1.0 Launch and Patch Notes ✨

Today's the big day: we've officially left Early Access! Saddle up together and get ready to uncover an occult mystery. We can't wait to hit the trails with y'all - see you in Alderwood soon~ ✨

Just because we've left Early Access doesn't mean the support stops! We'll be back soon with a new update. Please continue to give us feedback, report your bugs, and reach out if you need assistance!

• Join the Discord to report bugs and chat with the community.

• Need help? Get in contact with us on Zendesk!

Our immediate focus will be on supporting the launch. Once the dust settles, we'll be back with a clearer idea of what will be coming in our future updates.

New Cutscenes: All cutscenes and subtitles have been implemented for chapters one, two, and three!

New Horse Customization Options: Each horse can be styled by heading to the Player Barn, opening the Stable manager, and clicking the Stylist. We have added new customization options at the Stylist including…

• Mane Styles: Four new braided mane styles and mane cuts are available.

• Mane and Tail Colors: Looking for a bold look? You’ll love the seven new vibrant color options available such as sunset, blue, and more!

Early Access Rewards: Players who joined us during Early Access and completed their Weekly Goals could receive up to one Early Access Coin per week. Now that we’ve launched, you can use these coins in our new Early Access store!

This is a way for our most dedicated players to catch up a little faster by unlocking their older Holiday tack set, reunite with their beloved Palomino, or get stacks of foragable materials more easily.

• The only items exclusive to the Early Access store are the White Rose tail and mane accessories.

Bundles & Individual Gear: Express yourself with new clothing sets, bridles, saddles, and accessories! In addition to single items, we also have two specially designed bundles:

• Deluxe Rider’s Bundle: Bring the spirit of Alderwood in each ride with this set that feels as though it was foraged from the forest itself.

• Nature Rider’s Bundle: Leave a lasting impression with this elegant black and gold riding set.

Horse Packs: Instead of selling generic, recolored horse models we hope to give our horses a little more personality. To get a new horse in our game, you’ll do so by getting a Horse Pack - a specific horse with a bit of personality and a backstory you get to discover through a short quest! For launch, we have five Horse Packs available - with more planned each month. Currently, you can discover the backstories of:

• Calypso the Tidecaller

• Spark the Rocker

• Bandit the Scamp

• Echo the True Hearted

• Lucky the Champion,

Riding Pass: Our new optional Riding Passes are how you can save time, earn extra rewards, and support the game’s development! The extra rewards can be used to purchase cosmetics and Horse Packs or train up new horses faster.

• All new players will automatically receive a free 30-day Riding Pass!

• All Early Access players will automatically receive a Lifetime Riding Pass!

• While a Riding Pass is active, you’ll earn triple the rewards from Weekly Goals as well as 20% more experience and silver from quests and races.

How do we get Gold Alders? All of these items - with the exception of the Early Access store - can be purchased with Gold Alders. Players earn these by completing their Weekly Goals; if you have an active Riding Pass, you'll earn even more! Players also have the option of directly purchasing Gold Alders should they choose to.

Art Polish: We are always improving our art, working on optimization, and incrementally improving the look and feel of our game. Here are some of the larger changes coming with our launch patch…

• Refined clothing skinning to prevent clipping issues, level of detail errors, and broken looking clothes and tack.

• Improved lighting and exposure settings:

  • Improved night-time visibility to prevent the world from looking too dark.

  • Adjusted in-door lighting across several locations in Alderwood including the Player Barn’s stalls and Miller Family Barn.

• Continued to improve optimization and reduce loading errors, especially around areas such as the Lighthouse and Dwight's Farm.

• Added eyelashes to both the Dutch Warmblood and Friesian.

• Ensured that character appearance remained consistent in both cutscenes and the overworld.

• Improved broken textures for several items and reflections in several locations, such as downtown Alderwood and caves.

• Adjusted the glow effect and improved the look of tracks revealed by the investigation mechanic.

UI Improvements: 

• Added an option to completely hide chat from your HUD.

• Added icons for horse mane styles, tail styles, and horse breeds. 

• Added chat emojis.

Additional Improvements:

• Automatic Environmental Jumping is now turned off by default. You can still adjust this according to your personal preferences in your Settings.

• Race medal requirements for all races have been rebalanced to better reflect overall progression and upgraded gear.

• Polished and improved the night-time soundscapes.

• Added more variety to the Weeklies pool by re-assigning which quests can unlock earlier.

• Added the Investigation and Tracking mechanics to several quests including The Claw, Chupacabra, and What Happened to Jack Willow.

• Players who are stuck can use a “Help, I’m Stuck!” option under the Settings -> Support menu.

• Additional Flowers, Raven Feathers, Moss and Horseshoes have been placed into the world.

• The Alderwood Lap race has been improved.

• Fixed a critical bug that caused some new players to load into the game without any main quest trigger.

• Improved server performance, specifically harsh rubber banding issues, lowered the maximum player count per server, and added more servers.

• Continued to refine, polish, and edit in-game dialogue for NPC dialogue, side quests, and our overall narrative campaign. 

• Fixed broken dialogue camera angles.

• Horses will no longer move or slide around while in dialogue.

• Players no longer appear to be moving backwards when walking together inside interior environments such as the High Bar interior, High Bar stairs, and Ride Island docks.

• Player names on other characters will no longer trail after them or appear offset.

• NPCs now have all their teeth during cutscenes.

• The radio will now automatically mute itself if it is playing when a cutscene begins.

• Implemented over 300 fixes to improve navigation mesh. These fixes will stop inappropriate jumping and help prevent players from becoming stuck.

• Hammerhead horses have been left Alderwood: NPC horses that you meet during quests no longer have placeholder items attached to them.

• The cadaver appears broken during a specific camera angle in The Body cutscene. This will be fixed in an upcoming release.

• The Friesian’s girth strap is missing; this will be fixed in an upcoming update. 

• Players may experience cosmetic clipping with select items, especially on muscular or masculine body types. This will be fixed in an upcoming update.

• Very rarely, your horse’s mane may clip through their neck and be attached. This issue can be fixed by teleporting the horse.

  • You can do so by whistling for it to come to you with the “H” key or fast traveling to a new location.

• Horse tails may look somewhat “stiff” while moving in a gait that is not a sprint.

• The PC may appear temporarily offset during feeding animations, especially on hills or in locations such as the Equestrian Center.

• When dismounted, the PC’s IK may react to horse hooves.

• For the time being, Friesians sock markings are disabled.