Patch 4.0 goes live on Friday the 14th of August. This includes the entire Chapter 2 of the game, many quality of life updates to Chapter 1 and bug fixes.
Our goals with this build Major content update as well as overall game polishing and enhancement.
Recommended Gaming Path If you are new to the game, just hit New Game and roll. If you have a previous save game, you can continue from it, but we recommend re-playing Chapter 1 to see the new stuff if you want. If you have issues when loading a save game (like falling through the world) that means your save game was so long ago its no longer compatible with these updates. See end of this patch note under Known Issues, to know what to do.
Features
Chapter 2 is now live.
Collectibles system added to game, for those of you that are lore junkies and completionists.
Campfire system for fast travel and crafting added to game.
Community Request: More tutorials and guiding in Chapter 1. Tute Orial has been introduced to the game to help you out. More regular gaming tips abound. Game tips and tutorials are saved to your journal.
Community Request: Area maps added to the game.
Improvements
Game FPS vastly improved for mid-range cards.
Full 4k support added for high-end cards.
Full resolution control added.
Full controller support added.
Much more control over settings added.
Sound settings control added.
Character movement animations vastly improved.
Better character model added for Astrid.
More idle and subtle animations added for Astrid.
Better animations for animals and wildlife.
Improved boss combat.
Better NPC and monster AI.
Better dialogue system added.
Craftable system enhanced.
Full keybinding, including re-binding controller buttons added.
Many more voiceovers added.
Bugfixes
The two Astrids bug fixed, there will no longer be a static Astrid model sometimes appearing on the map.
The quest bug that caused Astrid to sometimes get stuck at her first meeting with Axele fixed.
Landscape bugs that occasionally allowed you to run off the game map fixed
Memory leak bug that caused the game to crash intermittently fixed.
FPS bug that caused the game to hit very low fps at cinematics fixed.
Casting a spell causing an intermittent second of a freeze on Astrid fixed.
Known Issues
If you encountered a situation that you are falling through the floor when you load a previous save game, this is due to the last time you played being too long ago and the changes and updates made to the game are no longer compatible with your version of the save game. You will need to start a new game after clearing your current save game. To clear your save game go to C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\IntoTheShroud\Saved\SaveGames and delete all the files there. Then restart the game and choose New Game from the menu.
There are still voiceovers missing for Astrid. These are under development and will be added in a future patch. I decided not to delay launching Chapter 2 any longer, because our voiceover artists are still experiencing issues due to Covid19.
3rd Party Integrations
Steam Achievements and cards are not part of this patch release but will be in the final version of the game. Any quests completed or points where you would normally have gained an achievement will be remembered by the game and you will be awarded your achievements from this Chapter when you play the full game later. So no progress will be lost by playing the current chapters.
Countdown to Release Update 3 - Jordenheim goes table top
Good morning all!
Its been some time since our last update and with the sunny summer months ahead its time for a little preview of things to come.
Blood Bond Work on Blood Bond - Into the Shroud goes well and we expect to release Chapter 2 to you on schedule in early June. Continued polishing has resulted in the game becoming more and more streamlined and in Chapter 2 you will get to visit the open world of Jordenheim and adventure into your first interior locations.
I have added a lot more lore, a collectibles feature for the completionists in you that allows you to be rewarded for explore-and-find style gameplay and this next update will also bring Steam Achievements into the game.
To Controller or Not to Controller One thing we have taken a step back in - controller support. As the game got more complex and more commands and actions arrived in the game, menus got complex too. In order to provide a good user experience for both mouse and keyboard as well as a controller - a single UI model was not working.
As such we will keep the PC game strictly mouse and keyboard only and when we do the console launch next year we will adapt the game specifically for console play on a controller.
GeForce Rising In case you missed the social media update, we have been accepted into the GeForce Now program by NVIDIA. Blood Bond - Into the Shroud will be dropping into the GeForce Now service in late winter this year making the game playable on Mac and Linux as well as an ARM processor-powered device that can install the GeForce Now client.
The Jordenheim RPG While I have been working on the PC Game, the small but talented table top RPG team at W.R.K.S Games of Dan Cross, Eva Aldea and our stellar artists have completed work on our first table top RPG setting set in the Jordenheim universe. It is now going through final layout and will be hitting our own store in mid-June. You can pre-order it now on: Jordenheim.com.
