Our biggest and most exciting update yet – featuring Act I & II of Campaign, ready to set the world of Erodar alight!

Dear Protectors of the Light,

Brace yourself, as the Veil creeps in and cloaks the land in darkness. The time has come to step into the light and reveal our biggest update ever.

Welcome to Flames of Retribution and the first part of the epic and long-awaited Campaign for Age of Darkness: Final Stand.

Flames of Retribution is free and available now to all Age of Darkness: Final Stand owners. The update includes Act I & II of Campaign, where players will embark on a perilous journey throughout the lands of Erodar – from its dark and bloody past through to present day. Comprising of the Prologue and seven uniquely captivating missions, players will bravely face not just the horrors that lurk in the darkness, but humans who have strayed from the Light.

The campaign provides a landscape to expand on the intriguing story of our heroes and how they came to be, as well as their relationships with one another. Flames of Retribution weaves a web of rich lore for each Faction as well as new characters introduced throughout the storyline, with plenty more to come.

Discover the history of Erodar and the Elosa in the Flames of Retribution: Before the Darkness blog Part 1 and Part 2

Helping Edwin herald the ranks of The Order, Merek Longhold is stepping in to take charge and show his strength in Survival. With his imposing stature, he’s a heavy-hitting hero who can smash through hordes of Nightmares while being able to bolster his fellow soldiers and lead them into battle. Read more about ‘The Bolstering Might’ in our Hero Deep Dive blog.

Although Campaign is the main focus for this update, there is no shortage of improvements made to Survival Mode – including damage and VFX fixes for current Hero abilities, improved AI pathing around buildings and a range of stability improvements.

As always please continue to report bugs to our Steam forums or in the player support channel on our Discord, as we’re constantly monitoring those channels.

To ensure the smoothest experience for Flames of Retribution, the minimum and recommended specs have been updated and are as listed below:

MINIMUM SPECIFICATIONS
OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 10
PROCESSOR: Intel Core i5-10600 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600XT
MEMORY: 16 GB RAM
GRAPHICS: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770, 4 GB or AMD Radeon R9 380, 4 GB

RECOMMENDED SPECIFICATIONS
OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 10
PROCESSOR: Intel Core i5-12600K or AMD Ryzen 5 7600
MEMORY: 16 GB RAM
GRAPHICS: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070, 8 GB or AMD Radeon RX Vega 56, 8 GB

Age of Darkness: Final Stand has received a Steam Deck Compatibility rating of ‘Playable’. The game is functional, however, some UI and text may be harder to read and interact with.

Check out the full patch notes below:

Release Notes
Features
  • Age of Darkness: Final Stand Campaign – Flames of Retribution – Act I and Act II.
  • Three visually captivating Cinematics
  • Full VO across all Campaign Missions.
  • New Order Hero: Merek.
  • Localisation for New Features.
Additional Changes
  • UI & VFX Improvements and Optimisations.
  • Added Hardware Cursor to the game.
  • Credit Updates.
Balancing
  • Cyrus: Reduced Cyrus’ range from 7 to 6.
  • Lightbearer: Removed Gold needed to research, previously needed 500 Gold.
  • Lightbearer: Removed time needed to research, previously took 120 seconds.
  • Lightbearer: Increased the attack range from 0.4 to 0.75.
  • Sentinel: Increased Health from 200 to 250.
  • Catapult: Increased the purchase cost to now require 3 Food.
  • Catapult: Reduced the Shred while in Siege Mode from 50 to 25.
  • Catapult: Reduced the Shred while in Mobile Mode from 25 to 10.
  • Flamer: Reduced the knockback from 0.35 to 0.2.
  • Flamer: Increased the movement lock time from 0.75 to 1.75.
  • Impaler: Increased the attack range from 5 to 6.5.
    Design Notes: The catapult is the absolute dominant siege weapon for Order defense, and the Flamer tends to do very well both defensively and during exploration. These changes are designed to slightly lower the Catapult’s impact (no pun intended) in late Death Nights and make the Flamer less effective as an all-rounder.
  • Lodges: Increased the Gold earnings on Lodges from 18 to 20 Gold per Tick.
  • Houses: Increased the Gold earnings on Houses from 40 to 42 Gold per Tick.
  • Gold Veins: Decreased the size and quantity of the large Gold veins at the edge of the map.
  • Gold Veins: Increased the quantity of Gold deposits closer to the centre of the map.
  • Iron Veins: Decreased the quantity of Iron deposits to make the resource a bit more scarce than it currently is, whilst making room for Gold and Stone.
    Design Notes: Gold accumulation from mines at the perimeter of the map usually greatly outweighs gold income from housing. This has led to the ‘best’ strategy being a focused push to the edge, followed by scouting for gold mines. With these changes, we hope to reduce the massive advantage that tactic provides and smooth out midgame income.
  • Stone Veins: Increase the quantity of Stone veins across the map.
  • Armor System: Buildings that regenerate unit’s armour have had their regen range increased from 6 to 14.
  • Armor System: Set armor regen time to be quicker and universal amongst all units. All units now regenerate from zero to maximum armour in 10 seconds once regeneration starts.
    Design Notes: The rate and requirements for recovering Armour were too stringent, and as a result a lot of players would never attempt to bring a lumbering Sentinel back to a workshop to recover. By upping the range and reducing (and standardising) the recovery time, it will feel like far less of a hassle to mend your military in the wild.
  • Triage Tent: Reduced the time it takes for units to be revived from the triage tent from 1.6x their training time to 0.75x their training time.
  • Triage Tent: Reduced the build time from 30 to 20.
  • Triage Tent: Selling the building now recoups the entire cost.
  • Triage Tent: Will now also regenerate unit armour.
  • Triage Tent: Adjusted the placement within the UI to reflect its place within the build order.
    Design Notes: The Triage Tent has struggled to find a comfortable role in the meta. These changes are designed to make building and utilising a Triage Tent significantly faster, cheaper and easier, and reduce the penalties of progressing beyond the range of a tent.
  • Treasury: Increases the player’s gold cap by 1000 Gold on placement.
  • Treasury: Reduced the research cost of the Treasury from 1400 Gold to 1000 Gold.
  • Treasury: Reduced the purchase cost of the Treasure from 2000 Gold to 1500 Gold.
    Design Notes: The Treasury is another building that, outside of its passive income effects, sees very little use, and rarely sees more than one built per game. By moving some of the Warehouse’s storage utility into the Treasury and lowering the upfront costs, it will be easier to feel like you’re getting your money’s worth, and less punishing to build it anywhere but in the middle of your housing mass.
  • Storehouse: Reduced the Gold cap provided on placement from 1000 Gold to 500 Gold.
  • Braced Wall: Increased the health of the Braced Wall from 500 to 750, and the armour from 50 to 75.
  • Braced Gate: Increased the health of the Braced Gate from 1000 to 1500, and the armour from 80 to 125.
  • Braced Tower: Increased the health of the Braced Tower from 600 to 900, and the armour from 65 to 100.
  • Fire Sconce: Added 3 Wood upkeep to the cost of the Fire Sconce.
  • Fire Tower: Added 5 Wood upkeep to the cost of the Fire Tower.
    Design Notes: Wood is a resource that tends to require very little thought after the opening few days of a Survival match. Building fire towers tends to also be a fairly safe place to put resources during exploration and expansion. With this change, we are aiming to stretch Wood’s relevancy later into the game, and make Sconce and Tower building a more thoughtful decision.
Crashes
  • Fixed a crash caused when Vizargo would use Claw Dash.
  • Fixed a crash when Vizargo would attack enemies during Serenity.
  • Fixed a crash caused by Cyrus’ Splintering Shot.
  • Fixed a crash that could be caused from Units having their Armour regenerated.
  • Fixed a crash related to losing a Survival Game with the Mortal Coil Hardship active.
  • Fixed a crash related to selecting the Nightwatch Blessing when playing Survival on the Nightmare Difficulty.
  • Fixed a crash related to killing Elite Nightmares when playing Survival on Nightmare Difficulty.
  • Fixed a crash related to having too many resource drops onscreen at once during Final Stand.
  • Fixed a crash related to starting a Death Night.
  • Fixed a crash that could occur on the start of Death Night 4.
  • Fixed a crash related to having ranged units target dead enemies.
  • Fixed a crash related to loading specific Saves.
  • Fixed a crash that could be caused related to Auto-Saves.
