Dragonkin: The Banished News

Hello Dragon Hunters

Early Access launch is just around the corner! We couldn’t be more excited at the studio with only a few days left until we push the button to release Dragonkin: The Banished into the world.

We can't wait for you all to finally get your hands on Dragonkin: The Banished.
From our hearts to yours, we hope you enjoy the hunt for dragons.

While the demo gave you a taste of what’s to come, Early Access offers more content and a smoother leveling experience, starting at level 1 right after the prologue.



[h2]What’s in Early Access launch?[/h2]

At launch, you'll be able to choose from 3 playable classes: Knight, Oracle, and Barbarian.

Pick your Wyrmling from Fire, Ice, Electric, or Toxic types.

Explore the City of Montescail and upgrade it.

A prologue and the chapter 1 of the story.

Endgame content includes Dungeon Purification and the Hunting Board, offering replayable hunts and rewards.

You can also adjust the difficulty across 11 available settings to tailor your experience.

More information below:


[h3]Playable classes, Wyrmlings & Ancestral Grid[/h3]

3 playable classes

You'll be able to choose between 3 playable classes after the prologue. Each class has its own unique skills.

In the future, we'll be expanding each class with additional active skills.

• Knight
  
• Oracle
  
• Barbarian
  

To know more about it check:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1863430/view/516325296815734848

4 Wyrmlings

You'll be able to choose from 4 types of Wyrmlings, which act as a specialization for your characters, each with its own skill tree and skills.

• Fire
  
• Ice
  
• Electric
  
• Toxic
  

Ancestral Grid

Fragments of varying rarities (commun, uncommon, rare, legendary and mythic).

A Fragment is made up of one to five hexagons. Each hexagon can contain:

• A character's skill or Wyrmling's skill : One per Fragment (a fragment can come without any skill)
  
• One or more modifier(s): which enhance skills using a “Keyword” system.
  

To know more about it check: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1863430/view/508444538590724447



[h3]Itemization & City of Monstescail[/h3]

Itemization

Equipment from common to mythic, along with divine and draconic items.

To know more about it check: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1863430/view/506195274633317929

City of Montescail (hub)

You will be able to earn city XP and unlock developments as well as various bonuses.

Some city upgrades grant bonuses, such as the Abbey, which provides attribute points to all characters, or the Pythia, which increases the size of the Ancestral Grid.

Of course, more buildings and customization options will be added to your city throughout Early Access.

Here the list of all the services at Early Access launch:

• Crafting
  
  
  
  • Jailer
    
  • Ornamentalist
    
  • Apothecary
    
  • Jeweller
    
• Other services
  • Dark merchant
    
  • Training ground
    
• Bonus
  • Abbey
    
  • Pythie
    
  • And more

To know more about it:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1863430/view/508445806184891240



[h3]Story, Endgame & Difficulties[/h3]

Story During the prologue, you'll be able to play as the Knight, Oracle, and Barbarian.

The Tracker is also featured but is work in progress and isn’t playable outside of the prologue until a future update planned for the Summer.

At the start of Chapter 1, you begin as a young recruit of the Dragon Hunters at level 1. This is where your journey begins!

• Prologue
  

• Chapter 1
  

Endgame

For the Early Access launch, you will have access to endgame content.

It includes the Hunt Board (offering unique rewards) and Chaos Hunts. These activities feature various missions and dungeon purifications. You’ll learn more about them directly in the game!

Dungeon Purification involves eliminating a certain number of enemies to access a room where a draconic rift will open, triggering a special battle.

The Hunt Board offers a variety of hunts for draconic creatures. Each hunt have settings, with different durations, modifiers, difficulty levels, and rewards.

Hunts from the Hunt Board are replayable, but rewards can only be obtained once.

Chaos Hunts allow you to create your own hunts using parameters unlocked on the board.

• Hunting board
  
• Dungeon Purification
  

Difficulty

You can adjust the difficulty between 11 settings, we plan to add 5 more later on.

• Hard - Unlocks draconic equipment
  
• Desolation 1 - Unlocks mythical equipment
  
• Desolation 3 - Unlocks mythical ingredients
  
• Calamity 1 - Unlocks divine items
  

[h2]Early Access Roadmap[/h2]

We are working on the future of the game - as you can see in the Early Access Roadmap below, we’ve got plenty of updates in the works.