The next update will be the release of Chapter 2, we look forward to welcoming you back into the Blood Bond game then.
best regards
Kosala "Kos" Ubayasekara
Countdown to Release Update 2 - The Covid19 Update
Good morning team!
Well, these are indeed unexpected times we find ourselves in. First of all - let's talk about the team. W.R.K.S Games is a fully remote company with freelancers all over the world - as such our impact due to Covid19, though not 100% free of curveballs, was minimal.
The full content developing freelance team was contracted to completion of the project up to June 2020. This has not changed, everyone is still financially secure for the period and based on the countries we are all in and the estimated time to exit partial lockdowns those places are currently in - we will be able to weather the period with no financial impact to the lives of the team. Nobody has been let go and everyone is safe and secure throughout our development period for the game.
W.R.K.S Games is funded by my own money, which has not been impacted by the virus crisis and the company remains financially solid and secure.
Secondly, let us talk Blood Bond. The virus has impacted the lives of two of our voice over artists, in so far as they are not able to go to their studios and record and this has caused delays. As such we will not be releasing a content update for the revamped Chapter 2 this week as planned.
The next update has been pushed up to a month and we are now expecting Chapters 2 and 3 to launch by end of April - with the full game out by end of May. I have updated our Steam page accordingly.
My apologies for the delays to the launch, but with the added time this has unexpectedly given us more polish is being added to the game and we aim to be bigger and better because of it.
The W.R.K.S team sends its thanks to the community for your loyalty and energy you have shown us and continues to show us and we wish you safe and secure gaming from your homes throughout this period while we get you the finished product.
Respect your local government guidelines on the social distancing - its working - and game on!
best regards
Kosala
Blood Bond Soundtrack now available
Greetings community!
The original soundtrack for the game composed by Christoph Barth is now available. You can grab it on the main store page, it's listed as a DLC. 50% of the net proceeds from this DLC are shared with the composer.
best regards
Kosala
Countdown to Completion: Update 1
Greetings community!
As you know, we are a few weeks away from the launch. Targeting some point in March for the full content drop, I wanted to start giving you weekly updates on progress until content drop day happens.
As you might already know from our patch notes past, we build the game in Unreal Engine. The engine launched some built-in functionality for keybindings management that I failed to implement correctly in the latest live build. The issue was that whenever you bound a keyboard key, you permanently removed the associated gamepad key.
This has now been rectified and we have a fully-fledged keybindings system in place for both mouse and keyboard and gamepad players. While we were at it, we also streamlined the graphics settings functionality and gave you more control over the settings that most affect FPS and performance.
You can also now manually change your resolution settings to whatever you want, including options not optimal for your monitor if you wish. Yes...I am looking at YOU...that one guy that requested this :)
Patch 3.2 Notes - Quality of Life Fixes for Chapter 1
Good afternoon all!
Patch 3.1 goes live on Tuesday the 03 February. This is a quality of life update to Chapter 1 to improve gameplay and fix small bugs while we wait for the full game to come out in 6-8 weeks.
Our goals with this build General improvements and bug fix only.
Features
No new features added
Improvements
Cinematic scenes FPS improved
Axe combat connectivity and responsiveness improved
Bugfixes
Visual bugs improved (like legs of the bridges not extending to the ground underneath the water)
Save game loading sometimes not repopulating the Journal fixed
Bug that caused dead people to "walk" on the ground intermittently fixed
Landscape bugs in certain places that allowed you to walk to empty parts of the map fixed
Bug that allowed you to trigger the chapter-ending by shooting an arrow through the gate at Guilon fixed
Casting a spell causing an intermittent second of a freeze on Astrid fixed
Known Issues
Custom keybindings temporarily removed. There is an issue with how UE4 default keybindings system updates keybindings. A fix is being worked on but will only be live in the full version.
There is a voice-over missing in one cutscene. This is being remedied in the final version.
3rd Party Integrations
Steam Achievements and cards are not part of this patch release but will be in the final version of the game. Any quests completed or points where you would normally have gained an achievement will be remembered by the game and you will be awarded your achievements from this Chapter when you play the full game later. So no progress will be lost by playing Chapter 1.
Now that you have had time to play around on the revamped Chapter 1 of the game, to tithe the time towards the full release - you will need something to do!