  • Fixed a crash related to loading save files while Alt-Tabbed.
  • Fixed a crash caused by Ballista Towers completing construction.
  • Fixed a crash caused by selling a Training Hall while training a Unit.
  • Fixed a crash related to the Fog of War being updated.
  • Fixed several crashes caused by the Mini-Map being updated.
Fixes & Changes
  • Implemented a new Load Game Menu to accommodate Loading Campaign Saves in addition to Survival.
  • Edwin’s Enlighten Ability now lists full percentage points rather than decimal places, and updates as he levels up.
  • Fixed an issue where Edwin would not gain armour as he levelled up.
  • Fixed another instance where Edwin could get stuck after using Crackfire.
  • Fixed an issue where Aelis’ Loyal Guards could not damage enemies after the Royal Decree Ability was triggered.
  • Fixed an issue where Cyrus’ Caltrops ability could cause a performance hitch.
  • Fixed an issue where Cyrus’ Violent Volley VFX would not appear during the ability being cast.
  • Fixed an issue where Cyrus’ Violent Volley ability would play while the game was paused.
  • Fixed an issue where Vizargo could appear invisible while Serenity was active.
  • Fixed an issue where units could not move around buildings and would get blocked by collision.
  • Fixed an issue where some research options would still be missing when selling the Wood Workshop.
  • Fixed an issue where in some cases repairing a building would not deduct the correct resources.
  • Fixed an issue where the player can pause during the end game Victory / Defeat Screen.
  • Fixed an issue where Edwin would not enter combat when getting attacked by a Spitter.
  • Fixed an issue where the player could still see a Point of Interest radius ring during a Death Night.
  • Fixed an issue where arrows and bolts would fire off in random directions if a targeted enemy was killed mid-flight.
  • Fixed an issue where the Fearless & Stability Perk Tree Traits would not function correctly.
  • Fixed an issue where Enemy units would also receive Perk Tree bonuses.
  • Fixed an issue with the Hazy Skies Malice not functioning correctly.
  • Fixed an issue where Nightmares would twitch when getting too close to the player’s base.
  • Fixed an issue where the Middle Mouse Button would not work correctly after having the player Attack Move.
  • Fixed an issue where buildings were being constructed rotated by 180 degrees.
  • Fixed an issue where Ballista Towers were not aiming at enemies when firing.
  • Fixed an issue where the incorrect tier of Nightmares could spawn in the outer perimeter of the map within Survival.
  • Fixed an issue where the Mini-Map would not update vision as the player explores.
  • Fixed an issue where the Gameplay Tips button would not function properly.
  • Fixed an issue where the game could lose functionality when a Gameplay Tip appeared on screen.
  • Fixed an issue where the player would still see a Gold Quarry Income bar when they had no Gold Quarries active.
  • Fixed an issue where the maths for the Earning / Upkeep of Food could be incorrectly calculated.
  • Fixed an issue where the player’s units would disappear from the Unit Count in the top left of the screen if garrisoned in a Tower.
  • Fixed an issue where the Death Night Horde would stop before reaching the player’s Keep in Survival.
  • Fixed an issue where the game could soft-lock after winning the Final Stand.
  • Fixed an issue where the Burster’s VFX would not display in Survival.
  • Fixed an issue where being defeated in Survival would not trigger the Keep Destruction Animation.
  • Fixed several instances where Hero Ability VFX would remain on the ground after being cast.
  • Fixed an issue where UI elements were not displaying correctly on the 1280×1024 resolution.
  • Fixed several instances of missing Localisation.
  • Fixed several instances of Crash Analytics not being reported correctly.
  • Fixed instances where gates would not function as intended.
Known Issues
  • We have observed an issue with Death Night Swarming pathing not following the lightning path all the time. This will be fixed in a subsequent update.
  • Potential for the game to soft lock during the Final Stand in Survival.
  • We have observed an issue that in rare cases the game will not end after defeating the Final Stand in Survival. This will be fixed in a subsequent update.
  • If the player attempts to load a Campaign save file made in v0.9.0 within the roll-back version of v0.8.4 this may cause the save file to corrupt at worst, or a host of unintended Campaign related issues if it does in fact load.
  • Allowing the Keep to be destroyed in the Mission 1 ‘Protect Village’ Objective and then loading the autosave will cause the title to soft lock, please use a Manual Save in this instance.
  • Hero Level and XP does not carry over from Mission 3 to Mission 4.
  • In Mission 7, the Playable Hero’s Third ability may not consistently deal the correct amount of damage.
  • Mission 7 starts with an increased amount of repairs due to walls not starting at correct health.
  • Some VO lines within Campaign will still contain temp VO. These will be removed within subsequent updates.
  • Some VO lines can be accompanied with the incorrect Character Dialogue Portrait.
  • If the player manages to skip a cutscene using unintended debug functionality this may cause unintended Mission behaviour or crashes. This will be fixed in the next update.
  • Saving and loading back into a mission may create strange behaviour such as seeing Campaign triggers, gaining vision or possession over buildings or units, or in-game mission timers not working correctly.
  • Enemy archers ejected from destroyed towers may become invisible and will continue to attack player units.
  • Fishing Nets display grey squares when ready to collect.

Where possible please ensure all drivers are updated to ensure the best and smoothest performance.

Please report bugs or crashes to us either through the Steam forums, our Discord server in the ‘bug-reporting’ channel or using the in-game bug reporting tool.

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