- A message from the Devs - 12 August 2026
We owe the community a clear update on where Heartwood and Shadowfang currently stand.Development on Shadowfang has stalled, and we do not currently have a credible release timeline. Working on a project of this scale with a small team of developers and volunteers has presented a multitude of issues including unsustainable development costs that unfortunately, for us, has led to a halt in development.As a result, Heartwood is currently operating in maintenance mode. The game will remain online, but active content development is paused. All earnings for Heartwood will serve only to keep essential services available. We are also not currently planning to run the anniversary or other recurring holiday events.We understand that we allowed far too much time to pass without communicating this clearly. Players were left waiting for Shadowfang without the transparency they deserved, and we are…
- Dev Log #4 – Shadowfang Testing Ahead - 14 March 2026
Shadowfang has continued moving forward over the past weeks, but as development progressed it became clear that the Q1 timeline we previously mentioned isn’t realistic anymore.Rather than rushing the update out in a half-finished state, we’re shifting the plan slightly.The next step will be open testing for Shadowfang. This will let players jump in, break things and help us stress systems and content in ways we simply can’t replicate internally. Shadowfang touches a lot of the game at once. New areas, new mechanics, backend changes and systems that interact with older parts of the game, so testing it with real players will help us make sure everything behaves the way it should.Realistically, if everything goes well, April is a reasonable expectation for open testing to begin. That said, we’re not locking that in as a guarantee. The goal is to release it when it’s ready, not when a date…
- Dev Log #3 – Shadowfang, Bots & Next Steps - 17 January 2026
Quick update time.Recently we added a handful of popular suggestions to the game, several related to guild management and a few smaller QoL improvements (like the game remembering whether you had chat open or closed). Nothing huge, but nice good QoL.Shadowfang is deep into its integration phase. Most of the larger pieces exist and a lot of the current focus is on making them work together as one cohesive update.In parallel we’ve introduced some new systems that make life harder for botters. Nothing flashy we can show screenshots of for obvious reasons but useful groundwork for the future. We will continue to take botting seriously to protect the game and its players.Timeline ClarityWe previously said “Early 2026.” To be more concrete: the target is still **Q1 2026.**What’s NextOnce integration is wrapped up, we move into content finalization, then QA and testing.Dev Logs Going ForwardWe…
- Dev Log #2 – Winterforge Is Live, Back to Shadowfang - 14 December 2025
Winterforge went live yesterday.Thank you to everyone who jumped in immediately, reported issues, shared screenshots and generally turned the game into festive chaos faster than we expected. While Winterforge this year doesn't hold a ton of content, we intentionally want our main focus right now to be Shadowfang. Because we know that's what you're all waiting for.Back to ShadowfangWith Winterforge shipped, we're fully back on Shadowfang.At this stage, Shadowfang is less about experimental groundwork and more about bringing the remaining pieces together:- Systems being polished and tightened up- Content being finalized and integrated properly - Bugs being hunted down- Performance and edge cases being handledThis is the part of development that’s hard to show off but absolutely necessary. A lot of the work happening right now won’t look exciting in screenshots, but it’s what allows the up…
- ❄️ Winterforge is live! ❄️ - 12 December 2025
Holiday jingles can be heard in Heartwood again, as the Winterforge holiday has begun! This year, townsfolk are reporting a brand new pastime sweeping the land... snowball duel mechanics. Challenge your friends and rivals to see who has the best aim. And as for familiar faces… well, a few naughty elves have slipped back into town. Whether they’re here to “help” or just cause mischief is anyone’s guess. Bundle up, jump in, and enjoy the festivities!
- Dev Log #1 - Communication, Shadowfang and Winterforge - 3 December 2025
We’ve been talking internally for a while about how we communicate with the community and the truth is: we haven’t been as transparent as we should have been. Updates often went quiet, features were worked on behind the scenes without much visibility and information mostly came out right before a patch dropped. That's going to change. Dev logs are one of the first steps, small, honest glimpses into what we’re actually working on, even when something isn’t finished yet. No big marketing push, no polished announcement. Just… dev stuff. ShadowfangDuring Shadowfang development many core systems of the game have gotten optimizations and refactors to enable us to do more going forward. One major issue we ran into was performance on the larger Shadowfang map. The old system used massive colliders that were being processed every physics frame, which tanked performance. We’ve now reworked how co…
- Winterforge is here again! - 18 December 2024
Winterforge is here again! As Heartwoodian's prepare for the holiday festivities, the good elves are hard at work producing enough gifts for everyone. Maybe you can lend a helping hand. And... Try not to get too distracted by a certain elf who likes throwing snowballs.
