- Engine Upgrade - 4 January 2026
- The map stutter should be completely removed. The stutter was coming from the old legacy UI system that Dead Monarchy uses. It still uses it, but the overhead has been significantly reduced. - The recent Unity security issue has now also been addressed. - This hotfix doesn't contain the "Grand Arena" content. That can only be access via the beta branch.
- Dev Update #36: Build 23 (Next Project + Grand Arena Update) - 4 January 2026
Hey guys,I hope everyone had a great holiday season. Today I am releasing the largest update ever for Dead Monarchy. Due to the size of this update, it will be rolled out in multiple phases. The first phase is to upload it to the beta build branch.It is highly recommended to start a completely new playthrough and to enable the quickstart options if you wish to immediately access the new content. An existing playthrough may work (not tested) but certain conditions must be met which are explained below in "First Phase".Opting In:- Right click Dead Monarchy.- Select “Properties”.- Select “Betas” on the left menu.- Select “grandarena” from the drop-down list.Grand Arena Update:What is it? This update merges two games together. So, it really isn't even an update. It isn't really an expansion either. It's literally two games merged together. And it's completely free.Arena Monarchy was develop…
- Arena Monarchy Released - 7 March 2025
Hey guys, Well, this will be the last of the "spam" for a while. Arena Monarchy has now been officially released into early access. It will be 10% off for 2 weeks. As mentioned before, the vast majority of the content in Arena Monarchy has already been implemented, a lot different to the initial EA release of Dead Monarchy. The only major content left in Arena Monarchy that needs to be implemented are the various arena champions that form the "goal" that the player works towards. Overall, the focus in Arena Monarchy is a lot more refined, focusing solely on combat, theorycrafting builds and collecting loot with some base management on the side as well. Main Differences: To reiterate again, here are the main differences between Dead Monarchy and Arena Monarchy. Arena Monarchy has waypoint plotting for grid movement during combat, this feature will eventually find its way into Dead Monarc…
- General Update #31: (Arena Monarchy Release Date) - 5 March 2025
Hey guys, Arena Monarchy will be releasing into early access March 6th this week, 06/03/2025, 5:00pm PST. There will also be a launch discount of 10% for 2 weeks. Thanks to everyone who wishlisted and downloaded the demo, as always your feedback and support is greatly appreciated! As mentioned before, most of the content in Arena Monarchy will eventually make its way into Dead Monarchy so all the feedback on combat/balance will go a long way in improving both games. Compared to the early access launch of Dead Monarchy, the vast majority of content in Arena Monarchy is already present. Aside from the legendary champions, the majority of foreseeable updates will be focused around combat balance. Looking forward to hearing from you all. I'm on Discord and the Steam forums as often as I can be. Link: https://discord.gg/E35jAfUKrp Cheers, Kevin.
- General Update #30: (Arena Monarchy Demo) - 24 February 2025
Hey guys, Just letting you all know that Arena Monarchy is participating in the Steam Next Fest and that a demo for Arena Monarchy is now available. Multiple new weapon types are available to try out right now and you'll be able to get a good grasp of the new fighting styles with the new enemies that you can fight against in the arena. If you can't wait, Dead Monarchy is also on sale right now for 50% off. A detailed guide is available here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3421339131 https://store.steampowered.com/app/3383910/Arena_Monarchy/ Cheers, Kevin.
- General Update #29: (Arena Monarchy, Discord Channel, Future Update Changes) - 1 January 2025
New Game Announcement: I hope you all had a great holiday season. As it is the start of a new year, I thought it would be the perfect time to announce my new game! Arena Monarchy is a standalone expansion to Dead Monarchy and in some ways, you can consider it a spin-off title. In Arena Monarchy you are put in charge of a ludus and must train up a stable of gladiators to defeat the legendary champions of the arena. The premise is simple but as with Dead Monarchy, the meat of the game revolves around the combat system and in Arena Monarchy, the combat system has been vastly expanded. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3383910/Arena_Monarchy/ Gameplay Trailer: Dead Monarchy Integration: As I have alluded to in the past, most of the weapons, helmets, armor, abilities, enemies and environments will eventually be implemented into Dead Monarchy too. This will be a huge undertaking though as Ar…
- General Update #28: (Northern Expeditions) - 18 October 2024
Hey guys, What's this? Snow? A brief teaser at next year's major post-release content, "Northern Expeditions". More info will be released later towards the end of this year. New maps, new armors, new enemies (from early to end-game), entirely new weapons and abilities. Cheers, Kevin.
