Greetings Adventurers,
What a wonderful start to 2026! Today also marks the start of the Year of the Horse!
We are really excited for this update to drop. It brings in a new seasonal cosmetic (and a twin cosmetic filed under whimsical), an elemental orb weapon set to the loot pool, and a hotly requested feature in a brand new Manual Save system, plus so much more.
Read on below for more details!
Manual Save System
Manual Saves are an additive way to play that allows players to create their own save files within any given run. Players will have the ability to create manual saves before going into dungeons, tougher battles, or when an online friend needs to leave but the rest of the party wants to keep playing. Manual save slots will also be accompanied by the current autosave feature, and players will have the option to rename and manage their saves in a way that makes sense to them.
The Manual Save System is available on Apprentice and Journeyman modes. For players who want to preserve the core-save experience, Master is the mode to test your mettle and continue the permadeath adventure. Leaderboard modes, such as the Dark Carnival and the upcoming Dungeon Crawl: Gauntlet, are also exempt from the new save system to preserve the leaderboard standings.
This new save system was developed with player feedback in mind and will give all players greater flexibility and freedom in how they choose to explore and conquer Fahrul.
Seasonal Cosmetics
To celebrate the Year of the Horse, this year we are launching two horse-themed cosmetics. First, we have the opulent and regal Jade Horse Head that allows players to look their fanciest as they bring peace to the people of Fahrul. The second, well, the second Horse Head kind of speaks for itself.
You can also grab our Valentine's Angel Wings Cosmetic for Zero Lore Points in-game to celebrate the season of romance!
Twitch Integration
We’re excited to bring a little bit of For The King’s classic whimsy to streamers. Starting today, players can enable specific Twitch chat commands to rename enemies in combat, spawn certain effects (hot dogs, anyone?), and more!
The Twitch integration is a player opt-in feature, so if you like to stream For The King II, hop into your settings to enable streaming to activate the streaming-specific menu. If you have no interest in streaming, there's no need to do anything.
Check out our guide here to learn more about For The King II’s Twitch Integration
Additional Changes
New Elemental Orbs
We’ve added a whole host of elemental-based orbs to bolster the Fortune Teller and other Awareness-based characters. Ranging from the Ignis Core and its fire-based attacks, to the charming Snow Globe with its Ice Shield Aura ability, there is certainly an orb for every occasion.
In addition to these new player-based orbs, Peggy the Merc also carved up a new orb for herself.
Gameplay
When reclaiming boats, all boats will now be automatically reclaimed upon using the service in the port. If there are two vessels present, the previous system of having to select which vessel will be applied.
We’ve improved a couple of combat aspects with friendly summons (i.e., Toymaker doll summons). These summons will no longer attempt to steal from enemies, and we now prioritize summoning the correct type of friendly based on the selected tile. Players should no longer see melee friendlies being summoned into the back row.
We’ve increased the number of available Mercs for purchase in towns. Since launch, players have only had one merc to hire in each town. As we bring in new content, and players unlock the story-based mercs, we want to give players better choices in who they hire. Hannah, Rizzo, and Cisco should now have company with your unlocked Toadslayer, Klaus, and all of the other mercs that lend their blade to the Resistance in exchange for coin.
Character Selection Flow
The Friar gets a bit of an art glow-up in this update:
Friar’s Cheers ability has a new, sudsy animation when it procs. This new animation also cascades to other characters that it procs for.
The Friar body type has moved to the Heroic body type (i.e., Woodcutter, Blacksmith, Farmer).
We’ve updated the selection of Stone Hero poses that are found in the Overworld and in the leaderboards. More poses with new characters and weapons. We also removed some poses that didn’t read that great across the two areas of the game.
We updated the Bisontaur’s plume to provide better readability on the overworld and in combat.
The Kuro Mask in the Lore Store is now default red.
Improved combat animations across a handful of weapons.
Party Summary
Party Summary can now be opened in the loot phase. This gives the party that added bit of information to help determine where to hand out certain gear.
On keyboard, the Party Summary can be accessed with the ‘P’ key, or R1/RB on controller while in loot phase.
Tutorials
We’ve improved the flow and distribution of combat tutorials. Now the Royal Tutor spaces out combat tutorials across multiple combats to reduce the initial overload of information on first combat experience.