- Patch Notes v0.4.9 - 17 August 2024
Happy One Year Anniversary! - The First Annual Dryad Bloom Festival has begun! A temporary questline and items have been added to celebrate Heartwood's first year in Early Access - Crafting experience bonus added for Magic Recipes - Certain ranged attacks from enemies are no longer homing. Projectile speed increased to compensate - Reduced startup time for Health Regeneration after leaving combat - Additional materials acquired from gathering gear bonuses are now indicated by colored font - Adjusted crafting recipe for the following items: Oppressor, Pillar of Balance, Bone Splinter, Bone Blade, Elder's Crown - New visual effect for moving items in inventory UI - New visual effect for representing damage taken on enemy NPC health bars - Updated font color for Critical Strike, Modified Damage, Enemy Damage - Bonus damage modified by abilities like Freeze or Invisible are now represented…
- Patch Notes v0.4.7 - 9 May 2024
**v0.4.7** Fishing and Cooking have been added as two *new* skills! Alongside these new skills, we have some exciting additions: - Fishing Leaderboard - New crafted gear - New monster drops - New gear with crafting bonuses - New gear with ability perks - New NPCs - New Quests - New gathering nodes - New crafting station for Cooking - New legacy marks - New rare spawn - Nearly 100 new items - 11 new mounts - Visual update in Oakwood, near the Keevah NPC - New tool slots for fishing poles and fish baits - New item type, 'Offerings' - New system to pair with fishing and cooking, 'Shrines' - Overseer and Canis no longer spawn on a timer - Drop rates across the game have been adjusted slightly - Due to the new system for summoning bosses, the drop rates for Overseer and Canis drop have also been tweaked. The amount of time it takes to summon a boss and obtain a rare drop should correlate wit…
- Patch notes v0.4.6 - 1 March 2024
**v0.4.6** Patch 0.4.6 is introducing some exciting new mechanics that we felt could use some more explanation so players may better understand our goals with the update. To help with this, we've broken up the patch notes into a few sections. **PvP** - PvP has been enabled at the Bawlow Arena! - A 'Duel' option has been added to the player inspect UI ----------- **New Abilities** Next up we have some new Abilities. Each spell is class specific, and will replace the base 'Self Heal' at level 10. All healing effects and buffs from these spells will be improved with player levels in an effort to keep soloing more viable throughout the leveling experience - Stone Skin (Warrior) - Heals you and grants an Armor bonus that lasts for 5 seconds - Evasion (Rogue) - Heals you and grants a Dodge bonus that lasts for 5 seconds - Barrier (Mage & Priest) - Heals you and grants a protective Barrier tha…
- Patch notes v0.4.5 - 31 January 2024
Added /age command to check character play time Added 'last seen' for friends and guild members Added a 'Logout' button to character select screen Logout option on Dashboard now takes players to Character Select screen Hat visibility setting saved on logout Mounted status saved on logout Fixed a bug that would cause players to be stuck in guilds even after leaving or being kicked Fixed misc bugs with Leaderboards Fixed a bug that would cause players to get stuck in place when dismounting by casting a spell Fixed a bug that would cause the chat text box to lose focus, allowing hotkeys to function while chat was active Updated channel names in chat channel select dropdown 'Group Loot' used to drop items only for the party member who delivered the killing blow to a monster. Common drops are now cycled through party members in order. Rare and uncommon items are still rolled on Updated Overs…
- Winterforge event(Patch notes for v0.4.4) - 15 December 2023
**v0.4.4** - Winterforge has come to Heartwood! - Added new NPCs for Winterforge holiday event - Players can now destroy items in their inventory - Updated stack splitting option to allow numeric entries - Updates bulk deed creation to allow numeric entries - Fixed an issue that prevented iOS users from interacting with the Bone Mines crystal - Fixed an issue that caused all classes in player inspect UI to show as 'Warrior'
- Patch notes v0.4.3 - 7 December 2023
New system: Deeds! Deeds are used to create larger stacks of items that can be traded between players. Deeds are created and redeemed in the bank. Players can no longer drop items on the ground. (Don't worry, enemies still drop items) New player menu accessible in chat UI: Clicking a player name in the chat window will now open a UI window with social options. Certain features (trade, party) are limited to server or player range Updated Trade UI: Trade UI now indicates more clearly when items and gold have been removed or updated in the trade window. Additionally, a short countdown has been added before trades can be accepted Updated trade request popup to show a timer Trade requests will now disappear if either party declines Updated Player Inspect UI to show player level and class Fixed an issue with muting that allowed players to relog so they could become unmuted Added a command in…
- Patch notes v0.4.1 - 24 October 2023
**v0.4.1** - Added the Pumpkin Festival! - Pumpkin bags now drop from all enemies - Pumpkin gear - Event mount - Event dye - Players can now progress to higher tier trees with woodcutting - Trees only drop their specific type of logs now - Axes renamed to match the metal blade instead of the wooden hilt - Wood can now be crafted into coal at blacksmith anvils - Crafting levels for various pieces of gear were adjusted to homogenize all skills. Carpentry, Smithing, Leatherworking, Tailoring are now a little more uniform when crafting base materials and gear - Attacks from enemies no longer affect players outside of party/target - Enemy ranged attacks updated: Basic attacks from ranged enemies can no longer be avoided from player movement. Telegraphed and special attacks will still be avoidable - Mage Freeze duration reduced to 3 seconds - Reduced damage modifier for Priest's Purify spell…
- The Bone Mines are out! - 4 October 2023
**v0.4.0** - New region: Bone Mines - New region: Sheep Fields - In-game leaderboards - 4 new class abilities - New enemies - Two new bosses - New armors - New weapons - New mounts - New legacy marks - New crafting recipes - New ore nodes and tree types - New quest lines for the Bone Mines - New merchant and quest NPCs - New dye - Doubled stack size for bank slots - Added purchaseable bank tabs - A new group of forest critters have found homes in woodcutting trees! - Added an 'Abilities' UI to the dashboard. Ability descriptions and cooldowns can be viewed here. Values are updated depending on gear/stats/level - Crafting UI and recipes now show skill level requirements - Updated controls for mobile - New control options for mobile: Includes custom button positioning, resizing, aim assist indicators - Added an option for mobile to allow original controls style - Added new hotkeys for loo…
- Patch notes v0.3.0 - 30 August 2023
- Improved performance for full map overview - Added the ability to toggle helms on player UI - Updated player inspection to show player gear - Updated player inspection to view stats on player gear - Item stats are now visible on quest UI - Improved damage reduction from armor - Lowered the cooldown of Thousand Knives - Increased damage for Shuriken Storm - Increased damage for Freeze - Increased damage for Hellfire - Increased detonation radius of Purify - Increased attack ranges on enemies - Reduced number of Soft Hides required for Fur Trapper quest - Drop rates improved for several enemies - Gems now display properly in inventory - Reduced the cost of talent point reset to from 1000g to 500g - Need/Greed roll is now activated for Uncommon items - Added the option to display player names in settings UI - Added the option to decline all invites in settings UI - Added new chat command…
- The Bone Mines - 25 August 2023
https://i.imgur.com/qandSva.png We can't believe it, we made it a whole week without dying from lack of sleep! Thank you all for sticking with us through these early bug fixes. Things are starting to smooth out rapidly, and we have a lot more optimizations, bug fixes, and quality of life improvements to come. (Including you poor ranged players on mobile, don't worry we haven't forgotten about you.) Here are some fun stats for all you number addicts. Total characters: 58487 Total accounts: 42755 Peak online players: 1529 Guilds made: 233 Total Discord members: 8148 This might also be a good time to let you guys know a little more about the team. Davro: Programmer/Designer JerryPie: Artist/Designer Warby: Audio/Designer ...Along with a few other secret helpers, and amazing mod team. That said, hang in there with us moving forward because we are a small core group of 3 developers. Well, an…
- Patch notes v0.2.18 - 25 August 2023
Added Rusty Key for opening Rusty Lockboxes. Increased radius of Mage's Hellfire. Reduced makeover costs substantially. Several optimizations to improve performance on mobile devices. Added an option to set FPS on mobile. Elder Rack item name changed to Stag Rack. Hunter's Broadsword rarity updated from Common to Uncommon. Updated Plush Leather recipe to require 2x Rodent pelt and 1 Soft Hide. Fixed a visual bug with Mining Helmet and Lost Hunter's Sack. Added current world to the dashboard. World name now shows when logging in from character select. Updated player list to show world name next to player names. Adjusted party proximity distance. Various bug fixes for trading. Fixed several issues with guild UI. Fixed an issue with Need/Greed UI that were causing them to not display properly. Fixed an issue for the bank UI where mobile players were not able to stack items within the bank.…
- Patch notes for August 21st - 22 August 2023
Increased stack size per slot in bank substantially. Increased spawn rate for Stags due to player density. Fixed an issue with inventory that wouldn't allow items to continue stacking when inventory was full. Fixed an issue that caused mounts and cosmetics to unequip on logout. Fixed an issue where you could continue mining while dead. Fixed several issues with crafting. Updated idle timeouts for Patreon members. Iron & copper spawns adjusted to match the level zone. Fixed an issue that would cause a client crash when hovering over certain items on the ground. Fixed an issue where hats and helmets would not render properly when using AMD graphics. (pink square bug) Fixed a graphical issue with Mage's Hellfire spell. Fixed several issues with mount visuals. Fixed issues with pinging worlds on login. Fixed an issue with crafting UI that would cause skill levels to display incorrectly. Fix…