- Dev Update #35: Build 22 (Roaming Patrols Update) - 29 September 2024
Hey guys, The beta build has now transitioned to the live build. You will need to start a new playthrough for this update, it will break existing save files. For those that were already playing on the beta build, please transition to the live build, existing save files from the beta build will work without issues. Here are the instructions to access the previous build. Opting In: - Right click Dead Monarchy. - Select “Properties”. - Select “Betas” on the left menu. - Select “previous - Previous live build” from the drop-down list. Near Future: There will be a couple of smaller updates before the end of this year which includes a much requested QoL feature, "waypoint plotting" in combat, IE being able to plot a path when moving on the grid. Then, a much larger update will introduce new endgame enemies and new helmets/armors right at the end of this year which will be released as the new…
- Dev Update #34: Build 22 (Deployment Menu, Roaming Patrol Fixes) - 31 May 2024
Hey guys, This build will have quite an impact on ongoing playthroughs so a new playthrough is suggested, but not required. It is suggested due to the new "Deployment Menu". Overall, this update continues with more UI improvements. If you already have a playthrough with "Instant Deployment" enabled, then the playthrough should be fine. Here are the instructions on accessing the beta version. Opting In: - Right click Dead Monarchy. - Select “Properties”. - Select “Betas” on the left menu. - Select “roaming - Experimental build” from the drop down list. Deployment Menu: - Manual deployment is now being phased out. If you have an existing playthrough it will still trigger but you will not have the option to toggle it on and off. Manual deployment is being phased out due to there being issues that I just couldn't fix (disappearing deployment grids, wonky camera etc). It's only used during e…
- Dev Update #33: Build 21 (Roaming Patrols, Dynamic Portraits, New Factions) - 9 February 2024
Hey guys, The first of the free post-release content has been uploaded to the beta/experimental branch. A lot of work has been done under the hood as this update introduces quite a few major additions. Here are the instructions on accessing the beta version. Opting In: - Right click Dead Monarchy. - Select “Properties”. - Select “Betas” on the left menu. - Select “roaming - Experimental build” from the drop down list. Roaming/Pathing Patrols: - Roaming mobs, so now you have roaming enemy mobs that will roam around. I decided to not make them actively hunt down the player as there are already hostile random encounters however combat will trigger if you happen to not be paying attention and walk into the roaming mob or they path into you. - Patrolling mobs, bands of militia will actively patrol the roads going between havens and outposts, these are neutral groups. You can choose to attack…
- Dev Update #32: Build 20 (More UI Updates) - 29 September 2023
Hey guys, Here is another round of UI and QoL updates. There will be another update towards the end of this year which if all goes well, will add some major UI features. Change Notes: - Organised Chaos (Tactics), whilst previously a bug where the 60% hit chance cap was applied to Wild Strike as well when it should have only been applied to Quick Shot on adjacent tiles, after further testing I have decided to leave it as it is and I have updated the tooltips to correctly reflect the changes. - You can now end the current phase during combat with . - Added map orientation NSEW markers to every single map exit. - Added an option in "taverns" that allows you to spend 10000 crowns to increase the Affinity of all havens by +5% (not possible in Quick Interactions). - Added an option in "taverns and the player camp" that allows you to sleep until the next day (5h). - Fixed the bug where the hit…
- General Update #27: (Brief Development News & Dead Monarchy Showcase) - 24 August 2023
Hey guys, So firstly I know things have been a little quiet on the development side but rest assured things are going smoothly and I am still working on Dead Monarchy. Firstly for the past month or so, I've had to shuffle around my plans again as the freelance modeler that I work with was free to do more work, that work being putting together new armour sets for the post-release content. Because of that, I haven't had as much time to work on the planned UI updates. The UI updates will take a bit longer as I still have to split my time between modelling, I'm also working on some more complicate QoL features of which I will talk about later on in the future. Most likely there will be at least 2 larger updates this year. That's all I have for news regarding development, things are quiet on the surface but I am still working away as usual. As a teaser, here are 3 reworked armour sets that w…
- Dev Update #31: Build 19 (40% Off, UI Updates, Pause Button) - 30 June 2023
Hey guys, Dead Monarchy is currently 40% off so it is a great time to try it out if you were on the fence about it, it costs about as much as a coffee. Originally my plan was to simultaneously work on post-release content and the new game however due to an overwhelming amount of feedback directed to the UI, it has changed my priorities. As such, I will most likely be spending the rest of the year just working on UI and balancing, I won't be able to do much work on the post-release content. The UI work will technically be for the new game however I am backporting it to Dead Monarchy as well. This is the solution to me moving forward as a developer but also responding to player feedback. I am introducing the first round of changes, there is a lot more to come later this year. If everything goes smooth, there is also a chance that the first part of post-release content will drop towards th…
- General Update #26: (Interviews, Youtubers, Next Update Info) - 9 June 2023
