Welcome to Ardent: Rise!

 

This game is currently a prototype and is entirely self-funded. This means that while certain systems such as Multi-Player, Combat, Quests, Loot, and Boss Encounters are all available, there will be bugs and a lack of quality of life / polish.

 

Other systems such as Sound, VFX, Skills, Professions, full Path/Affinity implementations are incomplete but being worked on.

 

See below for latest updates. To see the full list of updates, please visit playardent.com/game-update-log.

 

October 7, 2026

-Void Assassin has a new ability: Lacuna
-Lacuna slips the assassin into the void dimension making them nearly imperceptible to enemies for a period of time. When used with Void Reap, it casts Void Reave instead.

-Void Reave pulls the target of your Void Reap into the void dimension with you, causing both of you to not be targetable (damaged or healed) by players or enemies for a period of time. While Void Reave is active, the Void Assassin becomes more powerful against their forced-duel opponent.

-Heart of Nature now targets the casting druid if no friendly target is selected

 

September 17, 2026

-Introduced an incapacitate state for enemies so now enemies can be stunned, unable to move or take action

-Added Armor as a base stat for People types in the game so that bosses can have armor; Thauldrak, Astryx, and Vaelstryx now have armor which reduces the damage they take

-The in-game combat log visualizer has been re-designed and greatly improved to help with both player gameplay, debugging, and tuning. There are now 4 topline items sortable by Player and Enemy: Damage Done, Healing Done, Damage Taken, and Healing Taken. You can drill down into characters, abilities, and again into sources, where appropriate

-Warrior Force: Order, Crownbreaker ability now accurately stuns enemies caught in its wake

-Warrior Force: Flow, Crownbreaker ability now damages bosses for 300% of damage, up from 200%

-Warrior Force: Flow, Hammerfall ability now reduces cooldown of Bloodiron by 5 seconds, up from 2 seconds
-Fixed issue with casting animation while moving was not moving the character’s legs

 

September 7, 2026

-The scene has a “welcome splash” image introducing new players to what’s in the game

-The Main Menu - Affinity screen has tooltips for the roles and abilities that provides a brief description, giving players a glimpse of the Affinity’s playstyle

-Warrior’s Force: Flow now provides a movement speed increase when not in combat

-Introduced a buff called Siege Engine for the War Mage, which makes their next Siege instant cast

-Ruinfall DoT recasts extend continuity of the original DoT

-Fracture now heals the casting Assassin based on number of players in the group and number of Madness stacks on the target

-Siege now heals the casting Mage based on the number of players in the group

-You can spawn training dummies in the game for testing abilities and rotations

-Fixed bug where player movement sounds were close no matter how far the other players are

-Fixed bug with Hammerfall that the main damage component was not firing when in Dynamic target mode

 

August 27, 2026

-Adjusted the Rogue Elements boss encounter mechanics and the timing of Ulnar Shock has been adjusted to be 30 second after Crystalline Shell is recast

-Rogue Elements encounter now ends with a chest that spawns to give loot rather than looting Thauldrak directly

-There are now additional commands in the game for admin controls to teleport, set health, and other functions

-Condensed all of the in-game sub-menus into a tabbed menu that contains all options in window

-Dynamic targeting is now the default value instead of hard tab target

-The lighting for “The Fall of Seljin’s Honor” dungeon is now brighter overall

-Warbrand now has a chance to give the casting mage the Siege Engine status effect, making their next Siege instant cast and do more damage

-Verdict of the Grove cooldown has been reduced and it’s heal capability has been increased

-Dragon’s Blood Resin HoT ticks that crit now grant the casting druid mana back

-Dragon’s Blood Resin now has a 2% dmg reduction per stack, up from 1%

-The Druid wolf form speed increase now 50% up from 30%

-Fixed major bug with client targeting where the targeting UI would lose the active target for clients

-Fixed bug where the boss encounter wasn’t ending combat state for players

-Fixed bug where cosmetic slot items were not displaying for client players

-Fixed bug with projectile collision height with the Rogue Elements bosses

-Fixed bug where exiting the keybinding window while actively editing a keybind freezed all the abilities

-Fixed bug with Heart of Nature where overhealing was triggering pop up values even when no healing was occurring

 

