Development update for Ardenfall, our Morrowind-inspired indie RPG: new regions, closed alpha, and what's next
Hi everyone, Ardenfall devs here. Your welcome here on r/Morrowind earlier this year meant a lot to us. But we've been quiet for a while, so we wanted to reassure everyone who's waiting for the game that we're alive, Ardenfall is in development and we're still planning the Early Access release for late 2026.
To make up for the silence, we decided to write a big post about what we've been working on lately. The last playable build we released was our new demo in December 2025, followed by an updated version for Steam Next Fest in February. We had a blast making the demo, and it’s clear that players enjoyed it too – around 10,000 people have played it so far! Unlike our original 2023 demo, this one offers a more traditional demo experience: it takes place in the game’s starting area and has a clear ending.
Once the demo was finished, we returned to developing the rest of the game. Most of the core content planned for Early Access is now in place, and we’ve finished adding all the major locations. Our current focus is polishing them: testing quests and their different branches, improving balance, and hunting down bugs.
Region Updates
We’ve put a lot of work into expanding the different regions of Ardenfall. Over the past year, we’ve focused on three major areas:
The Suromi Southern Coast is a mystical region filled with coral trees, bubble weather, and floating islands held aloft by bubble dew. You’ve seen this in the demo, and there will be more of this region to explore!
The Arawasi Crags are home to jagged rocks, harsh terrain, and twisted blue trees.
The Plains of Gan features flowing grasslands, towering cliffs, megaflora, and a mysterious wisp weather.
We’re doing our best to make every region feel distinct, both visually and culturally. The people of the Southern Coast catch fish and crabs and prefer salty flavours, while the cultures of the Plains smoke meat, grow berries and grapes, make wine, and have more of a sweet tooth.
Progression, Combat, and Balance
One of our biggest recent projects has been balancing progression throughout the game.
The demo showed us that the core experience was fun, but making that experience work across the entire Early Access world was a much bigger challenge. We’ve now implemented progression throughout the world, with different areas featuring their own enemies and enemy variants. This was a big project, as it involved rebalancing every sword, spell, enemy, and armor.
Ardenfall does not use enemy level scaling, so every region has its own fixed difficulty. You may sometimes wander into an area you’re not ready for yet - so be careful!
We’ve also introduced some new combat systems. Dealing enough damage to a target can now stagger them, while certain weapons and techniques increase your chance of doing so. We've also improved overall reactions to being hit - for both the player and NPCs.
Unlike the demo, some enemies may respawn in the overworld - they may reappear as more powerful, be switched to a different monster type, or even react to the current time of day. This uses our Random Spawner system, which will make going back and forth in the world more interesting than stepping over dozens of dead bodies.
Crime Redesign
The crime system has been improved and redesigned this year. Bounty has always been tied to a faction - any crimes done towards Bisawa citizens would anger Bisawa citizens. This would create a few flaws: anyone in a town not tied to being a citizen would not care about crimes, and if you committed a crime towards a citizen outside of a town it would not be a crime.
We have now redesigned bounty to be tied to which Clan controls the region you are in. In Ardenfall’s Early Access’ case, that aligns to two: Tsubaki Territory, and Arakasha Territory. When you get caught committing any crime towards any rule-abiding citizen, you will gain bounty towards that clan. If caught by a guard and sent to jail, you'll be sent to the nearest prison to pay your dues. But don't worry, if you're feeling blood thirsty, you can always kill everyone who saw you commit the crime. It'll be like it never happened.
Another feature we added: any stolen goods taken by guards when you are sent to jail will be added to a confiscated locked chest near the jail cell. This makes it possible to get your items back, although sometimes difficult.
We also added ways to loot merchants: many traders will have containers holding a few random trade goods. You may be able to break in and steal their products, but be careful - they'll realize someone stole from them, and they have a chance to upgrade their locks.
Controller Support
We still consider it an alpha feature, but you'll be able to play through the entire game using a controller. Making this work required us to update every menu and add a new quick-access wheel, but it was worth it!
While working on it, we realised that the wheel was useful for keyboard and mouse players too. We’ve therefore added an alternative UI mode that hides the regular quickslots and gives the interface a cleaner look. You can then use either the quick wheel or keyboard shortcuts to select your items.
Alchemy
At long last, the alchemy system is finally here!
Alchemy allows you to craft both ordinary and extremely powerful potions. First, you’ll need to find a recipe by purchasing it from a shop or finding it in a dungeon. Once you’ve added the recipe to your recipe book, you can craft the potion at an alchemy bench.
Recipes rely on ingredients with specific Alchemy Traits rather than requiring a single exact ingredient. For example, an ingredient might have a trait such as “Burning” or “Weak,” allowing it to be used in any compatible recipe.
The strength of the resulting potion depends on your alchemy skill. Some of the more advanced recipes have dramatic effects, allowing you to fly through the sky or zoom across the land!
You can also cook meals and brew tea using cooking pots.
Modding Support
Lately we’ve been working on adding modding support for Ardenfall.
We have already built a solid foundation - running C# scripts, importing models, textures, and sfx, and altering assets. Over time we'll be expanding our toolsets to make modders rule the world!
Currently modding is very “script focused”, so you'll need to dig around the codebase a lot to get things working. We plan on implementing various tools to make this sort of thing easier in the future.
At the moment, you can create new simple quests or dialog, introduce new weapons or items, rebalance or alter existing items, and hook into hundreds of in-game events.
It’s still early, but we think it's a fantastic foundation for what's to come!
Clouds, Fog, and Lighting
We've also been doing a pass on graphics, tweaking lighting and implementing a very pretty cloud renderer.
Closed Alpha Testing
We’re currently running a Closed Alpha with a small group of players. They’re helping us test the game’s content, balance, and the overall stability of our latest builds. We’ll continue inviting more people on our socials over time.
And if you miss the Closed Alpha, don’t worry: we will be holding a Closed Beta before too long, and after that, Early Access won’t be far away!!
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Thank you for sticking with us all this time! We can’t wait to show everyone what Ardenfall, our long-running passion project, is becoming. Expect more regular updates about new mechanics, pieces of lore, development progress, and major announcements.