Enter free DLCs.
On the Steam store page you will now find a free DLC that is a PDF comic for you. It is the first of the comics in the Legends of the Shroud series and tells one of the standalone stories in our game universe of Jordenheim.
In Volume 1 you can see Astrid's mother Johanna as a child and her first encounter with a witch from the Shroud. Enjoy!
The story is by Thor Magnusson and the stellar artwork is by Cornelia Booysen.
Patch 3.0 is now Live. Troubleshooting tips.
Good evening all!
Patch 3.0 (the great rework of Chapter 1) is now live. If you have previously played the game you might see a problem due to conflicting save games from the previous build of the game. This might result in your main charachter falling through the floor or the game crashing. If you see this, please follow the guidelines below:
Quit the Game
Find your save game folder. For most of you it will be C: > Users >YOUR USER NAME > AppData > Local
Look for the IntoTheShroud folder there
Delete the entire folder and sub folders, making sure it's the save game folder and not the actual game installation
Restart the game
Enjoy the new build and I will be back in a few weeks with a survey to get a handle on your thoughts. Please report bugs and feedback directly in the Steam forums.
Welcome back to Jordenheim!
Patch 3.0 delayed till Sunday for polishing
Morning all
Going to delay the big re-work patch from today to Sunday. The final testing round revealed some niggling bugs. Nothing that affects gameplay but I spent to much time nailing this patch in quality and content that I do not want to deploy it knowing there are things I can improve. It's all a bunch of tiny niggling tidbits that are polishing more than bug fixing - but will get it done in the next day or so and deploy on Sunday-Monday. Almost there!
best regards
Kosala
Into the Shroud Patch 3.0 - Patch Notes
Good afternoon all!
Patch 3.0 goes live on January 2nd, 2020. Before our big launch of the game on Jan 31 2020, I thought I would do a small re-release of Chapter 1 on the down-lo for the few thousand of you that have got the game and have been supporting us all this time with your money and your encouragement.
Our goals with this build Show off the vastly improved Chapter 1 to our existing community as a preview of what is to come in the finished product soon.
Features
The game has moved from separate levels to a small open world
Massive performance improvements that have allowed us to lower the minimum requirements of hardware for the game and allows 60fps gaming at 1080p even on medium settings
New combat system for bow and spells
New combat system for melee with hatchets/axes
Realtime day-night system
New crafting system
New buffs and weapon enhancements system
New inventory and consumables system
New dialogue system
New quest log and quest system
New navigation and mapping system with guides for quest locations and key objectives
New comprehensive video settings options introduced.
New in-game cinematic system
New character screen
New character model for Astrid
New character model for Birger
New follower system
New game mechanics system underlying the game based on the upcoming Jordenheim RPG rules from WRKS Games
Improvements
Visual style of notifications improved
Complete level design overhaul
Complete overhaul of in-game notifications and information systems
Improved tutorial
Improved special effects
Improved sound effects
Improved ambient sounds
Additional musical score
Improved animal models
Vastly improved character animations
Complete controller support
Improved save and loading of games
Bugfixes
Performance bugs that caused low FPS resolved
Various game crashes removed
Combat bug with arrows missing targets even when they visually hit, fixed
Astrid bug that restarts her from the starting zone no matter where she was when last saved, fixed
Crafting bug that allowed unlimited potions from limited ingredients, fixed
Quest bugs that stopped main quest line from progressing, fixed
Known Issues
Graphics settings, if changed from the default, work in-game during the game session - but do not save between game sessions. It is unclear what is causing this, but we are aware of it and working on it.
Keybindings, when changed from the default, for some reason only seem to register intermittently. We are using a new feature built into Unreal Engine to do real-time keybindings, and it is unclear if the issue is with that or something we did. We are looking into it.
If you have VR headset installed its possible the STEAM VR will launch in the background when you launch the game - even though this is not a VR title. This appears to be a known bug on Steam and there is nothing I can see to do about that, but it does not disrupt gameplay.
3rd Party Integrations
Steam Achievements and cards are not part of this patch release but will be in the final version of the game. Any quests completed or points where you would normally have gained an achievement will be remembered by the game and you will be awarded your achievements from this Chapter when you play the full game later. So no progress will be lost by playing Chapter 1.
