• We're still hard at work to track down the crashes on texture loading. Progress has been made. We hope to handle it for the next patch but it might take a while longer
  
• Trojan/antivirus issues: we'd like to reassure you that this is a false positive, we're looking at a potential solution that will eliminate the problem for good. We'll let you know once we're further in the process. This may popup again after this hotfix. Apologies if it does, windows machine learning really doesn't like us
  
• And lots more issues from everyones bug reports. Some will land in 1.0, more critical ones will be pushed in hotfixes ASAP

now off to the changes

• The fireplace should no longer be part of the international space programs experiments on instantaneous travel (death and unexpected movement upon exiting fireplace)
  
• Another fix for duels locking the player in dialogues forcing game close. Summons have been sternly reprimanded
  
• Some corrupted saves should now be available again so take a look if your case was handled. We have a bunch more on our list for fixes in future patches

• Settings
  - Fixed movement keybind overrides being reset upon game restart
  - Fixed Steam Input messing with PlayStation DualSense inventory opening
  - You can now set your target FPS with vsync on
  
• Mages attended a required maths class. The pain was unbearable. Power In Swiftness talent now correctly adds magic power based on movement speed above 100% instead of counting the base movement speed as well.

• The game will now only call an external platform for deciding your default graphics settings once, after save wipe, instead of on every launch.
  
• Fixed some audio leaks that in rare cases caused the game to stall
  
• Fixed a rare io exception when loading save files
  
• A rare case where buttons became uninteractable should no longer occur
  
• Credits have been updated
  
• Added lots of missing translations for:
  - Dialogue with Hob in Sunken Village - all supported languages
  - Prologue readables - Japanese & Czech
  - Readables that can be found in the Horns of the South region - all supported languages
  - Missing "technical" translations - Japanese & Czech

Before we get to the point of this post, a small intro.

We launched the 0.9 update 1 week ago, and let us tell you: what a blast it was! Seeing you enjoy the new stuff made all the hard work double worth it. :D

Thank you SO MUCH for playing, feedbacking, reporting bugs, and discussing the game so extensively. We’re also very sorry for the technical issues some of you encounter (yes engine crashes, talking about you). We’re now sitting down and trying to get those out of the game; you can expect smaller or bigger hotfixes for the current game version. We’re also polishing the upcoming Act 2 & Act 3 zones at the same time. The next 2-3 months will be quite a gamedev ride, but we’re buckled up and ready. It will be worth it! :D

Now, going back to the main topic…

You heard it right! Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is receiving its...

Some of you might know that, but a huge part of Awaken Realms is about making and publishing board games! The digital Tainted Grail universe itself originated from the tabletop game we created.

We wanted to stay #loyal to our roots, so as proper nerds… we prepared a bad-ass Collector’s Edition for the game, full of cool Tainted Grail-branded merch! There’s also a Deluxe Edition; more info below!

So, here’s the overview look at the Collector’s Edition:
Now, let’s dive deeper and take a closer look at every part of the box!

The Once and Future King has come back from the dead, so powerful that he’s unfit to be called human! Immortalized as an epic, 37 cm-tall, painted statue, suited in full armor and wielding his legendary Excalibur, Arthur Pendragon is celebrating yet another battle won. And there are many, many more to come…

Sized at 800 x 300 mm, this high-quality neoprene mat will be your daily gaming companion. Its artwork represents the in-game Avalon maps, so you will never get lost when exploring the open world!

A premium, hard-cover book, with 104 pages of stunning, hand-crafted artwork, straight from the gloomy world of Avalon. The best tool to get you immersed in the visuals and mood of Tainted Grail.

Something kingworthy to decorate your room with: a premium-quality, 420 x 300 mm metal poster, featuring nothing less than the royal sarcophagus. Here lie the remains of Arthur Pendragon. Well, at least they used to…

A sleek and stylish steel case, crafted to serve as an exceptional canvas for the game’s atmospheric artwork. A physical disk is not included! Instead, you can store your love letters inside.

Whether you need a place to write all your in-game notes, save a potion recipe for later, or inscribe your favorite curse, this soft-cover 210 x 148 mm notebook will always be at your hand!

A small yet powerful addition to your collection, featuring the Mistbearer: one of the many Tainted Grail’s powerful bosses. Just don’t get lost in all the mist! Better stick him to your fridge to stay safe.

Avalon’s basic trading currency. Alternatively, you can just flip it and decide someone’s fate, with a fairly high chance for success :D

As mentioned, there’s also the Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon Deluxe Edition! This version is a smaller package, consisting only of the game’s Artbook and Steelbook.


Apart from the physical stuff, each edition comes with a digital code (key) for a platform of your choice:

• PC (Steam): delivered via email, within 3 days of placing the order; you can activate the key and play Early Access right away, or wait for 1.0
  
• Console (PS5 or Xbox X/S): delivered via email, on the game’s 1.0 release, planned for May/June 2025

Everything can be found on our Gamefound page: GAMEFOUND LINK[gamefound.com]
The pre-sales are open… NOW!

Stay safe, travelers, and stay tuned for more info about Tainted Grail!

Questline / Awaken Realms

Join our Discord server: https://discord.com/invite/Hn5zJYV
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1466060/Tainted_Grail_The_Fall_of_Avalon/

First of all, we wanted to thank you ALL for such a warm welcome of 0.9! We are so extremely happy you guys enjoy our game that it is hard to put to words. This makes all the hard work worth it ;)

Now, we know there are a bunch of issues and problems and we are working hard on them - today we got a first patch for you fixing some of the problems.
We are also sharing some known issues that we are currently working on.

So, without further ado - hot fix 0.9b

• The sketchbook sketches will no longer wipe after exiting the game. Sorry!
  
• We have improved their visuals as well
  
• Seacoast mansion should no longer be corrupted after progressing story
  
• Entering duels while having recently dead summons will no longer lock the player forcing the exit of the game
  
• Final story cutscenes should now correctly trigger instead of hanging on a black screen
  
• Prologue mini bosses will no longer lock up in their starting spots/animations in certain scenarios

• crashes mostly on scene changes and inventory opening
  - This is our highest priority but a fix unfortunately takes time
  
• screen colors changing until entering inventory
  - make sure to quick save F5 when this happens as it often results in a crash later
  - we'd like to know how common this issue is.
  
• resetting of movement direction keys on exiting game: a fix is being worked on
  
• steam input messing with playstation dualsense inventory opening: a fix is being worked on but as a temporary fix we suggest you disable the feature as it limits the controllers features

So… this is IT! Today we bring you the biggest and most important update ever (other than the upcoming 1.0 version, obviously :D). Let us start with something AWESOME!

Please check out the official Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon Cinematic Trailer (created by Unit Image, the studio behind the Elden Ring and Baldur’s Gate 3 cinematic trailers)!

