ready, and the wider Respite Archipelago has revealed itself.

While this update represents only the first step beyond familiar shores, it marks one of the biggest milestones in Guild Saga: Vanished Worlds so far. Version 0.8 introduces your first voyage to a brand-new island, a challenging underground arena, dozens of new skills, expanded crafting, and a wide range of quality-of-life improvements inspired directly by community feedback.

🗺️ The Respite Archipelago Awaits

Since the beginning of your journey, the seas surrounding Respite Island have remained shrouded by the Maelstrom, leaving the wider Respite Archipelago little more than distant names spoken by sailors, merchants, and scholars.

For the first time, in v0.8, you can recruit your crew, raise the sails, and set out beyond the shores of Respite Island. Plus, depending on your endeavors on Respite Island, you may have some additional friends on board!

Opening the overworld map now reveals the full Respite Archipelago, offering your first glimpse at the scale of the world that awaits in 1.0. While much of the archipelago will remain unexplorable for now, you can begin your journey beyond Respite Island to discover ancient kingdoms, forgotten ruins, and uncharted waters.

Your first destination is Arborea, an island once ruled by the Elven Exarch before the invasion of House Mazan brought the kingdom to ruin. With its guardians long gone, the island's ancient magic has been left to grow wild, transforming both the land and the creatures that inhabit it.

While much of the Island's content will only be available in 1.0, you'll uncover the opening chapter of its story in v0.8 and meet key characters who will shape the future of your quest.

⚔️ The Gladeheim Fighting Pits

Hidden beneath Mamma Donna's Tavern, a new underground arena has opened its gates.

Fight your way through ten handcrafted encounters that steadily increase in difficulty as you climb from humble challenger to Fighting Pits Champion.

Each battle has been designed around unique enemy compositions and tactical puzzles, rewarding thoughtful party building and clever use of the environment. Claim victory and you'll earn the Champion's Belt!

Proving yourself within the Fighting Pits will also unlock new opportunities in Version 1.0, when the legendary Coliseum opens its gates to the greatest warriors in the archipelago.

✨ 60 New Skills

Character customization has expanded in Update 0.8.

Over 60 new skills have been added across every combat school, giving every class new strategies and combinations to explore. This makes well over 150 skills for players to choose from overall, with 1.0 expected to feature close to or over 200.

Whether you enjoy devastating elemental magic, battlefield management, piercing martial combat, or unconventional steampunk tactics, you'll find plenty of new tools to experiment with.

Visit new merchants across the open seas, Arborea, and the Fighting Pits to begin mastering these new abilities.

🔨 Crafting Continues to Grow

As your adventure expands, so too do the ways you can prepare for it.

Version 0.8 introduces new recipes, ingredients, equipment, and crafting opportunities across:

• Blacksmithing

• Jewelcrafting

• Alchemy

• Cooking

Whether you're forging powerful equipment, creating spellbound rings, preparing meals before battle, or brewing potions for a difficult fight, there are plenty of new things to make in v0.8.

🛠️ Key changelog

Combat & Mechanics

• Various improvements to controller and steamdeck gameplay.

• Further enhancements to enemy decision-making, with a view to creating more immersive and efficient enemy turns.

• New "totem" enemy type, introducing powerful stationary support entities.

• New "weather machine" combat object that causes random weather changes.

Attributes, Skills & Items

• Visual upgrades to VFX for various skills, including basic staff skills.

• 60+ new skills added across all schools.

• Major SFX additions and enhancements to various existing skills.

• New equipment, crafting recipes, ingredients, and unique items to discover throughout the world.

• New merchants added across Arborea, the open seas, and the Gladeheim Fighting Pits.

UI, Performance & QoL

• Dozens of new steam achievements.

• Haptics/controller vibration added.

• Haptics/controller vibration settings added.

• World Map expanded with scroll functionality.

• Map UI visual enhancements, such as "you are here" indicator and more in-depth active quests information.

• Mark as wares option added, with convenience-focused implementation for controller and KBM.

• Merchant window: added sorting and filtering, default to shared inventory, add wares to trade window button, auto sell all wares button.

• Inventory UI: added filter category: wares.

• Loot UI: right click> "loot and mark as wares" option.

• Sound effects added for status affliction events.

• Input settings menu organized, made inputs more clear, and added more customization.

• Right click on dead party member > revive to automatically consume a resurrection scroll and revive on the same tile.

• Collapse saves by name.

• Smooth experimental zoomed out camera and reduce friction with certain map locations.

• Updated game logo.

New Content & Encounters

• Arborea Island added (3 of 5 major maps available in v0.8): a large scale map with unique mountainous design, magical traversing, and many combat encounters; a smaller scale map with 2 special encounters; and a neutral area with access to many new NPCs, merchants, bounty provider, and sidequests.

• Ships: Player ship, merchant ship maps introduced.

• Gladeheim Fighting Pits added to the tavern basement, with 10 unique combat encounters for levels 4-13, with exclusive rewards.

• 4 new tracks added to the OST.

Bug Fixes

• Performance, pathfinding, and decision-making enhancement.

• Resolved issues regarding items disappearing, battles getting stuck, SFX/music not playing, and attack of opportunity.

• Dozens of fixes and improvements for controller play, including the stash UI, scrolling UI, and 'disappearing R2' issues.

• Resolved bugs respecting party member recruitment, dismissal, re-recruitment, etc.

Every update is shaped by the community. Whether you've reported a bug, suggested a feature, or simply shared your thoughts about the game, your feedback continues to make Guild Saga: Vanished Worlds a better game. Thank you for being such an important part of our journey, and we can't wait to hear what you think of Update 0.8!

See you on the open seas.

—The Guild Saga Team