OPEN BETA BRANCH

This update is available on the OpenBeta Steam branch, not the main branch. The purpose is to get some testing and feedback before pushing it live to everyone.

How to access it: Right-click Wicked Island in your Steam library → Properties → Betas → select OpenBeta from the dropdown.

What you should know:

• This is a beta. Expect more bugs and rough edges than a normal update.

• Save games from the OpenBeta branch may not be backward compatible with the main branch. If you switch back to the main branch, your beta saves might not work. Back up your saves or use a fresh one for testing.

• Bug reports are hugely appreciated, drop them in the Discord bug report channel or the Steam Discussion forums.

This is a big one. Here's what's new at a glance:

Localization The game is now AI-translated into Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, Turkish and Polish. This is a first pass — expect some rough translations that will be improved over time. If you spot issues, let me know.

Steam Achievements Steam Achievements are now in the game. Due to how Steam works, the achievements will be visible to everyone, but they will only be earnable on the OpenBeta branch for now. They'll go live for the main branch when the update moves over.

New Quests & Rewritten Dialogue 10 new quests across Baelin, Barnabus, Agatha and Aeron. Barnabus and Aeron have had their dialogue completely rewritten to give them more personality and depth. Parts of Isabell's dialogue have been reworked to better match her character.

Dragon Rework The dragon has been completely overhauled. New model, fully rewritten dialogue, and it's now locked behind a quest chain. Completing the quest makes the dragon a proper servant rather than just being freely available.

• AI-translated localization for Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, Turkish and Polish (first pass — will need tweaks)

• Steam Achievements

• Dealing damage from behind an enemy now gives a 50% damage boost

• Wall rack for weapon displays

• 10 new quests (Baelin, Barnabus, Agatha, Aeron)

• Ambient sounds for some creatures (dragon, minotaur, werewolf)

• New archdemon animation

• Enemies and servants now only gain XP when an enemy dies. Not based on killing blow — if the player kills an enemy, all nearby servants/friendlies get the XP. Same applies to enemies (a werewolf killing a boar gives XP to nearby werebeasts/demons). When the player is killed, the killer gets a x10 XP boost, so enemies can level up fast by killing the player.

• Increased Satyr projectile speed

• Improved AI projectile prediction (predicts based on target movement more accurately)

• Reduced max FOV based on speed

• Replaced AMD FSR with Intel XeSS (FSR wasn't working as intended)

• Reworked dismemberment system — limbs now fall off properly. Enough damage will gib enemies into multiple pieces. Should also be more performant.

• Reduced servant armor gain per level

• Rewrote Barnabus dialogue for more personality

• Completely rewrote Aeron's personality and dialogue

• Reworked parts of Isabell's dialogue to be more in line with her character

• Completely rewrote dragon dialogue with much more content when a servant

• Replaced dragon model

• Dragon is now a servant, unlocked by completing a quest chain

• Sex scenes now end automatically after 3 minutes

• Upscaled several loading screen images

• Trading list changing after social level up

• Buildings not dropping their contents on destroy

• Container deleting items on sort

• Duplication glitch involving the sort option in containers

• Skill indicators being set to 0 on load

• Display of materials for crafting now shows nothing instead of 0 (e.g. flour recipe)

• Not being able to change pubic hair color

• Not getting the proper item amount when buying more than a stack limit at the vendor

• Price discrepancy between trade list and selected trade

• Being able to turn a profit on bought items after a certain social level

• Trade selection resetting after every level up

• Invalid servant item when destroying a building

• Servant not despawning when adding servant item to buildings

• Bow being invisible when dropped

• Struggle minigame slowness

• Recipe consuming resources without starting craft

• Wasp being hittable and dropping loot when dead

• Runaway servant damage on level up

• Damage sound on enemies using default sound instead of flesh sound

• Tons of other minor fixes

• Improved performance when attacking

• Improved performance when spawning text

• Improved performance when gaining action points

• Optimized landscape shader

• Tweaked draw distances for all meshes

• Tweaked several foliage materials to reduce shader overdraw

• Fixed some LOD settings

• Skin shaders cheaper on GPU at low/medium settings

• Removed old unused plugins to reduce init times and memory usage

• Cleaned up code that slowed down save game loading and bloated save files. Old slow saves will be cleaned up on re-save. Save file sizes significantly reduced.

• Optimized ragdoll performance on death