Additionally, thanks to community feedback, balance and quality of life updates will be made throughout Early Access.



Our first major update in Spring 2025 will bring:

• New active skills for the Knight, Oracle and Barbarian
  
• A new endgame activity & more endgame content
  
• More city features
  
• And as much of your feedback taken into account as possible
  

[h2]Thanks to You![/h2]
A huge thanks (again) to everyone who jumped into the demo and gave us feedback. We outlined some issues, and worked on fixing these for to ensure the best possible Early Access launch.

Our community is growing every day, and we love seeing new Hunters join our Discord, keep the discussions going, help each other out and share their feedback. We really hope you'll keep sharing your thoughts on Dragonkin: The Banished and will continue to be the cool and welcoming community you are!

See you on March 6th!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1863430/Dragonkin_The_Banished/

Hello, dragon hunters!

We hope you’ve been enjoying your time in the demo for Dragonkin: The Banished. The demo is available until March 3rd, so if you haven’t tried it out yet, don’t miss the opportunity.

During the Montescail City DevBlog, we briefly mentioned Itemization, and many of you had questions, especially on Discord. So today, we’re diving into the details.



If you haven’t read our Ancestral Grid DevBlog, it’s worth checking out, as it directly ties in to what we are going to cover.


[h3]Loot & Rarities[/h3]

Throughout the game, you will be able to obtain weapons, armor, as well as fragments of different rarities. It goes without saying that the higher the rarity, the more powerful the items will be.

• Common, Uncommon, Rare, Legendary, Mythical

For equipment including weapons, armor and rings, a higher rarity offers more powerful statistics, better scaling based on the item level, and above all, additional affixes.



Regarding fragments, a higher rarity means potentially larger and more complex fragments. These also have more power to reach milestones more easily.



Pendants are always Mythical and exclusive to endgame content.



In addition to rarities, certain equipment or fragments may present variations with particular characteristics and appear as Divine and/or Draconic drops.

[h3]Divine[/h3]
Any gear can be divine regardless of its base rarity. These items benefit from notable improvements and appear from Calamity I difficulty, the penultimate difficulty tier in Dragonkin.

• A piece of divine armor/weapon has a max quality affix with +25% enhancement.
  
  
• A divine potion has a maximized and enhanced potion effect of 25%.
  
  
• A divine fragment has a modifier at the maximum rank relative to its rarity, the effectiveness of which is increased by 2.
  
  
• A Wyrmling armor at rank 10 is considered divine.
  

Regarding the divine pendants, we will tell you more about these in the future.




[h3]Draconic[/h3]

Draconic equipment offers particularly powerful statistics, but never comes without cost. Every Draconic item provides two bonuses alongside a penalty.

There are 3 ranks of dragon corruption with progressive values, which require playing at higher difficulties.

Note: fragments cannot be Draconic.




[h3]Divine and Draconic[/h3]
Finally, an item can be both Divine and Draconic, which you can guess will be a goal when building your characters.


[h3]Talents[/h3]

We have already mentioned talents several times, especially with pendants.

Each character has a list of talents. These talents are divided into 3 ranks, each requiring a certain number of points to activate.



Among the universal talents, each class has unique talents that only it can acquire. These talents can appear on legendary or mythic weapons and armor, but not on crafting rings or primordial pendants, which remain universal.



[h3]How to get Talent points?
[/h3]
ou can get them in several ways:

From looting

• Legendary and Mythic gear give 1 and 2 points to a random talent, respectively.
  
• A primordial pendant, obtained in endgame content, gives 2 points to a random talent.
  

From crafting

Crafting allows you to customize items your way, based on the materials you obtain. The goal is to give players more control over theorycrafting.

• A legendary or mythical ring allows you to choose a talent to strengthen during its creation.
  
• Armor ornaments provide points in a specific talent, selectable from four options.
  
• The Scale Master extracts talents from equipment to allow you to select one from those unlocked.
  

From Wyrmling's armor

• Wyrmling armor can improve a specific and unique talent.
  

[h3]Crafting[/h3]

As part of our city blog, we noted that there are several Buildings and Services from which you can upgrade and build your loadouts.

The Jeweler

• At the Jeweler you can create rings with predefined stats and talents.
  
