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What's Changed Since Launch - Free to Play Wipe!

Renown · Community Announcements · March 21, 2026

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What's Changed Since Launch - Free to Play Wipe!

Thank you very much for checking out the Free to Play wipe of Renown!

This document has been designed so that it becomes more detailed as it goes on.

If you only read the New Feature Breakdown, you'll get a good overview of our work.

If you want more detail, the next section has our work in depth by category.

If you want the specifics of what we've been up to, the article finishes with all of our Patch Notes since the Early Access launch, combined in one place.

Since launching into Early Access, we've been shipping updates continuously across every corner of the game.

Let's get started with a full breakdown of what we've worked on, grouped by area:

Major Advances and New Feature Breakdown

Detailed Breakdown

This section gets more into the detailed breakdown of our work since the launch:

Balance

Combat

Core Mechanics

Stamina & Parry Tuning

Bash & Kick

Ranged Combat

Traps

Building

Raiding & Siege

Map & World

NPCs & AI

Performance & Graphics

Servers & Community Hosting

Exploit Fixes

General Fixes & QoL

Full Patch Notes - Early Access to Free to Play

The following section is a combination of all our patch notes, starting from our first post, Early Access Launch patch, on the 27th of September 2025, to the 18th of March 2026.

Patch Notes Alpha 3.0.1

Options

Features

Balance

Combat

Building

Raiding

Exploits

Map Fixes

NPCs

Servers/Community Hosting

General Fixes

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.5

Optimization/Performance

Features

Combat

Building

Raiding

NPCs

Servers/Community Hosting

General Fixes

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.6

Features

Balance

Exploits

Servers/Community Hosting

General Fixes

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.8

Main Features

Balance

Combat

Building

Raiding

Exploits

Map Fixes

Servers/Community Hosting

General Fixes

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.7.1

Small Combat Balance Changes

Added late Parry forgiveness: If you parry within 1s of being hit you can parry into parry until reaching idle state or windup Developer Notes: Bash is almost unusable, this should make it a little more enticing against aggressive opponents. The parry changes aren't really buffs, they just make parrying a lot less clunky.

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.8.1

Performance Changes

Developer Notes: There is still more work to do for those with weaker GPU's. But no matter the GPU everyone should notice much more stable framerates when turning or idling.

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.8.2 BETA

Combat Changes

Bash

Animation Adjustments to Flourish

Traps

Spike Trap

Banner Trap Limits By Tier - Crossbow and Spike Traps

Bear Traps

General

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.9.3 Part 1 - Gameplay & Combat Changes

Combat Updates

Developer Notes: The goal with the stamina changes are to put more agency into attacking. Defense is really strong right now and we wanted to balance it out a little more. Bows

Developer Notes: All bows keep equal fire rate & accuracy for simplicity amid changes (differ only in projectile speed - prioritize accordingly); Crossbow is the heavy hitter that will almost fully crack shields later. Weapons

Siege Engines

Traps

Tutorial

Developer Notes: We plan to add more complex combat tutorials in the future, but this should be enough to get beginners started.

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.9.3 Part 2 - World, Systems, Visuals & QoL

Survival Map Bug Fixes & Changes

Factions

Developer Notes: The faction system is still a WIP and there is a lot we will be rushing to add to the system. More on this later. NPCs

Developer Notes: The town NPC's also have a lot still being added such as wandering the world (not just in towns), woodcutting, mining etc. Key & Door System

Developer Notes: Again, we want to expand much more on this in the following month with things like plagued areas, restricted areas, and other places that can't be entered through regular means. Mines

Building

Graphics & Performance

Titles

Steam Achievements

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.9.4 - Archery and Shields Update

The Big Picture: Archery is being shifted from an early-game niche to a viable mid-to-late game option. By introducing a new "Anti-Burst" mechanic (for arrows only), we can buff fire rates and armor penetration without allowing groups to "one-shot" players through focus fire. Ammo Scaling

Shield Damage (New)

Mechanics and Loot

Developer Notes: Right now, archery is in a weird place where it's really strong at T0 but becomes irrelevant fast. Part of the reason for this was our concern about players running in groups and wreaking havoc with ranged focus-fire. Melee slashers are a very unique concept with a huge learning curve. And while we're happy with the state of combat, we believe a second option should always be possible for those who want to pick up the game and do well quickly. With the new Anti-Burst mechanic, we can effectively limit overall group damage to match the output of a single player. This allows us to make the bow and arrow a truly viable option throughout the game, while still keeping it slightly weaker than melee overall, no matter the amount of arrows hitting the same player.

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.9.6

Combat & Gameplay

AI & NPC Behavior

Developer Notes: Some NPC's do still represent factions but we're placed and designed to make certain area's dangerous and provide loot. The faction system implementation has caused all Human NPC's around the world to be safe to walk by which isn't what we intended, so now these specific NPC's will aggro anyone and can be killed without hurting your faction score. Factions & World Interaction

UI & UX Improvements

Bug Fixes

Graphics & Settings

Developer Notes: We have the technology! Graphics and performance should be at an all time high when utilizing our graphical preset buttons. Unfortunately though, this means all of your current graphical settings will be reset once more to what the game determines what's best for your PC.

Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.9.7

Combat

Developer Notes: Oh melee... We've given you so much love and attention that we feel we can trust you just a little bit more not to cause grief... (On top of melee tutorial, bows, shields, bugfixes, etc.) we fill this won't hurt beginners as much as it did in early access. Archery Changes

Developer Notes: We're really happy with how the bow feels right now. What we're not happy with is how strong it becomes when multiple players use bows against a single target. So, we're aiming (no pun intended) to push players into making a choice: commit to the bow, or commit to melee. Right now, you can fire arrows at little cost, potentially deal damage, then safely switch to melee without losing anything. That's not ideal. These stamina changes are designed to heavily punish players trying to benefit from both the offensive power of the bow and the safety of melee at the same time. The movement slow is simply there to reduce how effectively players can kite with a bow. Shield Changes

Developer Notes: Shields were meant to be the counter to a solid archer but currently it feels unreliable due to the different hotboxes of each shield. Now at the cost of stamina, you can gaurantee your safety if you hold up your shield against the arrow. Factions


Patch Notes Alpha 3.1.9.8

Combat & Balance

Developer Notes: Fire arrows are making a comeback and function as they used to. Shoot them at catapults and trebuchets to do good damage from afar — if you shoot enough in a short period of time the equipment will catch fire to deal more damage over time.Server & Systems

Developer Notes: Nobody likes being offline raided, but nobody likes being told they can't do what they want to do either. We're introducing @Renown Watchman to help you watch over your base while you sleep and alert you here on Discord straight to your direct messages when it detects your base is being raided. This is a very experimental and new feature that is very early in development and should not be relied on for complete base security. We hope that this will create a more engaging experience and will tightly monitor how it effects the game. To use it make sure you can receive DMs from the bot, and then type /Register to get started.Misc

Developer Notes: This is bittersweet — we love auto-sprint and it was a hard decision to make, but ultimately we've decided it's best to remove this feature. Auto-sprint is too good not to use for combat, but not polished enough to make it the default option for beginners, and because beginners don't know about it they are immediately at a disadvantage. There are other reasons too, but this is our biggest issue. We want to reimplement it as soon as possible as the default. That's everything we've shipped since the Early Access launch. Thank you for being part of the Renown community - we're genuinely really excited for this next chapter. As always, the best place to share feedback, report bugs, or just talk about the game is our Discord and the Steam forums. - The Renown Team

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