(Song credits - Danheim & Gealdýr - Ymir)

We also have a new, shiny gameplay trailer for the game!
(with a great soundtrack by Dzivia; https://www.youtube.com/@Dzivia)

We would really appreciate it if you could share those two trailers around! This is the final push for Tainted Grail. We spent the last 4+ years working on this game; much of it together with you. Now that the game will launch very soon, we want to make sure as many people as possible will learn about it!

Okay! Now, let's learn more about patch 0.9! *breathe in, breathe out* :D

Today, we’re launching the final, public patch to the game that is giving you access to the almost-final prologue and Act 1 (~20 hours of the game).

This includes full English voiceovers and text translation to the following languages*:

• English
  
• Czech
  
• Italian
  
• Japanese
  
• Polish
  
• Brazilian Portuguese
  
• Russian
  
• Spanish
  
• Simplified Chinese
  
• Traditional Chinese
  
• French
  
• German

*At the premiere of the patch, there might be some readable and journal entry translations missing (they will be added in 2-3 weeks)

Ha, great question!

Patch 0.9 is pretty much *almost final* version of Prologue and Act 1. You can expect final quality—BUT there still might be some bugs and problems here and there (please send us a bug report if you find anything!)

If you are wondering if anything significant changed since the last patch… yup! This is almost like a new, shiny game :D Our whole team has worked tirelessly to get to this point and the game is looking and most importantly playing AMAZING!

Once again, pretty much every aspect of the game should be better (from slight upgrades to HUGE changes). Below, you can find some examples:

• Completely new prologue, with 2 new mini-bosses, many more NPCs, and new content to discover
  
• Much more content in Act 1 (quests, dungeons, enemies, loot)
  
• New character creation
  
• Revamped & upgraded crafting (blacksmithing, alchemy, cooking)
  
• Revamped magic (much more dynamic, fluid, and satisfying)
  
• Totally revamped summoning (summons now block your max mana)
  
• Upgrades in the feeling of close combat
  
• TONS of new items to find and use
  
• Revamped Attributes and Skills system (more flexibility for build crafting and more useful perks)
  
• Completely revamped and polished UI
  
• Totally revamped Wyrdnight (new visuals and improved in terms of balance)
  
• New systems: sketchbooks, farming, house, pet
  
• ADDED ROMANCE
  
• Added Photo Mode
  
• Entirely revamped and upgraded gameplay balance, including combat
  
• Added “finisher” moves
  
• Added boss mini cut-scenes
  
• Added TONS of new soundtrack
  
• Overall lighting overhaul in the open world
  
• New, better weather effects
  
• Added a lot of new NPCs and quests
  
• Added shrines in the open world
  
• Added story interactions in the fireplace
  
• Added guilds and their questlines
  
• Added new weapon types: Spears
  
• …and a lot of smaller & bigger things here and there (we could be going for ages :D).

Generally speaking, we’ve been quite busy for the past year and we really poured our hearts and passion into Tainted Grail. We hope it shows in the game itself! And most importantly, our fingers are crossed that you will have A TON of fun in the 0.9 update, and the upcoming 1.0 too!

So without further ado: ENJOY THE NEW PATCH, TRAVELERS!
If you wish to, please spread the word about the game as much as you can! We are super close to the final premiere right now and we want to ensure people will hear about Tainted Grail all over the world.

And obviously, let us know about your feelings & experiences with the new stuff!

IMPORTANT:
Your current saves will be wiped and we will unfortunately have one more wipe with the 1.0 update. We are extremely sorry for that; we do know this is annoying. Keeping those saves would be extremely complicated and we need to prioritize game optimization and bug-fixing for the final version of the game.

But we feel that our game is HIGHLY replayable, both in the many different builds you can create, as well as the branching narrative with multiple quests and endings.

Okay! Now let’s give you a big screenshot dump to convince you to try out the 0.9! :D

Last but not least, a few words from our CEO!

Hey everyone!

I wanted to add a personal note from myself, from the perspective of CEO! After all, this is the most important moment for Tainted Grail! Also something I have been personally working towards for over 11 years now, leading Awaken Realms from our origins as a small 2-man miniature painting studio.

I always felt I have a huge debt of gratitude to pay to the gaming industry - thanks to them I was able to live through one of the most amazing adventures and it definitely helped carry me through my teens. I remember one holiday that I literally spent playing Gothic 2 all-day (with night of the raven expansion) for straight 2 months. BEST HOLIDAY EVER! :D

So creating a similar experience for others was always my dream and a huge passion. Both Questline and Awaken Realms teams are full of people with exactly the same approach. When we are working on a game, we do not start with the excel spreadsheet - but with an idea and tons of passion. Sure, spreadsheets are there to make sure everything accounts for itself - but we know what is most important here.

For the last 7 years I have witnessed how the Questline team developed. Both as a team and every single person individually and I have to say, I am so proud of what we managed to accomplish here! The level of growth is unprecedented and you can just compare when we launched EA to how the game looks today!

Game development is not an easy job, trust me. Sure, it has its moments - but most of the time it’s like building a house during a fire tornado. So yeah, if you want to make it, you need to be forged in that fire :D And I got to say that our team has put in all the heart, sweat, and passion into this crazy ambitious project. A TRUE open world RPG! Something that we only dreamt of doing now is something that we actually will be delivering very, very soon!

I just want to let you all know that this game is a product of an extremely hardworking and passionate team that grew from around 20 to 50 people over the course of development. While I know it’s not perfect and lacks AAA polish, I am EXTREMELY proud of their work!

So today, we are laying on your hands an awesome cinematic trailer, free demo on all platforms (as we believe it is really good practice to give customers a way to test the game before purchase) and a final patch in Early Access.

Thank you so much for being on this journey with us. It was quite a ride and your comments, feedback and goodwill is what kept us going!


Take care and enjoy the 0.9!


Join our Discord server: https://discord.com/invite/Hn5zJYV

Take care, safe travels!
Always yours,
Questline & Awaken Realms team

We’re proudly presenting you this month’s dev update.

Before we start this update (and it will be a wild one! there’s TONS of new progress), we need to share one less-exciting news.

Remember, when in the last update we said, that after patch 0.9 there would be no more save wipes…? Yeah…. so that turned out not to be true, unfortunately.

Most probably, we will still have to save-wipe the game at 1.0. The reason for that is pretty simple—we need our tech team to 100% focus on optimization and Xbox & PlayStation ports. We estimated that keeping save files would be easier, but unfortunately, it turned out to be much more complex at this time. Before the release, we need to make sure that 1.0 is fully technically sound.

We will obviously make it very transparent on the Steam main page, we just wanted to take the time and tell you here too, with our explanation and apologies. We really didn’t want to mislead you, it's just… video game development is… let’s call it “agile” :D Unfortunately, things and plans have to adjust. Sorry for that folks!

Now, for some of the good news: Tainted Grail’s replayability will be very high:

• You can create and execute a lot of different builds
  
• There is A LOT of secrets hidden all around
  
• Your decisions will have big consequences in terms of the storyline

So, if you want to experience 0.9 in all its glory, go for it! We believe you'll still have a great time replaying Act 1 when 1.0 drops. But if you'd rather wait a few extra months for the full experience—that's completely fine too!