Hey guys, So with the full release of Dead Monarchy, I've crossed a significant mental milestone. I'd like to thank everyone who has supported me over the years and to everyone that has bought the game. I especially want to say thank you to everyone that has left a review. Reviews are naturally hard to come by. I don't respond to every review as sometimes there isn't anything further to say or to clarify however I read every single review. Reviews are one of the main sources of my motivation, it is good to read what players think about the game, whether it is positive or negative, I value all feedback. So again, thank you to everyone that has left a review! Interview: Whilst I have already openly discussed about my future plans, I did an in-depth interview with Tom which details just how far I want to take them. I thoroughly enjoyed the interview, each question was well planned. If you…
- Dev Update #30: Build 18 (Full Release) - 19 May 2023
Hey guys, After several demos and a complete rebuild of the game, 6 years of development has flown by and Dead Monarchy has now been fully released. I've put my all into this game, I didn't abandon it and even chose to completely rebuild the game midway through development. I feel like I can say that as a developer, I held up my end of the deal. Let's now take a look at the entire journey that Dead Monarchy took up to this point. The very first prototype, a mockup of what could be, didn't have any art assets though. Building a functional UI, levels and enemy AI. Replacing the placeholder models, first attempt at skinning the UI, creating natural environments. Second attempt at environments, I wanted to create elevation and was struggling, thought tiled approach might be the solution, I was wrong. Natural environments felt unnatural. Released the first demo, decided to have it take place…
- Dev Update #30: Build 17 (Small Hotfix) - 17 April 2023
Hey guys, Quick update, introducing just 1 change. - Chance of -5 Resolve being reduced from allied members on a party member's death will be 50% instead of 100%. - Updated Resolve tooltip to mention above changes. Cheers, Kevin.
- Dev Update #29: Build 17 (Full Release Date, Another Balancing Update) - 16 April 2023
Hey guys, Originally, I had planned for Dead Monarchy to release on the 23rd of March however I had to push it back. I have now decided on a new full release date. Dead Monarchy will transition from early access to full release on the 19th of May (19/5/2023), so basically just over a month from now unless something drastically changes again. This update will most likely be the last update before full release. Change Notes: - Fixed the issue with the extended HUD not remaining pinned making it impossible to inspect perks on combatants during combat. - A combatant dying will now incur -5 Resolve to all members of the same party. This also stacks with the perk Courageous Thoughts, which reduces Resolve by -15 on a critical hit (kill). - Made some updates to the battle log output. - Nimble Movement has been removed from militias/deserters and replaced with Impact Anticipation. - Critical hi…
- Dev Update #28: Build 16 (50% Off! Arbalester Nerf, Balancing Pass, QoL Changes) - 16 March 2023
Hey guys, Dead Monarchy is 50% off during the Spring Sale, it is the deepest discount as of yet! Build 16 is a major update, a huge balancing pass and introducing a lot of new QoL changes and fixes. One of the major changes are the nerfs done to the Arbalester builds in order to bring them into line with other classes. They are still viable and very powerful however prior to this update, they completely outclassed any other build. Due to this update, some of the classes listed in the Temporary Player Guide have outdated information, mainly ones related to the Arbalest. For those that wish to continue playing on Build 15, I have made it available on the beta branch. Opting In: - Right click Dead Monarchy. - Select “Properties”. - Select “Betas” on the left menu. - Select “rebuild” from the drop down list. As for build 16, in order to see all the changes, you will need to start a new play…
- Let's Play Series: Special Caesar - 1 March 2023
Hey guys, Special Caesar has been streaming a let's play series for the rebuilt Dead Monarchy. He is the first to stream the rebuilt version so if you are interested in checking it out, head over to his YouTube channel. It's always interesting for me to watch players play my own game and I've taken on some of his feedback as well. I'm always grateful to streamers who take the time to showcase Dead Monarchy. In other news as of February 28, I have turned 30. I'm now also at that stage in life where you ponder about your 20s and question if you made the most out of it. All I really remember is working on Dead Monarchy since I was 23 haha, but I would say it was worth it. I'd like to again thank everyone who has supported Dead Monarchy over these years and especially to those players that have left reviews, both positive and negative. All the feedback helps and goes towards improving Dead…
- Dev Update #27: Build 15 (New Loading Screens, Small Fixes) - 14 February 2023
Hey guys, Just a smaller update today, some QoL fixes, general fixes and new loading screens. - Diagonal attacks now rotate to the nearest straight grid tile, meaning after an attack, combatant directions will no longer be left on diagonal angles which makes it hard to tell if you are flanking from the back/left/right. - A player marker will now appear on the character when the camera is zoomed out further in the overworld map. - Streamlined combat UI, only the current phase UI and battle log UI will appear during enemy turns during combat. - Added 25 new loading screen art. - Updated initialisation screen tooltips in regards to what is needed to play on Emperor difficulty. - Resized floating texts in combat so they don't overlap in cases where two sets of floating text trigger side by side. - You can now disable the majority of the UI when traversing across the overworld map. There wer…
