The first Lands Awakened patch is now live! This patch updates the requirements for Headquarters Hideouts, brings combat balance changes to War Gloves, Maces and other weapons, introduces UI improvements and guild invite spam protections, and much more. Here’s a summary of what’s new:
Headquarters Hideout Requirements Updated
The requirements for declaring a Headquarters Hideout have been updated. Most notably, you can now designate a Headquarters immediately when the Season Point threshold has been reached - you no longer need to wait until the following season to declare a Headquarters. Furthermore, the top-600 ranking requirement has been removed.
The winners of the standalone Energy Surge Season have had their statues unveiled, and this time they are placed in the open-world! Here are the winners and where you can find their statues:
New Guild Invite Spam Protections
To prevent players from being spammed with guild invitations, a limit has been placed on how many invitations can be sent out at a time. In addition, sending too many declined guild invitations in a short space of time now applies a guild-wide cooldown on sending invitations. Along with these changes, there is also clearer feedback on whether a guild invitation has been accepted or rejected.
Combat Balance Changes
With Lands Awakened having introduced a brand-new weapon line in War Gloves, Patch 1 makes some slight adjustments to ensure they are competitive in the combat meta, with a broad range of abilities across the line improved. Maces have also been adjusted so that they don’t clearly outperform other, similar weapon types, with the Threatening Smash and Deep Leap abilities reworked somewhat.
Further changes:
Other Changes and Improvements
As always, you can read the full list of changes in the official patchnotes.
Albion Online Wins the Deutscher Entwicklerpreis
The 2021 Deutscher Entwicklerpreis awards took place on December 9 in Cologne, and we're delighted to say that Albion Online took home the award for Best Mobile Game!
The Deutscher Entwicklerpreis (German Game Developer Prize) is the most prestigious industry award in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), presented to professionals by fellow professionals. Unlike similar awards in other regions, the Deutscher Entwicklerpreis is organized, supported, and juried almost entirely by developers themselves, and is a vital and integral part of the ever-growing games industry here.
Albion Online's official mobile version launched in June 2021, fulfilling a nearly decade-long goal of bringing the full sandbox MMO experience to iOS and Android. And while game development can be a long and difficult process, the mobile launch trailer was decidedly more lighthearted: [previewyoutube="7MEvv81i3ek;full"] Thanks to the jury, the team, and most of all, to the Albion community, without whom none of this would have been possible!
Darkness is Approaching
Festive cheer may be spreading across Albion, but the forces of darkness never rest. From the farthest corners of the world, a malevolent energy is stirring. Diabolic figures march slowly across the lands, releasing vicious Hellhounds from their dungeon abodes. As the people revel in Yuletide obliviousness, in the supposed safety of their homes and Hideouts, they’re soon going to face a rude interruption...
Join these evil hordes with a new vanity set for your character, coming next week! With Yuletide celebrations all around, what better time to grab some hellish garments and spoil the party?
Stay tuned to find out exactly what’s on the way with this new set.
Dev Talk: Quality-of-Life Improvements
The Lands Awakened update launched November 24, ushering in a new era of open-world gameplay in Albion Online. Along with sweeping changes to biome graphics and layouts, dungeons, mobs, open-world objectives and Guild Seasons, the update brought some major quality-of-life improvements to a wide variety of ingame activities. In our latest Dev Talk, UI Designer Moritz Bokelmann discusses some of the biggest improvements to UI and usability that arrived with this latest update. [previewyoutube="ao9p7o2hBJs;full"] No time to watch, or prefer a written summary? Then read on...
Marketplace Loadouts
Loadouts were introduced with the Call to Arms update as a major quality-of-life improvement, and this feature has now been expanded to include the option to directly purchase full Loadouts from the Marketplace. How it works:
Once the search is completed, the Marketplace shows a summary of available items and alternatives. Details:
Farming Usability Improvements
Farming is an essential part of Albion's economy, but on a large scale can take a long time and lots of clicks. Alongside small improvements (simplifying animal placement, moving T2 hide animals) the number of clicks farming takes has been greatly reduced:
New in the UI:
Party Improvements
Lands Awakened brings updated party chat commands for better feedback and easier party formation:
In your Social settings you can now clearly define who can invite you to their group or request to join yours. Additionally, you can always use the /snooze chat command to temporarily suppress all party invitations.
