Greetings, adventurers!

The past weeks have been hectic, with a lot of work being done on the project. We want to share information about some additions and changes made during the development.

In Dragon Ruins, you would fight monster groups one by one, and you did the same in Dragon Ruins II, except with the addition of damage types and status effects. Repeating the same thing felt like a missed opportunity, so we took time to revamp the battle system to try ideas that were previously pushed away for a potential Dragon Ruins III.

In Dragon Ruins II: Aftermath, all monster groups are participating in battle, with groups in the back performing their actions at a slower rate. As for the player characters, melee characters are focused on the group in the front, while ranged characters can target any monster group, sometimes clearing the groups in the back before they get a chance to strike.

We've also introduced multi-hit attacks. After some exploration, we landed on a combo system, where characters can sometimes execute several attacks based on their AGI. Monsters, on the other hand, have an attack pattern -- for example, Zombies hit once and prioritize characters in the front, while Dragons use breath attacks that attempt to target the entire party.

This made battles feel more chaotic and visceral compared to previous entries. Additionally, we've introduced Guarding with weapons/shields, which reduces incoming damage by 50%, letting some characters tank the incoming damage, while others could rely on their superior evasion to avoid being hit.

After some consideration, we moved the maximum number of skills to 100, which should cover the normal playthrough and keep offering new options during NG+ for a while.

We've also adjusted the pricing of upgrades and frequency of loot drops from monsters and chests to offer multiple ways to make money and grow, adapt, and optimize the party to suit a particular goal.

We've introduced cursed items to the game. Be sure to check the item information before equipping, as you may encounter unpleasant surprises later. Curses can be lifted by visiting the Blacksmith.

The number of Quest Ranks (difficulties) has been reduced from 10 to 5, and individual dungeons now have varying difficulty depending on which section of the dungeon you're currently in. This means that each quest is a small, standalone adventure similar to DR1, where areas further from the starting point have more difficult encounters. This element was somewhat lacking in DR2, so we felt it was important to reintroduce it in the expansion.

Dungeons are also (re)populated in a different way. Instead of flood-filling each room with monsters on each year/quest run, encounters and treasures are sprinkled across the dungeon, creating contrast between moments of quiet and sequences of battles, as well as opening new opportunities to grind levels and risk-vs-reward scenarios.

Currently, the project is about 90% complete, but as the old saying goes, the last 10% of the development takes 90% of the time and effort. All quests are in and undergoing active playtesting and adjustments, and in some cases, a complete redesign to ensure that no quest feels like padding.

Dragon Ruins II: Aftermath will launch in January 2026.

Initially, we planned to release it in late 2025, but due to the good sales of DR2 and our other games, we can afford to avoid crunch and prepare the Japanese localization along the way. Since this will be our last Dragon Ruins game for a while, we want to let the series rest for a while by going out with a bang.

Thank you for your support and patience.

Greetings, adventurers!

Things have been quiet due to the focus on getting Dragon Ruins II: Aftermath finished and polishing the release candidate until it shines. There's still work to do, but the finish line is on the horizon.

In the meantime, here are some major updates.

The encounter system was reworked to use fixed difficulty during quest runs, instead of a dynamic encounter scaling system found in the base game. The difficulty of individual quests goes up after completing them, spawning new and/or stronger monsters, which allows you to replay your favorite quest(s) with higher difficulty and bigger rewards or use older areas as easy grinding grounds.

Due to changes to the difficulty system, the old NG+ system was reworked into a more freeform system, only raising the monster strength on quests with Adventure Rank 11 or higher.

Benched characters level up to match the average level of the active party after completing a quest, allowing you to experiment with the party composition without having to invest too much time into growing these characters again.

We've added a way to play Dragon Ruins II quests in DR2A, enjoying the familiar locations with the additions offered by the expansion. The expansion will automatically check ownership via Steam or the presence of a save file if you own a DRM-free version.

Please keep in mind that you will need a Steam version of DR2 to unlock these quests on Steam Deck, and the expansion is designed for players who have finished the base game before.

Whenever you enter a dungeon, you can ask a local witch to bless the party for the current run in exchange for gold. Strength increases the party's Attack, Fortification increases the party's Defense, and Swiftness increases the party's Speed. These blessings can help you get further into a difficult dungeon, have better chances of survival against a tough boss, or keep the party alive until you can score enough gold to upgrade your gear.

Dragon Ruins II: Aftermath will be released this year. It's currently in an internal playtesting phase, with balancing and other adjustments happening along the way. In short, it's being played and replayed over and over, getting better with each run, but since the expansion has more dungeons than the base game, beating it over and over takes time.

To our dedicated fans: thank you for your patience. We'll announce a concrete release date ASAP.