July 28, 2026

-Audio has been enabled by default! The audio options in the main menu are now “on” by default and many of the game's movements, abilities, UI elements and ambience now have sounds implemented. There is only a single volume slider for all audio at the moment, but more granular controls are coming soon. Additionally audio options can be controlled from within the game world by clicking the “Audio” button on the bottom left of the game’s UI
-Dynamic Targeting: Action + Tab! This is now an option in the game. When you enable this, soft targets are selected based on several factors (camera and player facing direction, distance, and other inputs) and ability use is automatically targeted at your soft target unless a hard click-to-target is selected. This is one step towards the more dynamic combat implementation for Ardent that is on the prototype roadmap

-Hover to target for abilities has been implemented! In addition to the Dynamic Targeting added to the game, you can now hover your cursor over any member of your party and cast an ability that can affect them (typically only healing abilities)

-The character portrait and party grid are now moveable. You can mouse over either of them, click the lock icon, drag the UI components anywhere on the screen and lock them into place

-Enemy ability sounds have been added into the game: Each of the Seljin’s bandit’s 4 Paths have an associated sound for their abilities. Boss encounter sounds are still in the works

-The character and party grid health bars have been reduced in size to reduce overall footprint. These are still place holder UI elements, a proper first draft is still in the works
-The boss health values for the Rogue Elements encounter have been updated. Additionally Thauldrak is now affected by a new debuff called Exposed Mantle which increases damage taken by 300% which becomes active when Crystalline Shell breaks

-The damage and healing visualizer now has a DPS/HPS visual, additionally the click through to see individual ability outputs now has an associated ability icon to help grasp rows easier

-Avatar of Ruin duration is now 15 seconds, up from 12 seconds

-Ruinfall splash now does 35% splash damage to nearby targets, down from 50%

-Siege now hits up to 3 nearby targets for 28% of the damage done to the primary target

-Warbrand damage has been slightly increased

-Shatterpulse damage has been slightly decreased

-Mindrend cost has been reduced

-Fixed bug where player weapons would sheath after death

-Fixed bug where depspawned targets would sometimes not clear selected target UI

 

July 3, 2026

-Reduced Crownbreaker initial damage and DOT damage

-Reduced chance for Fate:Crownbreaker to instantly kill Crownbreaker targets

-Increased duration of Shatterpulse and reduced its cooldown; Shatterpulse also has a chance to apply Madness on every tick now

-Fixed bug with Fracture where it wasn’t taking into account Madness stacks

-Fracture damage multipliers have been re-worked

-Fracture applies 25% of damage done to up to 2 nearby targets

-Tendrils damage has been increased

-Increased Breach cooldown and damage

-Breach now refreshes Warbrand on the target its cast on as well as other nearby targets and does even more damage to Warbrand targets

-Siege’s damage is increased and chance to reset the Breach cooldown has been increased

-Cataclysm damage has been increased

-Calamity abilities now do more damage on Warbrand targets

 

June 25, 2026

-Fixed bug where Keybind static values were not correct

-Fixed bug with Druid Wolf form movement on floating platforms

-Fixed bug with Options > Controls where some controls had out of date keys listed

 

June 24, 2026

-Keybinds introduced along with standardized ability bars and modular UI based on affinity. You can now set custom keys for your abilities.

-Improved the targeting circle so it’s no longer a 3D object but a projected cast with a facing arrow so you know which direction a target is facing

-Finished VFX for enemy shaman healing

-Crownbreaker cone of damage and VFX now always points forward from the warrior rather than tracking an enemy

-Warrior “Forces” now behave like standard abilities casting status effects so you have an effect indicator for which force you are channeling

-Ruins platform 2 now moves further in its cycle allowing for jump to platform 3 to be easier

-Fixed bug where quest turn in dialogue was not available

 

June 20, 2026

-Entire Queen of Lions forest ruins scene has been added: Has a floating platform simple puzzle, Queen of Lions gravestone interaction, and zone wide buff called Song of the Silence has been implemented if you get access to the gravestone and trigger the buff. The puzzle is a simple one but an indication of the “not-just-combat” systems we want to implement in the full game

-Greatly improved navmesh in the Floating Islands: Enemies can now easily traverse rope bridges allowing for combat throughout the islands and two new enemy groups have been added on the islands themselves

-Optimization pass completed: The prototype itself isn’t super well optimized, the focus has been on adding the basics of the limited vertical slice. However this pass has reduced millions of tris, shadow casters, and improved FPS through better use of LOD, camera management, and other solutions. As we continue to build out this scene, these practices should help keep the prototype playable

-Improved the dialogue system that was previously implemented to be properly scalable and cast effects in addition to providing quest management. The system will be expanded again once “Skills” are implemented into the prototype but for now it’s become very plug and play and expandable. 