We can't wait to hear your feedback on these changes, and of course we already have more quality-of-life improvements lined up for the next updates, so stay tuned!
Refer One Friend and Claim the Festive Reindeer Skin
A new referral season is here! From now until February 1, refer your friends and claim your very own Festive Reindeer mount skin. This skin transforms your Stag base mount into a dashing, decorated steed – with candles and holly adorning its antlers and a bell around its neck. Once you've unlocked it, it can be used by all characters on your account.
You can also earn huge amounts of Fame for your third and fifth referrals: three referrals scores you a T7 Pile of Tomes worth 100,000 Fame, and five referrals gets you a T8 Pile of Tomes granting a colossal 200,000 Fame. And as always, your first-ever referral grants an additional T8 Pile of Tomes along with the mount skin.
The current referral season lasts until maintenance on February 1, so you've got until then to refer your friends and claim these rewards!
How to Earn Seasonal Referral Rewards
The Yuletide Challenge Returns
Winter has returned to Albion, and the Yuletide Challenge is back! For the entire month of December, earn points for open-world activities, unlock chests, and earn rewards like an avatar ring, classic furniture items, and the beloved Snow Husky mount.
Yuletide Greetings
SNOW HUSKY: You've got another chance to claim the charming Snow Husky, a handsome canine companion that will carry you through Albion's harshest terrain. Along with its strong base move speed, its Hunting Instinct spell gives a short but powerful speed burst.
AVATAR RING: Along with the Snow Husky, adventurers who reach this month's total point goal will unlock the Yuletide Challenge Ring, which gives your avatar a cheery holiday look any time of year. And remember: unclaimed Adventurer's Challenge Rings can always be traded in for Adventurer's Tokens at the Vanity Merchant!
SEASONAL SPECIALS: Unlock Yuletide Challenge chests to get a mix of holiday-themed prizes, along with goodies like Silver, Tomes of Insight, treasures and resources. Each chest has a chance to give classic Yuletide decorations like Presents and Decorated Trees as well as the Yuletide Candle, Wreath, Lantern, and Candy Boot!
As always, you can earn Challenge Points by gathering, fishing, farming, and killing monsters. Points count simultaneously toward a daily bonus, a weekly unlockable chest, and the monthly mount and avatar ring reward. So log in, head out into the open world, gather points, and claim these rewards while they last!
Lands Awakened Soundtrack Released
One of the major changes that came to the world of Albion with the recent Lands Awakened update was a revamped and expanded orchestral score, and this stunning soundtrack is available now on all major streaming platforms!
[previewyoutube="z7ZFcOfntS8;full"] With seventeen brand new tracks, this promises to really enrich the experience of forging your path through the world of Albion. The new music was composed by Senior Audio Designer Marie Havemann and Jonne Valtonen, and was recorded with the FILMharmonic Orchestra, along with percussionist Rony Barrak, at the Rudolfinum in Prague in summer 2021. The soundtrack includes:
[previewyoutube="QQs9hEAW6xg;full"] If you haven’t already, check out our Dev Talk from Marie Havemann for an exclusive look behind the scenes at the writing and recording process for the new music.
Season 14 Begins Saturday
Albion’s fourteenth Guild Season starts this weekend with a revamped structure and new features to make guild warfare more competitive and exciting than ever before. Most notably, this season marks the beginning of the Conqueror’s Challenge, which replaces the previous Guild Season reward system and allows a wider range of playstyles to pursue and profit from season goals. Alongside this, Season 14 sees the introduction of Might, Favor, Guild Might Levels, Energy Crystals, Power Cores, and Headquarters Hideouts.
