Early Access Release Changelog

Lost In The Open

Changelog

We have implemented a great deal of changes since the last date we provided a changelog of in June. We are finally ready to enter Early Access. Below are all the changes we have implemented since then that we can remember and are not just run-of-the-mill bug fixes and so on.

New Content

Abilities & Combat Systems

• New abilities added:

• Virulent Strike – new harmful attack.

• Rending Strikes – added to Volkver and Grunt.

• Quickstep Strike – added to Bounty Hunters.

• Gushing Wound – added to Grunts.

• Wounding Strike – added to Spearmen.

• Smother Arrowhead – added to Bandit Archers.

• Vulture Strike – new Bandit Pikeman ability.

• Staunch Wound – added to Stratha Units and Polyomian Sentinel.

• Mocking Taunt – new ability.

• Bulwark – new shield ability, effectively a counterpart to Raise Shield.

• ** Effect categories ** (Neutral, Beneficial, Harmful) implemented.

• ** Inherent Passives added: **

• Chop Through (Scouts).

• Swift Shooter (Archers).

• Partial Armor Damage (Maulman).

• Decapitation (Brute).

• Passives also added to Polyomian Macebearers, Enforcers, Bounty Hunters, and others.

Leadership & Insights

• New Leadership Tactics:

• Multiple new options added, including improvements to flanking maneuvers and stamina refunds.

• Added Focused Volley, a leadership tactic focused on ranged units.

• Added Rallying Strikes, a leadership tactic focused on tight combat formations.

• New Insights:

• Warmonger, Survival Training, Salvager, Precision Training, Side Dealings, Strike With Purpose, Shared Knowledge, and more.

Traits

• New traits: Energetic, Strong-Willed, Weak-Willed.

Units & Presets

• Bandit Pikemen introduced:

• New pike-based abilities.

• New inherent passive added.

• Additional units and updates:

• Overhaul of Bandit Spearmen. He is no longer a 2-tile unit.

• Updated all enemy presets in the game, giving them new abilities, etc.

Art, Icons & UI Assets

• Large batch of new icons:

• Attachments, items, perks, enhancements, recruitment, stat enhancements (square/hex variants), ability icons (Pinpoint, Lethal Strike, etc.), precondition icons.

• New portraits added for Macebearer, Maulman, etc.

• New zone banners when entering a new zone.

• New UI elements:

• Mortal Wound warning UI.

• Additional dimmers for unselected abilities/tactics in character panel.

• Improved icons for stat enhancements.

Scenarios

• Big installation of new scenarios, including ‘transition’ specific encounters.

• Unique scenario rewards implemented across all transition scenarios.

• New final scenario implemented.

Gameplay & Balance

General Balance

Balance, generally, should be greatly improved. We have tweaked so many things that it cannot be contained in this changelog. Below is a summary of what has changed.

• Unit difficulty values adjusted:

• Ursadons made less punishing.

• Worfangs made more plentiful in combat.

• Difficulty values across all zones have been tweaked back and forth.

• Leader unit battles in general slightly nerfed.

• Unit stat scaling & recruitment:

• Recruitment cost scaling increased across units.

• Recruitment cost in general significantly increased.

• Recruitment levels randomized more in zones 2–3 (including chance of lower-level units).

• Materials cost for upgrading equipment significantly increased.

• Experience & progression:

• Adjusted XP gains:

• More XP awarded per kill. However, experience that is distributed to other units is massively reduced.

• Scenario XP reduced.

• Fixed issues where units leveled incorrectly in vendors or gained wrong skill points.

• Economy:

• Increased scaling of unit costs based on level.

• Provisions cost for the King reduced from 3 to 1.

• Many leadership insights and various traits and so on now scale dynamically instead of yielding flat amounts.

• Attachment costs lowered overall.

Abilities & Traits

• Dozens of ability fixes, buffs, and nerfs, including:

• Buffs: Rapid Recovery, Blood Amulet, Heroic Strike (left path), Provoke, and more

• Nerfs: Flanking Strike, Bogged Down, Coalition Power, Disciplined, Flanking Maneuvers Stamina Refund, many Ursadon abilities, and more

• AdjustedReworksOiled Bolts now extend burning duration, Smother Arrowhead applies Stamina Reduction, Raise Shield adjusted to give Block Rating (not Protection Rating), and more

• Fixed tooltips and mechanics: Victory Rush, Ironhide, Dazing Strike, Staunch Wounds, Crescendo Strike, Firebolt, Overhead Smash, Warmonger Insight, Defensive Order, Momentum Builder, Windup Strike, Energetic tooltip, and more.