IMPORTANT: Last month to get the game at a special, lower Early Access price!
This is the last call to get the game at its current price. Remember that on the 25th of March, the new price will be 45 USD (or regional equivalent).

• NEW language support! Here is a full list of translations that will be coming: English, Czech, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, French, and German.
  
• full Act 1 in 95% of the final quality;
  
• full English voice-over;
  
• about 15-20h of revamped gameplay in Act 1;
  
• NEW free demo!;
  
• and A LOT of surprises ;) We will have a full list next month, once the update goes live!

As always, let’s start with the video overview made by WolfheartFPS:
This month, we’d like to focus on the newest addition to the game: the third and final region, Forlorn Swords. This is actually the first real opportunity to showcase our work. Of course, the region isn’t fully complete yet, but we’d love to give you an early tour of some selected locations.


We already teased it some time ago, and now we’re ready for a more visual showcase! Forlorn Swords is a snowy land home to the wild Dal Riata tribes. As you trek through its frozen peaks, you'll uncover the history, traditions, and long-standing clashes between the Dal Riata and Kamelot (yes, it goes with a “K”). These tribes share a deep bond with the mystical Giants and live in scattered villages throughout the region, with their capital in Mathair Mines—once an old mine, now the hub of their entire culture and ceremonies. Along the way, you will encounter representatives from five different tribes, and will be able to shape their fate!

Now, you’re gonna love this one: meet Qrko, a tiny cute pet that can become your companion for the journey through Avalon! Once found, it will never leave your side! And don’t worry—Qrko is immortal, so you don’t have to worry about smacking him with your two-handed sword when fending off Grindylows. When it comes to interactions, for now, you can:

• pet Qrko;
  
• ask Qrko to perform a trick;
  
• command Qrko to stay in place or follow your lead.

[/b]
[/list]We’re still figuring out different interactions with Qrko, so if you have any ideas, we’re open to suggestions! Let us know in the comments.

We’re introducing a Photo Mode, allowing you to fully appreciate and adore the beautiful armor sets you compose. #FashionGrail at its finest!

However, we want to make this very clear—this is ONLY a Photo Mode, NOT a third-person gameplay option. We want to avoid any misunderstandings on this topic.

Although…

If so, let us know in the comments below! We’re not making any promises, but there’s a chance we’ll add this feature—if not with the 1.0 update, then possibly later through post-launch patches. To make sure it’s worth the effort, we need to hear from you first! :)

Speaking of #FashionGrail, we’ve added several new armor sets, crafted from the remains of enemies—and we believe they’re pretty badass! Name a better way to flex about beating the hell out of your opponents! 😎

Those include:

• the Red Cap crafting armor (“Bloodsoaked”);
  
• the Grindylow crafting armor (“Torn Sinew”);
  
• the Sharg crafting armor (“Ravenous);
  
• the Ice Weaver crafting armor (“Frostwoven”).

As per usual, each month we bring you some new enemies to the table. This time, we’re most excited about the Foredweller, currently available in two variants: the Knight one, and the Warrior one. This guy comes equipped with four active arms, making fights more dynamic and unpredictable.

Gameplay is king, so we’re now working on three gameplay mechanics:

• a revamped throwables system;
  
• a brand-new wand system;
  
• the introduction of Soul Cubes.

[/b]
[/list]To dive a bit deeper…

They are our way of supporting combat against multiple foes, especially for melee-focused builds, as their users tend to get surrounded by enemies quite easily.

Throwables feature a quick-use mechanic. Just put them in the quick-use slots, and you can activate them instantly, just like potions. They serve various purposes, such as dealing damage, applying status effects, creating AoE effects, and providing crowd control. That makes them a great tool for non-magic and/or non-ranged players!

We've also added a ton of new throwables, including:

• the Booming Flare: creates an 8m explosion of light, blinding all targets;
  
• the Breathstealer: enemies hit within a 5m area lose a portion of their max stamina;
  
• the Ephemerate Crystal: banishes the target, making it disappear for a while;
  
• the Flaming Concoction: on impact, covers the area in flammable liquid;
  
• the Orb of Vortex: pulls all targets towards the point of impact;
  
• the Siphon Bomb: restores mana for each enemy hit within its area of impact.

Mechanically, wands work similarly to shields (off-hand items), designed to passively enhance spellcasting rather than being full-fledged weapons. Things worth mentioning about them:

• held in one hand: they usually deal minimal damage but enhance spells cast with the other hand;
  
• no activation required: they don’t consume resources but provide passive buffs;
  
• some wands trigger effects on block, parry, or even attack, always tied to mana and spell power.

Some of the wands that will be available in the game are:

• the Oldtree Staff: when casting spells, you have a % chance to restore half of the spent mana;
  
• the Essence Channeler: blocking regenerates 100% of the elemental damage blocked as mana; attacks regenerate 10% of the damage dealt as mana;
  
• the Hexbounce Wand: blocking deflects projectiles at the cost of 10 mana; parrying deflects and duplicates projectiles for free;
  
• the Unstable Conduit: increases casting speed by 75% but doubles damage received while charging spells.

Soul Cubes function as charge-based artifacts that build up energy through different combat actions like killing enemies, spending mana, and applying elemental status effects. Similarly to wands, they must be held in hand to charge up. Once fully charged, you can unleash powerful effects, ranging from buffs and damage to summoning unique allies.

Some of the new Soul Cubes include:

• the Undying Watch: summons an Undead Camelot Defender for 30s;
  
• the Wailing Gale: summons a tornado, pulling in enemies within a 5m radius;
  
• the Prism of Maelstrom: creates an explosion dealing damage and applying random elemental statuses to all nearby enemies;
  
• the Pyroclast Core: summons a burning rain of fire over an area for 12s.

All these above-mentioned mechanics are still very much work in progress, missing their final visual assets and polish, but they’re functional; take a look at WolfheartFPS’ video to see them in action!

Though the world of Avalon is pretty grim, we're putting a lot of effort into enhancing the game's lighting and post-processing effects; all to create a more immersive and visually polished experience. Right now, the most noticeable changes (between the public version and our in-house dev one) can be seen in Horns of the South region, particularly in the castle and cemetery areas, as well as parts of the open world.

Those were also mentioned before, but they’ve come a long way and have been visually upgraded! Take a peek at the new types of shrines: open-world activities, each offering unique interactions and rewards:

• the Hunting Shrine: use them to offer items related to a specific animal or creature (e.g., deer hides at a deer shrine) in exchange for small permanent stat boosts;
  
• the Druidic Shrine: offering any animal part grants a small amount of experience and restores health;
  
• the Stagfather Shrine: praying at this shrine summons three magical deer, which must be defeated within a time limit. If you succeed, you get rewarded with experience and special crafting materials from the Wyrddeer, used to create unique items (such as a knife, arrows, a shield, or a stew).

To end with, some things that did not fit in the other parts of the update:

• new music incoming: we’re preparing tons of new tracks, so look forward to a fresh and expanded OST (we know you love Tainted Grail music as much as we do!);
  
  
  
• the Ghostly Stag is still wandering around: how did it end up casually exploring the Plains in the first place?!

Thank you for being with us! As always, let us know what you think of all the new & improved stuff. Also, join our Discord to chat and learn more about the game! DISCORD[discord.com]

The 0.9 March update is just around the corner, and we really can’t wait for you to try it.
IT’S GOING…
TO BE…
A BLAST!

Stay safe, Travelers!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1466060/Tainted_Grail_The_Fall_of_Avalon/

Hello, Travelers!

Hope you all had a great holiday season! We certainly did, and after some crazy getting-back-on-track time, we’re now in action, all hands on board. We’ve got some cool news to share about what we’ve been working on recently. As always, there’s tons of more stuff cooking behind the scenes, but here’s a sneak peek at what’s ready (or almost ready) and deserves to be showcased.

As per usual, let’s begin with WoflheartFPS and his video covering all the changes:

And before we get to the new stuff, take a peek at our December development recap (so, basically all the things we mentioned last month!):

Now, let’s get down to business.


We’ve unlocked two new areas in Cuanacht, that both lead to the upcoming Forlorn Swords (the Act 3 main zone):

• The Towers: This area involves new exploration and combat opportunities.
  
  
• The Plains: A wide-open space where you can freely roam on horseback, giving you a break from the more intense parts of the game. Just your regular kind of a “breather area”.
  
  

And don’t worry, these areas aren’t empty. Apart from regular gameplay elements, you might encounter some interesting surprises like:

• The not-yet-determined spirits roaming around
  
• The Tibby boss fight
  
• The Charred Conclave

[/b]
[/list]We’re still testing to see if they fit well in the game, so things might evolve over time.


We’re STILL adding content to the first area. Can’t stop, won’t stop!

• New boss fight: Already teased before, but now it’s official. Meet the Scourge of the Seas, aka the infamous Javy Dones (wink wink). He’ll be the final guardian of one shipwrecked dungeon.

• Recapturing HotS: Some of you found an unfinished feature during our recent 0.8 beta tests—when you defeat a boss on the King’s Road, guards start spawning, and the whole place becomes a bloodbath. Jokes on you, that was just the beginning! Now, after becoming one of the Keepers, you’ll get a new quest to take out additional bandit bosses to reclaim parts of the region, which the Keepers will then populate.

• New Spirituality skills: We’re introducing ~14 new skills to the skill tree to expand your character development options.

• Magic schools: You’ll be able to master the arts of 4 different magic schools. These include Kamelot, Druid, Red Priest, and Wild (Wyrdness), each focusing on different types of spells. Let there be wizardry!
  
• New magic VFX: There are some new spells, and some of the old ones have new visual effects. Needless to say more, just take a look below.
  
  
• Archery overhaul: Everyone’s favorite, right? We’ve added a bunch of new gear for bow lovers, including:
  - 6 new bows
  - 3 new arrow types (also, every arrow in the game was rebalanced and tiered accordingly, especially elemental arrows)
  - 7 new armor pieces for archers
  - 5 new consumables for archers

• New enemy variants, including Ogres (in Cuanacht and Forlorn Swords), Dryads, and the fearsome Fleshtree.

That would be it for today! Thanks for taking the time to get through this development update. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, and stay tuned for future updates. March, and with it the 0.9 release, is getting closer and closer (definitely no pressure at all!).
Join our Discord to chat and learn more about the game! https://discord.com/invite/Hn5zJYV[/url] [b]Stay safe, Travelers![/b] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1466060/Tainted_Grail_The_Fall_of_Avalon/
Stay safe, Travelers!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1466060/Tainted_Grail_The_Fall_of_Avalon/

We’re ready to present you with our December development update! As announced the last time, WolfheartFPS has partnered with us as a pro content creator and prepared yet another overview video for the update’s content. You can watch it here:

The end of the year is coming closer, and our team has been working incredibly hard to wrap up Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon. We’ve got tons of updates to share, but first, let’s lay out our roadmap to 1.0 so you’re fully updated on what’s coming.


We’ve been passionately working on this project for almost 4 years now—including 1.5 years together with you during Early Access. And guess what? We’re REALLY close to the finish line! No pressure... <heavy breathing>

There’s still A LOT to do, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. So, here’s the plan for the final, epic release of the game we all love:

First of all—monthly updates will continue! You can expect development update posts in January, February... and then we’ve got a big surprise coming in March! What’s that, you’re wondering? Well, first we have a confession to make: we lied to you. Not intentionally, obviously, but it turns out we did. And before we end up on the stake, let’s explain.


We recently announced that no more updates will go live before the 1.0. version in Q2 2025. Change of plans. There will be one more major update before the full release. In March 2025, the 0.9 update for Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon will see the light of day!
That’s it. That’s the whole lie. Please forgive us!

This update will include:

• The fully finished and polished Prologue and Act 1 (Horns of the South).
  
• Full English voiceover and additional translation options (more on that in the future).

It will also bring:

• Better optimization
  
• Final game balance
  
• The majority of bugs fixed
  
• 100% of mechanics and UI in place
  
• Fully upgraded visuals
  
• Tons of new dungeons, quests, and side content
  
• And… ROMANCE! :D

One note: this patch will wipe your saves—BUT this will be the last time that happens! From Patch 0.9 onward, your saves should be safe and sound for the final release.

IMPORTANT: Alongside this update, we’ll also change the game’s price to its planned final 1.0 price of 44.99 USD (or regional equivalent). Why the increase? We simply believe that the game's planned scope will be worth the new price.

The full release of Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon is planned for May/June. It will include tons of content:

• All 3 acts of the game, including the main story
  
• An estimated 70–100 hours of content
  
• A vast, branching main storyline
  
• TONS of side quests, activities, dungeons, and more

We’ll drop a full plan for Early Access progression below so you can see it all at a glance.

We’re sharing this news now—3 months in advance—so there’s still time to grab the game at its Early Access price of 29.99 USD. Obviously, if you purchase now, you become a full-fledged owner, and you’ll get the 0.9 update + the full game afterward, at no extra cost.

Before we jump into the new content, just a quick recap of the last development update, featuring new combat changes and a massive Prologue + Act 1 revamp. We’re really happy with the evolution of the game; hope you like it too:

We’re now done with this prolonged intro, so: to the point we go!

Since our last update and beta test, we’ve mostly been fixing what was broken and considered weak by the community. As a result, we don’t have many flashy things to show. However, there are still some major cool things that we’ve managed to add or improve in the game!


You hear that right. We’ve listened, and we’re trying to bring it back. We’re quite happy with the progress, but there’s still a lot left to do. However, we already feel it’s better than before, and that is because…

• … you can now command your minions: After summoning, you can click on an enemy, and your summons will attack whoever you’ve chosen;
  
• … it’s been simplified: Each summon temporarily holds a flat value of your mana; the more max mana you have, the more you can summon. This prevents summon spamming while still allowing the use of other spells. We might change this mechanic in the future, but that’s where we are at the moment.

Everybody dreams of their own place, right? Thankfully, developing a game allows us to tease ourselves a bit and get a house, even if it’s only a bunch of in-engine rendered pixels. I mean, better a bare foot than none.

• Housing: The current in-house version of the game allows you to buy a (prototype) house in the Fishing Village. You still have to be a millionaire to afford the property, but getting there is less harsh than IRL. You can also add and replace various furniture and homeware in the special Decor Mode!
  
• Farming: Works pretty much like Housing, and will also see similar improvements in the future.

Shrines are our new “point-of-interest” type of open-world activities. There are different kinds of shrines you can find:

• Shrine of the Wilds: These depict various animals and offer certain items related to these animals in order to get a one-time boost to your XP, proficiencies, etc. It also offers a new gameplay-related twist!
  
• Druidic Shrines: These will allow you to constantly “feed them” with animal-based crafting components in exchange for a tiny XP boost.
  
• Stagfather Shrines: These start a special event: you get a timer and you need to hunt down animals within the time limit to receive a reward (such as a skill point, etc.).
  
• Memorials: You can find statues of various legendary warriors all over the open world, interacting with them will boost certain proficiencies.

Being a vital part of every RPG, NPCs also deserved our attention. After some adjustments, they feel more natural and are a more integral part of the world.

• Better looks: We’ve improved NPC faces, hair, and beards across the board. Most should look better now (though some surprises may arise due to global changes, we’ll be fixing them later).
  
• More natural movement: NPCs now turn more naturally when you approach them.
  (This one is subtle and may go unnoticed unless you're aware of it. You might just feel something is better without being able to pinpoint exactly what. Previously, you couldn’t talk to NPCs unless you approached them head-on, and even then, they would rotate toward you like robots. This has been improved so their movement appears more natural. We plan to refine this further, but the first iteration of this system is now working.)
  
• Dynamic reactions: Enemies now respond faster when interrupted during “simple interactions” (e.g., sitting).
  (This change addresses enemy interactions. Previously, if enemies were in a “simple interaction” (for example, sitting) and you attacked them, it took them ages to stand up, draw their weapons, notice you, and get into combat. We’ve now implemented a system that handles interruptions and uses prototype animations to make their reactions more dynamic. This is just the first iteration, but we’re pleased with the progress we’ve made.)
  
• Coming Soon™: Enemies will move their lips and show facial reactions in combat. You’ll almost be able to measure their level of hate for you, just by looking at their faces when they bash you down.

Balance, balance, balance… While it’s hard to explain, be sure that balancing the whole experience is still one of our top priorities. The feedback from the recent playtests has been super helpful in that matter (thank you, beta testers!). For example, we’ve fixed some issues with bows since the tests showed we’d nerfed them too much.

We’re now surely moving on to balancing the mid-to-late game areas, starting with Cuanacht.


Let’s be honest: in RPGs, armor is all about fashion. Well, not really, but you get the point. So more not-so-shiny stuff to wear is always welcome.

• New enemy armor sets.
  
• New player armor sets: Over 18 new armor variants, including the Plaguewraith and Children of Morrigan sets. Take a peek:

We hope you like the recently shown new version of the game’s UI! We’re polishing it and adding more options to make the navigation easier and more intuitive.

• Equipment grid categories: This is a huge deal, as we’ve always wanted to implement this feature. Items in your bag are now categorized, e.g. when you select “weapons”, they’ll be sorted into categories like one-handed, two-handed, shields, etc. This system will soon be applied to all other inventory screens, not just your bag, and will be further refined.
  
• Equipment display: The “body” equipment slots are now presented more intuitively.
  
• Character progression & handcrafting menu: We added category artworks for character progression and handcrafting.

Cuanacht is perpetually getting expanded and polished, and the whole area is now even more vast in terms of content.

• Quests: We’ve added 15+ new quests so far. All of them are at various stages of being done (or broken).
  
• Dungeons: A 7+ new ones of those.
  
• New interiors: Previously unavailable areas are now accessible (or will be soon). The work in this field continues.

• Something for later: A new huge dungeon, the Abyss of Sagremor, is in progress. Want a peek?

• New lockpicking minigame models: Simple as that, lockpicking looks better now.
  
• Enemy variants: Some of the old bad guys and their models received new variants that will differ between regions. Also, some completely new bad guys have been added, too. Remember Bonemasks from a few updates before? Their shaman version will be resurrecting the enemies you fell. Ready to get annoyed?

• Enemy animations: We’ve smoothened up some enemy animations, including their idle versions. Some of them are just adorable:

The comments section is yours. Tell us what you think about the newest changes.
We can’t wait enough for March to share the 0.9 update with you! Join the Discord if you want to get in touch more directly: https://discord.com/invite/Hn5zJYV

Stay tuned, stay safe, and good travels!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1466060/Tainted_Grail_The_Fall_of_Avalon/

We’re ready to present another development update for Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon! It’s been a while, though we believe our content showcase will compensate for the wait. But before that, let’s begin with some huge news!

Starting from this dev update, we’ve partnered with one of the most well-known YouTube gaming creators, WolfheartFPS, to help us prepare a video overview for each update until the game leaves early access in the next year! If all goes to plan, those will be released monthly, along with the Steam update posts. His videos will contain exclusive behind-the-scenes, never-before-shown content. That also includes heavily work-in-progress stuff that is subject to change. Wolfheart’s a pro, and he’s done a great job showcasing new additions and tweaks, so just grab yourself a drink and enjoy watching!

And for the written text enjoyers, below’s the update done in the old-school way.

Internally, we’re now in the 0.8 beta phase of the game, and it goes without saying that the game has changed DRASTICALLY, which nearly 500 playtesters have already witnessed during closed tests. The first bits of feedback we collected were very positive, and while there’s still tons of work to be done, it seems we’re headed in the right direction!

Based on your feedback and our analytics, we wanted to address the most important matters. As a result, tons—and we’re not exaggerating—tons of stuff have changed, so not to write a novel-long, let us just point out everything we’ve been working on.

By way of clarification, we’d like to point out that version 0.7 (Quanacht Rebellion) was the last Early Access patch, and the next update will be the full-fledged release: version 1.0. The monthly updates serve as progress reports on the game's development. Additionally, version 0.8 (the one described in this development update) is available only for closed beta testers, who are diligently helping us improve the game with every iteration. However, it will not be publicly available.


TLDR: We’ve overhauled nearly every aspect of gameplay, focusing on making the progression, and the overall experience, more rewarding and fairer.

1. Melee combat: Rebalanced to function seamlessly across all enemy tiers. Weapon damage, stamina cost, and other stats have been fine-tuned.
   
2. Ranged combat: Ranged archetype now requires more investment in skills and better equipment to become a viable playstyle. Achieving the “stealth archer” fantasy will still be possible, but it will require more work.
   
3. Enemy adjustments: Behaviors and animations have been improved, along with a comprehensive rebalance of enemy stats. No more one-taps (excluding special scenarios).
   
4. Skill trees: Dozens of new STR/DEX/END skills have been added, with plans to expand to other trees soon™.
   
5. Attributes and proficiencies: Both were rebalanced, with attributes receiving notable nerfs. Some might even be controversial, so we’re playtesting to get more feedback on that.
   
6. Status effects: These now scale properly, preventing overpowered effects on higher-level enemies.
   
7. Economy overhaul: Gold rewards, item pricing, and loot distribution have been adjusted to provide a more balanced progression.

TLDR: Magic has been completely reimagined for smoother, more dynamic gameplay. Casting spells should also feel more “snappy” and just more fun.

• Casting system: Spells now offer light and heavy casting options, doubling their tactical use.
  
• Mana efficiency: Simply put, you can cast more spells per mana bar.
  
• New spells: 14 rebuilt or entirely new spells are now available, with more on the way.
  
• Summoning temporarily removed: Summon-related issues have been among the most frequently reported. We’re working to resolve AI issues before reintroducing this feature.

TLDR: We’ve made major narrative adjustments and introduced new quests, as well as other open-world content.

• Main storyline: King Arthur has always been the highlight of the game, woven into the lore. Right in the prologue, you’ll now learn from the Once and Future King himself that he is your *SPOILER*. This allows the main storyline to have better pacing and be more flexible/less linear.
  
• New side quests: Around 15 new side quests in the Horns of the South, alongside extensive updates to already-existing quests, including new interactions or dependencies, and bugfixes. Just a few of the new missions will be your typical fetch quests, but let’s be honest: we all need a breather sometimes.
  
• Guilds: Yes, they’ve arrived: the Children of Morrigan (thieves, murderers, bad guys in general), Alchemists, and Stonewardens (tribal blacksmiths). Completing each guild’s storyline will reward you with unique abilities, grant some lore insights, and unlock alternate endings to the main story. Also, more guilds coming soon™.
  
• Expanded world: 10 new dungeons, redesigned zones (the Keep, Prologue, and Jail), and interiors for all houses.
  
• Romance: To the “Romance when?” guy who asks the question under every update post, here’s our response: romance now! A new storyline for Alisa is being made, and she can become your partner as a result.

Nighttime gameplay received significant changes.

• New enemy: The Wyrdstalker is a new terrifying presence during Wyrdnight. Still a work in progress, but in his final version, he’ll be slowly walking towards you, constantly, during the night. Think of him as a literal stalker.
  
• Ethereal Cobweb: We’re changing its properties, and it’s slowly becoming a more integral gameplay element, with future crafting applications planned.

Crafting is now more intuitive and flexible.

• Crafting logic & UI: As non-precise as it sounds, crafting’s been changed so that it… well... makes more sense now. Also, this system’s UI has been rebuilt for clarity and intuitiveness.
  
• Streamlined crafting: Players can now craft anywhere using a Grindstone, without having to talk to the Blacksmith.
  
• Enemy-themed armors: Unlock new gear by completing special quests given by the blacksmith in the Horns of the South. This will become a general theme for all blacksmiths in the game.

Here’s what’s new on the battlefield:

• New enemies: Over 10 new enemy types and revamped bosses, including a completely rebuilt Mistbearer fight.
  
• Gear: Over 50 new armor pieces, more than 10 weapon models, and at least 10 new variants of the currently existing ones to collect.
  
• Duels: This allows to engage in NPC duel-type combat without triggering crimes and other bad consequences. Future updates will expand this further, allowing for proper fight clubs.

We’ve introduced several other, miscellaneous gameplay elements:

• Farming: Long-awaited and ever-wanted, it’s finally in the game. Clean up your gardening tools!
  
• Sketching: Our unique photo mode; lets you create beautiful sketches of the game world.
  
• Fog of war: Maps now hide the yet-unexplored areas for a more immersive experience and fewer spoilers.
  
• Accessibility improvements: Better color coding, UI adjustments, and toggles for enhanced visibility and customization.
  
• General: All houses in Horns of the South now have interiors, NPCs follow a proper day-night cycle, Wyrdnight arrives later, and numerous other small QoL features.
  
• Heavy work-in-progress stuff: Crimes and sneaking mechanics still need great attention. So does the VFX optimization, especially when players are casting lots of spells.

This wraps up our recent work on revamping and polishing Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon. As always, we appreciate and thank you for every piece of feedback provided! Thanks to that, we managed to make some grand changes that are slowly turning the game into a completely new, better experience. And to the nearly 500 beta testers of the 0.8 version: you rock, and it’s hard to express our gratitude for all the help provided!

To end with, just a reminder that apart from the Prologue and Horns of the South revamp, we’re constantly working on the newest, before-announced snowy area: the Forlorn Swords. Stay tuned for more info about that.

Let us know what you think about the changes! And make sure to watch Wolfheart’s video to get a better view of all the newest stuff.

Stay safe, Travelers!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1466060/Tainted_Grail_The_Fall_of_Avalon/

Welcome to our new development update—and buckle up because this one is about to be pretty long and different from other update posts we’ve shared so far!

This time we’d like to delve deep into the abyss of video game optimization and its technicalities—and answer some questions that keep popping up on our Steam forums and our Discord channel.

And yeah, we've tried to make this post as readable as possible for a non-technical audience!

BUT! Before we step into the world of game development, let us start with a HUGE request and an opportunity for those who can't wait for the 1.0 release.

To ensure our work and changes to the game meet your expectations, we're looking for eager beta testers to try out and provide feedback for the revamped tutorial and Horns of the South area! The tests are planned for the end of October. Please note that you will have to own Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon on Steam to participate in the beta test. If you'd like to join and share your opinion, please fill out the form below. For people who will help us with their feedback, we will also have a small secret surprise as a thank you!

Registration form: https://forms.gle/kwEo7TsCNsL2iUiW8

Now, let’s get to the point of the update!

So, first off, our game is made using the Unity engine. Unity is a multipurpose engine that allows people to make pretty much everything—from Web applications, through VR and mobile applications, to PC or console games. It supports both 2D and 3D games, and it’s REALLY popular because getting something, anything, to work is very easy and fast—there are many tools you can use without having to write your own.

However, while built-in Unity systems and tools work well for most use cases, Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon isn’t exactly a standard use case of the Unity engine. Creating an open-world, first-person RPG requires a bit more... customized approach.

A game like Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon poses various complex challenges, like drawing dozens of NPC’s, 150 to 300 thousand instances of assets, and all the logic that actually makes the game work, all at the same time. As you can imagine, these aren’t exactly “standard challenges” for the Unity engine. Or most game engines, for that matter!