• Can be produced Divine.
  

The Apothecary

• The apothecary allows you to create potions with various unique effects. The max level of these potions is Divine.
  
• Can be produced Divine.
  

The Jailer

• It allows you to craft and then improve Wyrmling armor to personalize the statistics and talents granted by your companion. You can also switch out your Wyrmlings at the Jailer.
  

The Ornamentalist

• The Ornamentalist allows you to add ornaments to your armor pieces to obtain specific talent points.
  

The Enchanter

• The Enchanter allows you to modify a piece of armor and/or a weapon, by rerolling ONE affix of your choice.
  
• It also allows you to randomly reforge a 1 hexagon (2 for mythicals) on a fragment. It is thus possible to change and adjust your skill modifiers.
  

The Master of Scales

• The Master of Scales allows you to manage a codex of talents and skill modifiers, requiring the sacrifice of legendary and mythic equipment, including fragments. A well-filled codex allows you to benefit from sacrificed bonuses without even having the equipment or fragments equipped.
  

The Artificer

• The Artificer allows the transfer of draconic corruption from one Draconic object to another infinitely.
  

The Memorialist

• The Memorialist allows you to register a skill modifier from a sacrificed fragment in a piece of equipment, in order to benefit from its bonus without having to place it in the ancestral grid.
  

[h3]That's it, for now[/h3]

This concludes our DevBlog on itemization.

That was quite a lot to discuss and we can’t wait for you to experience all of these systems in Early Access.

As always, keep checking our Steam page and come take a look at our Discord server! We are here every day to collect your opinions and answer questions.

See you soon!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1863430/Dragonkin_The_Banished/

Hello hunters!

We hope you’ve been enjoying your first look at Dragonkin: The Banished via the demo released as part of Steam Next Fest.

There are a lot of differences between the Demo and the Early Access planned for March 6th, but from the feedback we’ve received so far, we’ve learned a lot. We’re still seeing what we’re able to do in the short term regarding this, but in the meantime we wanted to introduce some general tips and advice for getting the most out of the Dragonkin: the Banished Demo!

[h3]Prologue[/h3]

The demo starts with the prologue. This is a cinematic experience designed to introduce you to the characters, gameplay, story and the world. During this section, there’s no mini-map, inventory or character customization. It’s designed to give you a feel for each of the characters, but if you prefer, you can skip the prologue by pressing the esc key and choosing the skip option.

[h3]Ancestral Grid Advice[/h3]

In the demo, you have access to 3 characters at level 35. We understand that some players would prefer to start their experience at level 1. Of course, this is the experience in Early Access where you’ll start at level 1 and be able to play through the 1st act of Dragonkin and keep leveling via the various end-game content.

For the demo, we wanted to give players the tools to experiment and play around with the systems by creating preset builds. These are examples of what these characters can be, they’re by no means perfect, nor are they the optimal build for every player's playstyle. There is room for experimentation and growth, this is one of the core loops of Dragonkin.

As you do dungeon purification runs, you’ll collect new fragments. These can be used to change and empower your skills by altering the layout of your Ancestral Grid. We recommend getting used to your character and their skills before you start to experiment with the Ancestral Grid.

We know that there’s more we could have done with the demo to assist in explaining the Ancestral Grid system, it wasn’t our intention to drop players in at the deep end. Ideally, we wanted to give players the tools needed to explore the depth of the Ancestral Grid system without the need for a significant time investment in levelling your character. We know we missed the mark somewhat with this, but hope you will give the demo a shot.

If you wish to reset your character to how they were at the start of the beta, you can find the default builds below:

[h3]Camera Options + Control options[/h3]

You can adjust your gameplay experience in the Dragonkin: The Banished. You can play Dragonkin with either a keyboard and mouse or a controller. For those playing on keyboard, you can choose between mouse movement or keyboard movement.

Additionally, we have two camera modes: action and classic mode. Action is the default in Dragonkin, but if you’d prefer to draw the camera back a little, we’d recommend playing in classic mode. You can find this setting in the options menu under UI.

[h3]General Advice for getting the most out of the Dragonkin Demo: [/h3]

• You can instantly teleport around the city by opening the city menu by pressing the R key to visit the different vendors and merchants
  
• You can create custom rings and potions at the Jeweler and the Apothecary
  
• You can adjust your attributes in the character menu
  
• For players who want to deep dive into the Ancestral Grid you can experiment with different Wrymlings (You can change Wrymlings at the Jailer).
  • Wyrmling abilities can vastly alter your playstyle, so don’t forget to update your Ancestral Grid! (Recommended for players who have gotten used to the systems in Dragonkin)
    

Thank you for joining us in the Demo. We’re excited for you to experience even more content when Dragonkin: The Banished comes to Early Access on March 6th.

If you want to follow our progress then don’t forget to wishlist the game!

Hello Dragon Hunters!

Many of you have already tried our demo, and we sincerely thank you for that.

For a small number of players, we have noted some specific issues that cause issues with the demo, so we wanted to share what we've found out.

[h3]Crashes[/h3]

• The most significant issue is a crash affecting players using 13th and 14th-generation Intel CPUs, particularly in games running on Unreal Engine 5, which uses Oodle for data decompression. You can find more details about this specific issue here. For full transparency, this issue affects approximately 0.8% of our players.
• Another cause of crashes is the use of RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS), which is commonly used with MSI Afterburner. This module injects rendering code for its overlay display. Unfortunately, we are not the only game affected, and this issue impacts about 0.4% of our players. Turning off MSI Afterburner should resolve this issue.
• The last type of crash identified affects players using an AMD 7900XT/XTX graphics card. As of today, we have not yet determined the exact cause of the issue and are actively investigating. This affects approximately 0.2% of players.

[h3]Low Texture Quality in 4K[/h3]
Some players have reported texture quality issues when playing the game at 4K resolution. We have identified the problem and should have it resolved for the Early Access launch on March 6.

In the meantime, for the demo, playing at a lower resolution (2K) should resolve the issue for affected players. However, keep in mind that if you are playing in borderless windowed mode, the game will still use your monitor’s native resolution. Changing the resolution in the game's graphics options won’t have any effect in this mode (to clarify this for players, resolution options will be removed when playing in borderless windowed mode at EA launch).

We are doing everything we can to ensure the best possible Early Access launch. We want to thank the players who helped us identify these issues, allowing us to work on fixing them.

Thank you all, and happy hunting!

The Eko Software Team

Hello Dragon Hunters,

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for, Dragonkin: The Banished Demo is available now!

[previewyoutube][link of the video][/previewyoutube]

[h3]WHERE & FOR WHOM?[/h3]
On Steam (exclusively) but for EVERYONE.

Download the demo now:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1863430/Dragonkin_The_Banished/

While this demo showcases content we can’t wait for you to discover, it’s only a fraction of what will be available when Early Access starts on March 6th.

Please note: any progress made in the demo won't be carried over to Early Access launch.

[h2]What to expect in this Demo?[/h2]

[h3]Prologue[/h3]
In this demo, you will get to explore the world of Dragonkin through the prologue, to give you a first look of the story.

[h3]3 pre-built characters starting at level 35[/h3]
After completing the prologue, you will have access to 3 pre-built characters:

• The Knight, the Oracle, and the Barbarian
  

You can customize them to match your playstyle by:

• Modifying their equipment
  
• Adjusting their Ancestral Grid
  
• Managing their Wyrmlings
  
• Leveling up to level 50
  

[h3]The city of Montescail[/h3]
The city will be available but with limited content. However, you can still access several essential services:

• The Jailer allows you to change your Wyrmlings
  
• The Dark Merchant lets you sell unwanted items
  
• The Apothecary allows you to craft potions
  
• The Jeweler allows you to create rings
  

[h3]6 difficulty levels & 1 endgame activity[/h3]
For those looking for a challenge, the demo includes 6 difficulty levels and an endgame activity:

• Dungeon Purification, a repeatable challenge that can be played indefinitely
  

[h3]2 distinct environments[/h3]
You will be able to explore 2 distinct environments, each with 3 different variations:

• The Perdition Sanctuary
  
• The Sunken Temple
  

Thanks for your understanding!

[h2]Want to closely follow the game's development?[/h2]

As usual, keep looking at our Steam page but we invite you to join our Discord. We’re building something awesome over there, and we want YOU to be part of it!

For the occasion, new channels on Discord are available to share your feedback:

Have feedback or If you want to share your opinion? Share them in #feedback.

Have fun!