There's a few big announcements to make, so hold on to your Yanaki!

Another demo? Yep! It's been 3 years since our last demo, and we've improved the game a lot. We also feel that the structure of the old demo doesn't lend well for players jumping in - our new demo is more compact (yes, a lot smaller), starts in the actual starting area of the game, as is much more "demo-like". It also includes much improved combat, AI, and systems that we've been working on these past few years. It's a damn good game in my unbiased opinion.

The Demo Playtest Waitlist is Open! When the demo is ready for testing (around a month from now) we will let in players to test and give feedback. It'll be a first-come-first-serve basis, so reserve your spot to get the chance to access it early! The playtest is planned to run for a month or so, and then be released in a similar manner to our previous demo.

This means you can no longer add the demo to your library. This is to prepare for Demo 2025. It should still be accessible if you have it downloaded, however! I'm a huge fan of internet preservation, so I've also added demo 2022 to an archive on our website[ardenfall.com]. It sadly won't have full steam support (no achievements), but it's still the same ol demo <3.

Alas, we are not perfect. We thought we'd be able to cram the release for the end of 2025, but turns out releasing a big game with a tiny team is hard! We're now purely focusing on polish, completing locations, and fixing bugs, and it will take until earlyish 2026 to get to a point we are comfortable selling it as a product (especially since the new demo is taking a good amount of time). We hope this isn't too much of a disappointment, and we will definitely make it up to you by making the best game we can possibly make!

May the sheru's roots guide you outsider.