Season Rewards
The Conqueror’s Challenge allows individual players to earn season rewards throughout the course of the season without necessarily being part of a guild – though a successful guild will still benefit its members as it completes Guild Might Levels. Individual Conqueror’s Challenge rewards are as follows:
For a full breakdown of guild and personal season rewards, see this forum post.
Headquarters Hideouts
As recently announced in this forum post, starting with Lands Awakened Patch 1, Headquarters Hideouts qualifications will apply as soon as they are earned within the current season. This means guilds who earn enough Season Points during Season 14 will be able to declare an HQ or upgrade to a higher tier/quality zone immediately, regardless of whether they qualified during the Energy Surge season. And of course, guilds who met the HQ Hideout requirements during the last season can already declare Headquarters in qualifying zones.
For details of Headquarters Hideouts and Power Cores, check out this Dev Talk:
[previewyoutube="i1oWeiLp3hM;full"]
Watch the Season Kickoff Live
The action starts on Saturday, November 27 and will be broadcast live on AlbionTV from 17:30 UTC, with hosts Shozen, Lewpac and Bogul bringing full coverage of Invasion Day.
At 18:00 UTC all territories will be reset for guilds to claim them and launch attacks. Those in the North and South American time zones can also tune in for the second round of territory resets on Sunday, November 28 at 00:30 UTC, when hosts Shozen, Robinhoodrs and Bogul will cover the next round of invasions from 01:00 UTC. All open-world fights are broadcast live with a 15-minute delay.
Check out AlbionTV's coverage of the second Energy Surge Invasion Day:
[previewyoutube="AZqS3ZSeHHE;full"] The next era of guild warfare in Albion starts Saturday - we'll see you then!
The Lands Awakened Update is Here!
The massive Lands Awakened update is now live! This update brings a new era of open-world gameplay to Albion with reworked dungeons, mobs, and treasure sites, new open-world PvP objectives for groups of all sizes, hugely improved visuals and layouts for all five biomes, War Gloves, reworked Guild Seasons, numerous quality-of-life improvements, and much more.
To celebrate the occasion, we've created a brand-new trailer:
[previewyoutube="0GksQhov0kY;full"]
Reinvigorating Albion's Open World
Lands Awakened brings a completely overhauled open-world experience, including massively improved visuals and layouts in all five biomes, mobs that become stronger and more rewarding over time, reworked static dungeons, and treasure sites that spawn randomly throughout the world. Whether you're a brand-new player or a seasoned veteran, Albion's lands are home to countless new opportunities awaiting discovery.
New Weapons, Elite Levels, Faster Fame
The all-new War Gloves offer thrilling brawler-style combat for small-, medium-, and large-scale fights, along with numerous options for PvE. Elite Levels add twenty additional mastery levels to each weapon and armor piece, with corresponding medals to let you show off your accomplishments. And the amount of Fame granted for nearly all activities has been boosted significantly, shortening the time needed to unlock new skills and rewarding perseverant players.
Reworked Guild Seasons
Power Cores and Energy Crystals introduce open-world capture-the-flag gameplay with huge rewards. Headquarters Hideouts offer protected bases for dedicated guilds. And the Conqueror's Challenge allows all players to earn Might and Favor for a wide range of activities, unlocking rewards for themselves and their guilds. Overall, Lands Awakened shifts the focus of Guild Seasons from passive territory control to active personal progress, offering dedicated players and guilds a chance at massive rewards.
The Druid Vanity Bundle is Here
The Lands Awakened update also brings the new Druid Vanity Bundle. This premiere bundle is available in the in-game store, and includes a full costume set plus a matching Stag mount skin. The costume skins feature a thick, forest-green cape and a crown of antlers, and both the costume and mount skins are decorated with a glowing aura of fireflies.
The Druid Bundle includes the following vanity skins, which work on male and female characters alike:
The Lands Awakened update releases tomorrow, November 24, and you can watch it streamed live! Check out the following channels during the day to see the cool new features in action:
