Hey!
We here on the Ravenfield team are currently taking a much-needed break from development (except for Ghostie, who appears to have taken over the discord server!) I'm writing this post from a forest cabin enjoying some downtime, but I figured this would be a good time to look back at what we added to the game in the first half of the year and what we have in store for the rest of 2026.
2026 - So far
We've been very busy this year, delivering 5 EA updates and a Valentine's themed update. Here's what we accomplished:
We released Arcade Mode as the first official campaign to use our new moddable campaign system!
We rewrote large parts of the game to support the new campaign system. This includes systems that allow progressing between different maps, improvements to the dialog system, better mod and campaign save data handling, scriptable game configurations and a lot more.
We released the Arcade Mode source scripts and assets as a unity package, allowing the community to modify all aspects of how the mode works. This package is available on the Ravenfield discord server!
We began updating old assets that we felt no longer held up to the latest content such as weapon models, audio clips, animations and more.
We added 4 new weapons.
We released a complete overhaul of the Island map with a new art style and assets.
We added tons of new Trigger Components and exposed Ravenscript functionality to streamline story-mission style level creation and to more easily integrate them into story campaigns.
We updated the Unity mod tools to allow modders to create campaigns and wrote a guide explaining the process:
[dynamiclink href="https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3770201259"]Phew! I think this is quite the list, and it puts us in a good position to deliver on the major planned features for the game. Let's take a look at what to expect for the game's development going forward!
Coming up...
We have a clear target in sight - we want to finish up the game and deliver Ravenfield 1.0 as soon as possible. While we had previously planned to release Ravenfield 1.0 this year, we recognize that the game has plenty of bugs and annoyances to iron out before we are happy to call it done. This will almost certainly delay the 1.0 release into 2027.
However, our aim is to get the game content-complete this year. That is, we want to deliver the previously announced features such as a revamped Conquest Mode and support for modded game modes. We also want to improve existing features and content by updating maps, weapons and vehicles to reach a consistent quality level. Finally we want to release a new map, however we might push this one into 2027.
Obviously with Ravenfield being a single-player game, it's super important to have flexible and fun bots to play against. This has always been a challenge due to the sandbox nature of the game. No level or mod or mutator quite plays the same, and there are hundreds if not thousands of little pitfalls where our bot friends take a tumble and a fumble. To make sure we find these problem areas and focus on the right things, we started a bot-improvement channel on the official discord server a while ago where we encourage the community to leave bug reports and suggestions and to upvote what needs the most attention from us. Thus far, we haven't had much time to tackle the issues as most of our time has been spent on getting moddable campaigns up and running. However as we approach 1.0 we intend to spend more time polishing up this game based on community feedback. If you have a particular issue or suggestions concerning bots, please make sure you check out the channel and leave your feedback!
To summarize, here's what we want to deliver throughout the rest of the year:
Conquest mode - we're focusing on this one first!
Moddable Game Modes
Rework some existing maps
Several new weapons
Improvements to the Campaign Mod development/testing experience
Bot and gameplay improvements based on community feedback in the discord server.
New map (if we have the time, otherwise will release in 2027)
We'll be back in full force in September - until then, you should check out what Ghostie is up to on the Ravenfield discord server
See you soon!
/Johan (SteelRaven7)