So, what we’re constantly doing is adding new sets of customized tools and solutions to Unity in order to make our game run better.

But before we get to these tools and solutions, let’s consider the Magic Formula:


Every gamer knows that a stable 60 fps is the magic number that every game should aim to achieve. We—as developers and gamers ourselves—agree with this sentiment, and we laugh out loud whenever we hear that we can’t spot the difference between 24-30 fps and 60. We can. You can. Everybody does, and 60 fps just FEELS better, period.

However, when you’re working on a video game, especially while you’re trying to make it run better, you quickly stop thinking in frames per second. In development, it is, essentially, a useless number because it’s the outcome, and not the solution.

As a dev, you quickly learn to think in terms of technological “cost” or technological “expenses”. If you were to hear our conversations, you’d hear sentences like “this and that is very expensive” or “no, this will cost too much”, pretty much every single day.

What we mean by that is that we have a certain technological “budget” for stuff that can happen in a single frame of the game, and this budget is our Magic Formula:


This is how much we have to calculate the next game state and render it in order to achieve 60 fps on recommended specs.

As a point of comparison, one blink of a human eye takes 100 milliseconds.

This means that everything that we do on the technical side, the things we’ve already mentioned—like drawing dozens of NPC’s and 150-300 thousand instances of assets, and all the logic that actually makes the game work—needs to happen constantly, within 16,6 milliseconds.

Now, as you can imagine, everything we add to the game has a technological cost. So what we’re constantly doing is an act of balancing: we constantly want to ADD MORE AND MORE STUFF TO THE GAME and MAKE IT BETTER and PRETTIER but at the same time we need to hold our horses and always refer to the magic number—the damned 16,6 ms.

So, with all that out of the way, one last note: whenever we say that “System X gives us 2ms,” it means that we’ve reduced the cost of something by 2 ms. Without that particular system, which in this example gives us 2 ms, we would hit 18,6 ms, and this translates directly to 53 fps instead of 60. And that’s what we don’t want.

• We are continuously working on the optimization of our game.
  
• Since our Early Access release, we have filled the world with many new objects and still managed to improve performance at the same time (the last patch runs at 10-15 fps more than the Early Access release).
  
• Now, only 4 months after our last patch, we have again internally managed to find a few fps more and reduced memory usage with features like Kandra (you can read about them in the rest of this update).
  
• We hope to deliver as good optimization for the final release as possible. It’s a very difficult and tedious process, and we’ll try to bring it closer to you with this post, describing our challenges and biggest accomplishments in this area in the last 2 years.

If you want more information, please read on!


There are three main challenges we face while optimizing Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon.

The main challenge we have on high-end PCs is heavy CPU usage.

This is caused by various CPU-sided calculations—the rendering pipeline, animation system, physics, or game logic. It means that at some point, GPU doesn’t matter anymore, and RTX 4090 won’t do better than RTX 4070 since the bottleneck lies elsewhere—in a single core of the CPU.

Yes, single core—most game engines, Unity included, don’t handle multithreading very well.

The second challenge that we have to keep in mind is RAM+VRAM usage.

It requires good management of textures, models, animations, audio, etc.

The last challenge is not to overwhelm the GPU.

It’s easy to add better effects and shaders, which will work fine on higher-end rigs but totally destroy machines at the opposite end of the spectrum. So we need to make improvements to the places above, and at the same time, we continuously have to watch all other metrics.


First, we have to explain something about the Unity Engine.

The default, basic systems of Unity Engine are called GameObjects and Transforms. You can think of them as containers: they’re used for storing information about space and positions of data that’s required by other systems. This means that plenty of stuff is referring to these basic systems—but, even though they’re very convenient and great for simpler games, it turns out that they are unfortunately very expensive, especially when counted in thousands.

So by not using these two fundamental building blocks, we can improve performance. The issue starts with the fact that many other systems that Unity provides are fully based on them. This means that, without writing our own implementations of many GameObject-based systems, we cannot get rid of this dependency. Obviously we do not have the resources to rewrite everything with our team size, so we need to pick and choose which systems to rewrite and slowly go forward.

In many cases, optimizations force us to rewrite or remove various dependencies on default systems of the Unity Engine and use newer systems that Unity provides (ECS, BRG). We’re very happy whenever we get a new shiny toy from them, and we keep improving our backend to use ANYTHING that we’re given; we’re trying to stay as “current” as possible.

But, sometimes, we have to invent stuff on our own.

And here we finally got to the main part of this post: an explanation and showcase of systems we’ve been working on for the past two years in order to optimize the game.

Some of these systems are already in the game. Others are being written as we type this because, as we’ve said before, we’re CONSTANTLY working on optimization.



You can’t have a dark fantasy game without trees, grass, and other types of vegetation. And obviously, the more of it you want to have in the game, the more expensive it becomes. That’s why we created Leshy—our own, custom way of rendering vegetation. The name comes from Slavic mythology; it’s a tutelary deity of the forests ;)

Non-technical tl;dr ->

• It’s a custom way of rendering all vegetation in-game, and it’s multiple times faster than any other available solution.

Technical:

• At the start of development, we decided to use a store-bought package for displaying vegetation. But, in time, we found that it did not scale well with a rising amount of vegetation types, which we decided we needed. It also relied on outdated systems and methods. And last but not least, packages have poor streaming capabilities, which is very important for the second challenge we mentioned (RAM/VRAM usage).
  
• This forced us to rewrite the runtime part of the system to use the new Unity API: BatchRendererGroup,[docs.unity3d.com] as well as make a translation layer between the asset editor flow and the new runtime implementation.
  
• Now, all vegetation in-game is rendered by our own solution, which manages changing LODs (Level of Detail), loading and unloading assets from memory, culling, etc. It’s multiple times faster than the best solutions offered on the Asset Store or built-in Unity.
  
• The streaming was also fully remade with performance and memory as the main focus.

Leshy gives us about 1-1.5 ms (about 9% of our total budget) and requires under 30MB (RAM+VRAM combined while the old solution required ~500MB) while allowing significantly more species of foliage.


If you played Tainted Grail already, you probably noticed that we have a lot of ROCKS in the game. They’re a part of what’s known as a “static environment”, so, in essence, things that don’t move or don’t change but are constantly there.

The fact that they’re constantly in the background means that they, too, can become expensive because your computer needs to take them into consideration whenever it’s rendering a new frame or whenever you move your character. So even though they’re just there and don’t move and don’t change, they’re costly.

That’s where our custom solution for the static environment comes into play—we called it Medusa because, just as Medusa in Greek mythology used to change people into stone, we use this tool mostly for rocks, and we want to keep them in place :D

Non-technical tl;dr ->

• In open-world games, you will find many assets repeated in hundreds, if not thousands of places. Rotated, scaled, and fit in so many different ways that they blend perfectly with the environment.
  
