- Guild Expansion, Additional Localizations, and QOL Improvements (7/12/2026) - 13 July 2026
The guild expansion has arrived! Guilds now run weekly Guild Trials: cooperative skilling and combat challenges where the whole guild climbs tiers of increasing difficulty together. Trials use a snapshot of your chosen loadout and run alongside your regular actions, so participating never interrupts your progress or uses up your supplies. Clearing tiers earns Guild Points for the guild and Guild Tokens for yourself, and when all trials finish for the week, every member receives bonus tokens based on the guild's overall progress. Guild Points can be spent on 23 guild buildings and 5 shrines. Buildings expand member capacity, boost trial rewards, and strengthen members during trials, while shrines unlock Shrine Buffs, which are permanent personal buffs purchased with Guild Tokens and Guild Credits. Guild Credits are earned by exchanging items with your guild, and those exchanges also unlo…
- Labyrinth Improvements, Steam Client Update, and More! - 25 April 2026
We've made a number of improvements to the Labyrinth based on player feedback. The biggest change is that scrolls will no longer provide buffs in the Labyrinth, and instead, 9 new permanent buff upgrades are available in the Labyrinth Shop. Scrolls were originally designed to be used outside the Labyrinth, but as players started bringing them along, they became all but required for any serious run, adding significant cost to actively manage them. Permanent upgrades are healthier long-term: progress carries forward, there's no need to actively manage scroll usage, and your strength scales with time invested. Players will be slightly weaker until they accumulate enough new upgrades, but this is a one-time transition. To help bridge the gap, existing scrolls can now be decomposed into 5 Labyrinth Tokens each via Alchemy.We've also added a 1000+ total level requirement to enter the Labyrint…
- Major Patch - Labyrinth and QOL Improvements - 22 February 2026
LabyrinthThe Labyrinth consists of floors of skilling and combat challenges with increasing difficulty. Navigate through a grid of rooms to progress, collect loot, and advance to deeper floors.Each floor contains skilling challenges, combat encounters, treasure rooms, and a floor exit.Bring supplies into each run: Torches, Shrouds, Beacons, and Crates. Each comes in three tiers.Earn Labyrinth Tokens, Purdora's Boxes, and Labyrinth Refinement Chests. Rewards increase with floor depth. Spend tokens in the Labyrinth Shop on upgrades and unique items.Item rewards include: 4 Skilling Capes, 3 Combat Boots, and Seals which is a new type of item that grant timed personal buffs.Automation system with per-room loadouts, skip thresholds, and full auto-pathing.4 new achievements related to the Labyrinth. Achievement tier buffs will require the completion of newly added achievements, although they…
- Major Patch - Steam Achievements, Collection, Bestiary, And More - 6 December 2025
Features and Content:Achievements:73 Achievements spanning 6 tiers of difficulty.Completing each tier grants permanent buffs.Achievements are synced with Steam achievements when playing from Steam client.View other players' achievements on their profile.Most achievements are not retroactive and must be earned again.Ironcow-only: Elite and Champion tier item-related achievements will be retroactive if you have earned the item previously.Collection:Track all items you have collected throughout your adventure.Collecting 1, 10, 100, 1K, 10K, etc of each item grants increasing collect points.Earn milestone rewards based on collection points.Collection progress is displayed on leaderboards.Share collected items in chat by linking them.Marketplace and General Shop purchased items do not count toward collection.Task badges and back slot items owned will be retroactively added to your collection…
- Minor Steam Update - Nov 10, 2025 - 11 November 2025
1) Allow manual selection of main vs mirror server from menu 2) Improved detection of connection failure and error handling
- Connection Issues from mainland China & Temporary Solution - 6 November 2025
We’re aware that a large number of players in mainland China are currently unable to connect or are experiencing severe connection issues. This appears to be caused by network or firewall restrictions within China, not by any recent changes on our side.To help affected players, we’ve set up a temporary mirror site that should work better from within China:https://www.milkywayidlecn.comYou can:Update the Steam version of the game to automatically connect to this mirror site, orVisit the site directly in your browser to play.We’re continuing to monitor the situation and will look for a more stable long-term solution. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