Bug Fixes
Outlined below are the bug fixes included in this update. If you happen to see something that has been troubling you or your party, let us know, and we’ll look to get it addressed in an upcoming patch.
Fallen Knight
The Fallen Knight came out in our Fallen Knight’s DLC, and we’ve received a ton of amazing feedback. One recurring piece, though, is that his charge ability is a bit overpowered. With this update, we’ve tweaked the charge ability to have a little less power output while still maintaining the fun nature of a regal old knight coming out of retirement to help restore Fahrul.
Slightly reduced the damage modifier across all charge abilities.
AOE charge attacks now receive less damage output across all target areas.
All charge attacks now cast Armor Up at the start of the charge.
The goal with these changes is to still have the Fallen Knight take these big swings, but provide a better balance across the early and late game. If you’re a Fallen Knight main, we’d love to hear your feedback after giving these changes a couple of runs.
Other Fallen Knight changes
Fixed an issue where the Fallen Knight could charge his attack despite being entangled.
Fixed an issue where a Knight’s Oath would only proc once in combat despite having more than one Fallen Knight in the party.
Fixed an issue where the Fallen Knight’s charge attack would not correctly retarget if the targeted enemy fled from combat.
Fixed an issue where the Fallen Knight’s charge attack would not correctly retarget from one wave of combat to the next if the previous wave’s last remaining enemy fled.
Fixed an issue where the Fallen Knight’s charge attack could do a normal attack if the player was spamming quick inputs.
Fixed an issue where the Fallen Knight’s charge attack would still attack if the Fallen Knight was stunned.
Fixed an issue with the Fallen Knight’s charge attack not always showing that Armor Up will also be cast on the Fallen Knight.
Softlocks
Fixed a softlock that could occur with the Fallen Knight’s charge attack if the ability menus were being spammed with quick inputs.
Fixed a rare softlock that could occur if the player interacts with a minecart two times in a row while embarked on a landboat and occupying a POI title.
Fixed a softlock that could occur when attempting to revive an ally if the UI was in a state where a player was not being selected. For example, attempting to revive an ally on the second primary turn of a Toymaker with their starting rapier.
Fixed a softlock that could occur if the pet, Skelly Jelly, tried to transform and the player's side was fully occupied.
Fixed a softlock that could occur if 6 or more status effects were applied to an enemy.
Fixed a softlock that could occur in the Midnight Woods biome if the party was ambushed and the combat returned no enemies.
Fixed a softlock that could occur in combat with enemies that cast Confuse Group.
Fixed a softlock that could occur with the Friar consuming alcohol and triggering Cheers onto a character affected by Link.
Online
Fixed an online softlock that could occur during the Skraevin boss fight in the chapter, A New Age.
Fixed an issue where the Multiplayer Party List could stop being displayed after certain flows.
Gameplay
In Chapter 3, The Royal Mines, we improved the opening camera on the Merling Arena to flow better over the wooden walls.
In the chapter, Child of Chaos, we fixed an issue where the beast tracks encounter would not always award loot if completed in a certain sequence.
In the chapter, Child of Chaos, we fixed an issue where Watcher ambush fights would not always trigger as expected.
In the chapter, A New Age, we fixed an issue where the active player would start with zero action points after defending a Watcher ambush.
In the chapter, A New Age, an issue was fixed where failing a quest objective did not end the run correctly.
Fixed an issue in the Dralithra boss fight in which one of her abilities highlighted 4 tiles but dealt damage to 6 tiles.
Protect and Star Matter will now protect and block Death Mark.
Fixed an issue where certain bosses could be affected by Death Mark.
Fixed an issue where the Airship could become inaccessible if a follower got stuck on the ship despite the owner disembarking.
Fixed an issue where consuming Mead wasn’t applying its effects correctly.
Fixed an issue where The Magician tarot card would not always grant consumables.
Fixed an issue where Dead Lotus would not protect against Thorn damage.
Fixed an issue where the Voidwalker could not upgrade their resonator in a Dark Carnival Wheel of Death room.
Fixed an issue that allowed the Hobo to scrounge a Voidwalker Resonator.
Fixed an issue where defeating Biteshade would not grant XP.