• Assets that are everywhere in the game and don’t move (like rocks) can be rendered really fast (or in a cheap way), but it requires another big system that makes best use of Unity’s rendering capabilities.

Technical:

• By default, such objects are still quite expensive because of GameObjects and many calculations on the Unity side that can be stripped, knowing their (objects) limitations.
  
• Medusa renderer collects data about such objects, destroys respective GameObjects, and takes care of rendering them by itself, using, again, BatchRendererGroup.
  
• Since they are repetitive, there is no need to continuously stream in and out associated assets. This way, we achieved probably the fastest possible way of rendering that is available in Unity.

Medusa gives us about 1-1.5 ms (about 9% of our total budget).


Now this one is tricky. So we have Leshy for vegetation and Medusa for static objects. That’s all great, but it turns out that in order to be optimized, we needed something similar to them for everything else. That’s why we came up with Drake.

(Why is it called Drake? Mostly because we didn’t want to call it a Dragon because it would be tacky. What does it have to do with Dragons, though? Well, as the main brain behind this system once said: “Dragons guard gold, and this system is gold”.)

Non-technical tl;dr ->

• We already have vegetation and static rocks that build the overall world's static environment. However, to fill it with content and details, we needed another system, called Drake.
  
• So, essentially, it’s very similar to Medusa and Leshy, so we won’t repeat the explanation, but it’s used for other types of objects.

Technical:

• It utilizes Unity ECS and Addressables to manage resources and to render them.
  
• By default, ECS doesn't work with resources and mipmaps streaming, so we needed to implement it in-house.
  
• ECS rendering is slower than Leshy and Medusa but allows for more dynamic operations (Leshy needs to be baked and static as well as Medusa) and gives more flexibility.
  
• Also, streaming is another hit for the CPU, but a big relief for RAM+VRAM.

Drake gives us about 1.5-2 ms (about 12% of our total budget) and is 700MB easier on RAM.

(hierarchical level of detail)

This is another one of our custom solutions, and this time it has no fancy name—just an abbreviation. If you come up with something cool, please let us know in the comments!

In order to understand HLODs, we have to start with LODs.

When you look at an asset in a game from a certain distance, you don’t have to see it in its full quality—it would be VERY expensive to render fully detailed stuff that’s hundreds of meters away. What you’re actually seeing is a particular Level of Detail.

Each asset can have various Levels of Detail (LODs), which change its quality depending on the distance from the player. They should switch seamlessly and should be prepared and setup so that you never notice the change—but taking into consideration how many assets need them, it’s rather tricky and difficult to set it up 100% properly.

And if we take this idea and apply it to the multiple objects that are next to each other, we have Hierarchical Level of Detail, or HLODs. Hierarchies and groups: plenty of stuff dynamically changing its quality depending on how well you can see it at a particular distance.

Non-technical tl;dr ->

• We’re merging objects into bigger objects, and they get their hierarchical level of detail so that everything is even cheaper.
  
• However, we can’t merge objects and simplify these hierarchies at the asset level because it would prolong artists' jobs by the order of hundreds, so it needs to be automatic.

Technical:

• Hierarchical Level of Detail means packing structures in the same areas in hierarchical trees and baking simplified meshes for each node.
  
• When we move away enough, a given node replaces its contents (many little objects) with one big mesh that is significantly cheaper to render.
  
• At the same time, it is cheaper to make visibility calculations for 1-4 objects than for thousands.
  
• The last part is streaming (again); distant objects are less detailed so we can use less detailed (smaller) resources.

HLODs give us about 2 ms (about 12% of our total budget); the number is getting higher as your GPU goes lower spec. (In future releases we will also implement VRAM optimizations based on HLODs; stay tuned.).

giving life to the world

If you’re working on a video game in Unity, you’ll quickly realize that

Animation systems are EXPENSIVE.

Rendering animated characters is EXPENSIVE.

So when we wanted to put some crabs on the beach, we noticed that this, too, needed to be rewritten and optimized on our end.

Non-technical tl;dr ->

• We have created a custom way of animating critters so that a couple of crabs on the beach won’t destroy the game’s fps.

Technical:

• We have baked animations into textures and applied them to skinned mesh in shader (VAT: vertex animation texture); that way we completely bypass Unity’s animation system and SkinnedMeshRenderer.
  
• As a cherry on top, we moved them to ECS, which means other improvements against Unity’s GameObjects flow.

Our custom solution—with a name taken from the novels of Brandon Sanderson—Kandra.

Kandra was a creature that could absorb someone’s bones and skin to impersonate them, and... that’s kind of how it works in our game, too!

This is our newest addition to the game, and it’s a system that’s still being written at this moment, but we’re extremely excited about it because the performance boost is substantial!

Non-technical tl;dr ->

• It renders characters (all NPCs, monsters, etc.) in a way that is cheaper on the CPU side and uses a lot less VRAM than Unity’s default way.
  
• You can think of it as compressing a huge .wav file into an .mp3 :D

Technical:

• That one is very simple, but at the same time, it is very difficult, complex, and technical. So in order not to make this update even longer, let’s say that:
  
• There are certain things that we use, such as skinned meshes (mesh in which every vertex changes its position and other attributes with respect to changes to its skeleton’s bones), blend shapes (deformations that contain displacement of each vertex of the mesh), and clothes culling (which allows us to hide certain parts of the mesh). For various technical reasons, they generate A LOT of data.
  
• There’s also something called Compute Dispatch which is essentially related to the way in which, in certain cases, the CPU transfers data and communicates with the GPU, and both of these operations are SUPER SLOW.
  
• For various technical reasons, Unity forces us to store the same data multiple times, and the data is uncompressed, so the result is high memory consumption as well as insufficient CPU and GPU usage.
  
• Kandra stores this data in a highly compressed version and makes communication and data transfers between CPU and GPU MUCH FASTER.

Results of our internal tests. It shows the cost of rendering 150 NPCs on an empty scene.


We’ve come to a point where we use Unity’s out-of-the-box rendering only for VFXs.

We have our own systems that make better use of Unity’s capabilities for pretty much everything else in the game. This allows us to create an open-world, first-person RPG in Unity with as few loading screens as we managed to.

There are still many things that could be improved, like the animation system, physics, parts of game logic, HLODs setup, streaming is far from perfection (and obviously the assets themselves can be improved), etc.

As we move forward, new things appear, and we have to maintain our systems and take care of new challenges at the same time.

But in the end, you should see major performance boosts with every major patch that we release, and we plan to continue this effort.

• AMD Ryzen 7 3800X—the lower end of the medium bucket
  
• RTX 3080TI—the lower end of the high bucket

That’s it for now! Tell us what you think about those types of technical updates. If you find it interesting, we might share some more details in the future. For now, stay tuned for our upcoming content update. It will be a bit delayed, but we’re sure it’ll be worth the wait!
Stay safe, Travelers!


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1466060/Tainted_Grail_The_Fall_of_Avalon/