- Major Patch - Combat Rework, Charms, and Refined Equipment - 19 August 2025
Combat Rework1) All combat styles now require the Attack skill for accuracy. Players will now receive Attack experience equal to 15% of their existing Ranged experience and 12% of their Magic experience. This adjustment is based on leaderboard data to ensure comparable total experience across the three combat styles.2) Bonus magic evasion from the Ranged skill and bonus resistances from the Magic skill have been moved to the Defense skill.3) The Power skill has been renamed to Melee.4) The Regal Sword can now parry damage for party members.5) Pestilent Shot has been reworked to debuff Armor/Resistances instead of HP/MP regeneration.6) Critical rate and other buffs have been added to Ranged equipment to compensate for the loss of accuracy.7) Magic damaging abilities now scale by 0.5% per ability level instead of 1%.8) Rippling Trident now restores 10 MP when Ripple activates.9) Ability d…
- Chat Report System and QOL Improvements From Community Feedback - 6 June 2025
Features and Content:Chat Report System: Players can now report rule-breaking messages in the chat.1.1. Reports are sent to moderators for review and potential action.1.2. Automod may be applied to messages that receive enough reports. Penalty can still be adjusted after manual review.1.3. Sending correct reports will increase the weight of your future reports and incorrect reports will significantly reduce it.You can now delete character in Settings.Added special icons (Contributor, Bug Finder, etc) that can be granted to players for significant contributions. They will display as a second icon.QOL:You can now reorder action queues.You can now link market listings in chat. This should improve trade chat experience with different languages.Other:Added official market data that can be accessed at https://www.milkywayidle.com/game_data/marketplace.json. This is updated every 6 hours (with…
- MooPass and Other News - 18 May 2025
The MooPass is here, an optional membership that provides a variety of helpful but non-essential perks! All characters can claim 14 days of MooPass for free, and an additional 14 days have been granted to all existing characters. For more details, check out the Patch Notes or directly in Cowbell Store. As with any new form of monetization, we understand there are concerns about the game's future direction and the potential for pay-to-win. We want to reassure you that we have no plans to introduce any monetization that could be considered predatory. We've carefully considered community feedback and designed the MooPass to be affordable and fair for both paying and free-to-play players. It introduces no content paywalls and has no impact on core gameplay, ensuring a level playing field. By offering recurring value, MooPass also helps maintain demand for Cowbells beyond one-time convenienc…
- Pirate Cove Dungeon, 4th Character Slot, and Custom Cosmetic Policy Update - 17 April 2025
The Pirate Cove Dungeon is now open for exploration! This new dungeon features a variety of new T95 weapons and armors, as well as new abilities. We've also made some adjustments to existing items and abilities to improve balance and gameplay. Check out the full patch notes in game for all the details! In other news, we've added a new 4th character slot for players, allowing everyone the same opportunity of having up to 1 Standard and 3 Ironcow characters. We are also updating our custom cosmetic policy and pricing. While the feature started as nice gift to show our appreciation to our supporters, it's now too overwhelming with the huge increase in playerbase. We've spent 150-200 hours to work on about 100 requests in the past month, and we need to be able to allocate more time for other development tasks. Starting May 1st, custom cosmetics will require spending supporter points and cow…
- Server Upgrade - 25 March 2025
We are performing another server upgrade due to the continued increase in player count. The expected downtime will be 15-30 minutes. Please refresh or restart your game afterwards. Thanks for your understanding and support!
- Server Upgrade Complete - 12 March 2025
Thank you for waiting. You can now refresh (or restart) your game to continue playing.
- Server Upgrade - 12 March 2025
We will be performing a server upgrade due to the increase in players from the Steam release. This will occur at 3/11 10:00PM PST. The expected downtime will be 15-30 minutes.