Party Summons
Fixed an issue where summoned reflections from the Dark Carnival Haunted House were receiving Fade Damage twice per rest phase.
Fixed an issue where the Toymaker’s summoned dolls could spawn onto a tile with incorrect abilities. Now, the range will spawn in the back, and melee will spawn in the front. Previously, it was being randomized, leading to the potential of a blocked ally unable to attack.
Combat
Fixed an issue where certain debuff attacks were removing buffs despite not being a perfect roll.
Fixed an issue where Drain Life attacks were being blocked but still healing the caster.
Fixed an issue where Cursed statues may not be removed when a character moves to a Purified tile.
Improved the Mimic transition flow when unlocking a Mimic in the treasure phase.
Fixed an issue where Black Hole could be triggered on an empty tile.
Overworld
Fixed an issue where characters in boats were not receiving the movement buff from the Nice Day event.
Fixed an issue in Chapter 5, The Castle Gates, where towns could block the road used by the War Machine.
Fixed an issue where the Kraken Indicator would not always pulse correctly when one hex outside of a Kraken Ward area of effect.
Fixed an issue where the Peaceful Windmill encounter could reward a non-consumable item. (ie. Parlor Orb)
Fixed an issue in the chapter, A New Age, where overworld music can overlap with combat music if the beast tracks quest is completed in a certain sequence.
Dungeons
Improved the dungeon room spawn patterns for better variability.
UX/UI
Updated the Loadout warning to correctly show when parties of less than 4 characters ready up.
Fixed an issue where Overworld popcorn text could appear on the Main Menu if the player quits the game before the text fades out.
Fixed an issue with Large scaling having icon overlap on the Chaos Refinery in Child of Chaos
Fixed an issue where certain languages were overflowing the UI when deleting a saved game.
Added dialogue for the Sheep when dismissing them as a follower when hiring a new merc or pet.
Fixed an issue where the Profaned Guardian was unintentionally immune to being moved on the battle grid.
Fixed an issue where Watcher movement was triggering the Kraken Indicator in the global header.
Fixed an issue where the Purified status effect could appear twice in the Encyclopedia.
Fixed an issue where Korque was not displaying the correct join dialogue when playing in non-English languages.
Fixed an issue where the Hanged Soul was not displaying the correct description in the follower menu in all languages.
Fixed an issue where the Link icon from the Tarot card would not be removed correctly after a pet was replaced with a cursed follower.
Fixed an issue where the Displace popcorn text icon was not always aligned with the corresponding text.
Fixed an issue where leaving certain dungeons in certain conditions would show BIOME_INVISIBLE rather than the correct name.
Improved the Precious Pearl description translations in German.
Improved the reliability of the “Unable to save - Player is busy” warning in the game menu when trying to save in dungeons.
Improved the Star Matter translations in Japanese.
Fixed an issue with the Royal Droll blocking a roll not always displaying correctly if the player used partial focus during their attack.
Art
Improved the tombstones of dead characters when dying with recently released characters or weapons.
Improved the lighting on multiple item cards.
Removed the monster sfx from the Void Skin and Training Dummy Skin.
Fixed an issue where the character outline wouldn’t always display correctly on certain Lance weapons.
Fixed an issue with the Fallen Knight charge animation when charging while equipped with a whip.
Fixed an issue where equipping the eye patch helmet would remove the character’s beard.
Controller
Fixed an issue on PC where players could lose controller input if they were switching between controller and M&K multiple times.
Fixed an issue where players could not check how many rounds were left on tarot card buffs when playing with a controller.
Fixed an issue where the Toolbelt UI would remain highlighted after a stack of items was fully consumed when playing with a controller.
Fixed an issue in local co-op where controllers may not always respect their assigned controller while in the Dungeon Rest Phase.
Improved the controller flow when navigating Tarot cards.
Improved the controller callouts when playing with controller on PC.
Console
Improved memory performance on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Fixed an issue where our news page capsule was not working correctly on consoles.
As always, a massive shout-out to our community and all of the For The King II players who have shared feedback on Discord, social media, and via in-game bug reports. We are so fortunate to have such an amazing community and look forward to sharing what we’re working on!
P.S: If you haven't already checked it out, we launched the Roadmap for the first half of 2026, and you can find more details here.
⚔️IronOak Games
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