 

June 2, 2026

-Druid wolf form has been added! You can now cast “Aspect: Amaroq” to gain wolf form from the legendary wolf Amaroq, gaining movement speed. The form is removed if you enter combat. This will help unlock mounts!

-Greatly improved combat performance - ability processing on the server went from 1.75 seconds to less than 0.14 seconds. 

-Fixed bug with Conquest charge animation for clients

-Fixed bug with cast-time abilities not canceling properly

-Fixed bug with Heart of Nature and Blessing of Nature not applying properly

-Fixed bug with Grove Canopy spawning with single click

 

May 25, 2026

-Warrior Attrition ability is updated. It is now called Conquest, and the ability now charges towards your target, doing damage and leaving a DOT on all enemies in a short radius. The ability also generates Willpower.

-Added in a Discord button on the main menu

-Fixed bug where enemy movement speed was not set correctly; they mostly move faster now

-Fixed bug with warrior Summoned ability where it was not applying the “taunt” properly

 

May 22, 2026

-All ability tooltips have been redesigned to now show live values! You’ll see the current range of damage an ability can do, what it costs, how long a DOT/HOT lasts and it’s all now completely data driven using your live stats.

-Rage now regens slightly while engaged in combat

-Fixed major bug with DOTs not doing damage properly

-Fixed bug with join game timeout disconnects

-Fixed bug where certain Warrior abilities were not providing the right status effects based on description

 

May 14, 2026

-Major improvements to player armor shaders with better visibility of armor designs and color especially in shadows. Seriously the armor and player models look way better now.

-All player armor items now have custom Ardent artwork as sprites and are visible in the character screen

-Area looting: Looting one enemy now loots all eligible enemies within a short radius

-Updated quest text for The Crystal Method

-Removed in-world quest offers; everything is offered through NPCs now

-Refactor of dialogue system to simplify interactions and improve performance

-Fixed bug with Ruinfall ability not setting DOT correctly

-Fixed bug with DOTs causing auto-attack to restart when player wants to cancel combat

-Fixed bug with GCD and cooldown ability masks not registering properly in some cases

-Fixed bug with cosmetic Viosi wings placement on some player models

 

May 5, 2026

-NPCs and Dialogue Systems are now in the game! You can talk with Reve Ashgaithe and Eastlocke Guard Keldrath, as they and Eastlocke Guard Tennyso have recently escaped from the Sel’jins bandits. The dialogue system is extensible, can store decision state, offers “Lore” and “Quest” response types and provides the two available quests that were previously made available on zone in.

-Quests now have a UI visual indicator when accepted or completed and the NPCs that provide and complete quests have a visible marker above their heads in the game world.

-Enemies now despawn after being looted

 

February 10, 2026

-Multiplayer hosting is no longer gated behind a password. Anyone can now host a game.

-Improved enemy pathing in groups

-Fixed several bugs with abilities, chat console, visual player details

 

February 3, 2026

-Audio is being implemented! Both in-world and UI audio is being implemented, but the effort is just getting started so for now, the audio is off by default. You can change this in the Main Menu under “Audio Options”. Just know that there are no built-in audio controls for volume and sounds will be hit and miss with placeholders for a while

-Added in blocked damage amount visibility in log

-Adjusted player spawn position so it’s more aligned with the initial path and camera angles center behind player

-Fixed bug with ensuring players stay grounded on steeper inclines

-Fixed bug with ability VFX spawn positions

-Fixed bug with “Rogue Elements” boss encounter where the encounter wasn’t resetting properly upon wipe

-Fixed bug with animation mis-match across clients

 

January 26, 2026

-Updated UI visuals and added in a Controls log in the Options screen

-Updated some ability descriptions for accuracy

 

January 25, 2026

-Lootable chests are placed throughout Seljin’s Honor dungeon now, with a very rare chance to get cosmetic crystal wings

-Fixed bug with Rogue Elements boss encounter where barriers were always on

-Fixed bug with client-side UI visuals for abilities were not displaying correctly

-Added “Backspace” to hide UI for screenshots

-Added images for icons of some in-game items

 

January 23, 2026

-Fixed UI scaling issues and updated some visuals for the character selection process

-Fixed bug with sheath/unsheath ability

-Fixed bug with health regen after death/revive

-Fixed bug where Seljin’s Warrior would not apply bleed effect if reset

 

January 21, 2026

-Bug fix - Rogue Elements boss encounter no longer incorrectly targets the non-highest threat player

-Bug fix - Rogue Elements boss encounter fight barriers now correctly stop all participants from leaving an active encounter

-Bug fix - Clients in multi-player now correctly receive quest rewards and “Items console” records transaction

-Bug fix - Floating island visuals so that they spawn in advance of players encountering them (previously this would show up as empty terrain until the player was nearly on top of it)

-Bug fix - Updated incorrect character select details and visual components

-Added threat into Damage Visualizer. This is temporary. The visualizer will be re-worked to show healing and threat will be rendered as visual bars vs the text that is now

-Player characters now have Sheathed and Unsheathed weapon visuals (dynamic in and out of combat, can be triggered manually by pressing Z)

 

January 18, 2026

-Damage by source is now in the game! You can see in the Combat chat a full log of all combat actions. You can also see a breakdown of the damage by source visualization by clicking your name in the damage visualizer

-Void Assassin and War Mage abilities have been adjusted (based on the above implementation which has greatly helped tuning)

 

January 16, 2026

-Players now get a respawn option when they die outside of boss encounter combat

-VFX implemented for enemies that can be looted

-Enemies combat kite range is now increased, and based on primary threat target. A grace period has been added for player targets that temporarily draw high threat

-Improved predictive cast logic, especially for abilities with cast time

-Updated UI experience with character, options, and chat windows to be more intuitive

-Fixed bugs with predictive cast; Fracture + Shatter Trance ability where Madness stacks were being consumed

 

January 10, 2026

-Game difficulty scaling options introduced! “Scale by Player Count”: Scales enemy health and damage by number of players in the dungeon. “Full Trinity-based”: Enemies and damage at full, for Protector, Restorer, Destroyer role based combat. This setting can be changed in the Options menu

-Chat console now has General, Items, and Combat Log panels; Combat Log is still WIP

-Chat intro message now helps people understand the chat system and how you can join the Ardent Discord server to provide feedback

-Updated “Rogue Elements” boss encounter with proper status effect icons

-Fixed bugs with health regen and quests

 

January 4, 2026

-Predictive combat implemented! A big update to help reduce lag for clients connected to a host player. Targeting and abilities now use client side early validation and update UI and animations to reduce the “lag” feeling when targeting or pushing a button. Still some improvements needed here but much better than before

-You can now see other players on the minimap

-Inventory updated to 30 slots up from 20

-Improved ability button masking to show resource restricted, cooldown, global cooldown accurately

-Fixed bugs with War Mage, quests, and ability validation

 

December 30, 2025

-Druid now has Verdict of the Grove ability: Heals or damages based on target. If the target has Dragon’s Blood Resin, will spread the effect to all targets

-Druid heals now auto-target the casting druid if no target is selected

-Warrior now has Summoned ability: taunts an enemy forcing it to attack the warrior for 8 seconds

-Warrior now has Attrition ability: an AOE attack that leaves a DOT and slows enemies for 8 seconds

-Fixed bugs related to Rogue Elements boss encounter, abilities, quests, VFX, and health regen

 

December 25, 2025

-The Mage path has been added to the game! The Mage Path + Destroyer Personality is the War Mage affinity. A long range attacker that uses both Havoc and Calamity on the battlefield to destroy their enemies.

-The Sovereign Warrior armor Armanthian Warguard armor set visuals have been added into the game. While the data for this armor was always implemented, the visuals are finally within the game.

 

December 14, 2025

-Main Menu game update log added

-Casting bar added to Game UI HUD (this already existed in-world above enemies)

-General status effect VFX updates

 

December 7, 2025

The “Rogue Elements” boss encounter has been implemented! Including capability for cosmetic loot equipment and visuals. The boss drops Crystal Wings cosmetics for your character to equip. 

 

November 8, 2025

Creatures have been introduced into the game! You can find little lady bugs throughout the scene. This may seem like a small update but it enables other updates such as non-human combatants and boss encounters.

November 3, 2025

Quests and Rewards as well as Loot, Inventory, and Equipping Items are all now possible! There are two quests and one quest gives you a guaranteed upgrade item!

 

October 7, 2025

The first iteration of Ardent: Rise prototype is now available on Steam! This comes with multi-player capability, combat, three Paths (Warrior, Assassin, Druid) including custom armor for the Assassin and Druid, and a beautiful custom scene to explore. Currently Steam Keys are by invite only through the game’s Discord.