Iona Island Tutorial Complete – Major World & Stability Update

We’re excited to share that Iona Island, our tutorial island and home to the tavern, is now fully complete.

All quests, adventure paths, training areas, and the PvP zone are in place, bringing the island together as a true starting experience.

Set within an active winter environment featuring snowfall, storms, and visible tracks in the snow, Iona Island now feels alive. The demo is currently in closed beta testing, with public access planned for 2026.

World and Environment ,

The world continues to get more detail and atmosphere.

• The Tavern received major ambience upgrades including layered background sounds and new music. It now feels far more alive and reactive.,

• Multiple areas had their lighting refined, improving mood, depth, and general visibility during exploration.,

• Cleaned up clutter, fixed mismatched tile placement, and corrected several world errors, especially near bridges and other structural transitions.,

• Circle Arena tiles were corrected to prevent popping or misaligned visuals.,

  

Characters and Animations ,

• The vaulting system has been reworked with smoother animations and better transitions. This makes movement feel more natural and athletic.,

• General animation cleanup removes stiffness and mismatches, improving consistency with character actions.

Gameplay Improvements ,

• Multiple issues causing crashes or map loading failures were resolved. Switching scenes, loading interior spaces, and respawning should be noticeably more stable.,

• Object identifiers and scripts have been cleaned and standardized, reducing invisible gameplay issues like unreliable interaction triggers.,

• Various behind-the-scenes systems now communicate more consistently, which means fewer weird one-off bugs.

Audio Enhancements ,

• Audio was a focus this cycle. The Tavern now features new background music, environmental noise, and improved sound layering.,

• Several maps had missing audio sources repaired so players won’t suddenly enter silent zones anymore.,

• Global audio behaviors were adjusted to match the game’s direction more closely.

Performance and Stability ,

Stability saw a large upgrade thanks to major cleanup efforts.

• Fixed several netcode issues that caused lag spikes, disconnects, and intermittent desync.,

• Resolved tons of console errors, broken links, missing scripts, and incorrect references across scenes.,

• Addressables and GUID fixes greatly reduce hitching and random stalls during gameplay.,

• General project cleanup results in a smoother experience overall, especially on weaker machines.

Mounts System Work ,

The mounts system is still in development, but this update solidifies its foundation.

• Cleaned up mount prefabs and reorganized internal structures.,

• Fixed broken references from previous merges so future mount features can be added cleanly.,

• No gameplay-visible mount features yet, but progress behind the scenes is strong.

UI Improvements ,

• Removed several UI null references and broken links that could cause errors or flickering UI elements.,

• Reorganized UI structures in preparation for upcoming user interface improvements.,

• Small unseen fixes that make the whole interface more stable.

Bug Fixes ,

A long list of issues were addressed to improve reliability and polish:

• Corrected spawns missing collision, preventing awkward fall-through moments.,

• Fixed corrupted or mismatched GUIDs that were breaking references across maps.,

• Repaired missing player models caused by recent changes.,

• Reduced duplicated scripts and missing component warnings, clearing out console spam.,

• Various material and prefab fixes to eliminate visual inconsistencies.

This has been a very productive year for us, and we can’t wait to welcome players into the Iona Island demo. We’re excited to share what we’ve been building and to continue the journey together.

Thank you for your support, and we wish you all a wonderful 2026. See you in the new year with more updates ahead.