AI Improvements

• Ranged units will now back away from adjacent enemy units before shooting and reloading.

• Two-tile units will back away from adjacent enemy units before attacking.

• AI caching optimizations for performance.

• Squashed a bug where certain enemy units had significantly higher starting attributes.

Audio & Visuals

Sound & Music

• Combat audio:

• New SFX for death, injuries, blocking, buffs/debuffs, armor hits (per armor type), armor shatter, weapon swings (billhook, flail, 2h mace, hammer, etc.).

• Defeat and Victory music sounds with proper transitions.

• Added Death and Injury indicator SFXs.

• Updated effect sounds (Bleeding, Poison, Stun).

• Separate SFX for positive and negative buffs.

• Worldmap & ambience:

• Animal sounds for Ursadon and others.

• New tough encounter music.

• New music for animals.

• New music for repentance path event.

• New UI sounds (hover, confirm, unavailable, back).

• Transition area sounds (Outskirts, Deepwoods, Outlands).

• Main menu:

• New main menu music and background ambience.

• New sounds for UI interactions (New Game confirm, unavailable action, vendor interactions, skill upgrades).

Visual Effects

• New death VFX.

• New injury VFX.

• Blood splatter effect in combat. Togglable.

• Shield blocking VFX, one for each shield type (e.g. Buckler, Shield).

• Improved stamina bar responsiveness.

• Improved visuals for when characters move during attacks/blows.

Animations

• New idle animations for Macebearers, Ursadons, Worfangs, and more.

• New animations for Bandit Pikemen.

Worldmap & Scenarios

Zones & Transition Areas

• Full implementation of zones and transition areas (The Outskirts, Deepwoods, Outlands).

• Transition areas now include:

• A buffer against Stratha encroachment, giving the player a “break” between different zones from being pursued.

• Unique transition scenarios with unique rewards and enemy units.

• Unique pre-/post-transition scenarios, with unique events.

Biomes & Visuals

• Added new hextile types: impassable and slow-passable variants.

• Improved encounter maps visually for the biome Withering Grove.

• Clouds and birds added with animations.

• Lakes and rivers updated with better ambience.

• Updated fogging.

• Significant improvement of visuals of all hex tiles in the game

Pathing & Map Generation

• Improved Dead-end detection and repair implemented.

• Improved pruning of overlapping paths.

• Fixed issues with saving/loading transition nodes.

UI & UX

• Main Menu:

• New animated main menu.

• Logo localized to Simplified Chinese.

• Discord link and Simplified Chinese localized social media button added.

• Improved Difficulty Selection visuals.

• Improved Settings menu visuals.

• Combat UI:

• Turn tracker highlights unit portraits when hovered, and allows inspection via RMB.

• ESC key closes current open panels before pause.

• Improved hotbar/stamina previews (show stamina loss on hover, availability after movement, reset on hover over UI).

• Improved UX for the turning arrow helping you decide the direction of your character when moving in combat

• Updated visuals for all tooltips in the game.

• Tooltip UX improved with clearer positive/negative/warning color titles.

• “Blocked!” text added when fully blocking an attack.

• Killed and Injured units during combat will persist in the army panel, showing what has happened to them.

• Stamina gains during combat show as combat text.

• Improved combat camera movement.

• Overall improved UX experience in combat.

• Character Panel:

• Improved character panel visuals with better visual emphasis on what is important.

• Added injury overlay in character panel to make treating injuries significantly clearer.

• New sound for opening/closing character panel.

• Vendors/Recruitment:

• Resource panel colors corrected (gold coins red when insufficient).

• Icons and tooltips improved.

• New sound for opening/closing vendors.

• Other Improvements:

• Loading screen added for scene transitions.

Localization

• Major localization overhaul:

• Hundreds of fixes across abilities, leadership, insights, scenarios, tooltips, and UI.

• Rewrites of: ability chains, genproperties, perks, abilities, tutorials, notifications, scenario texts.

• Consistency improvements (British English spellings, Z→S fixes).

• Full update of Chinese localization + added logo + social media button.

• Better save/load handling of locale in menus.

Performance & Stability

• Performance Optimizations:

• Significant caching improvements in UI and AI scripts across both overworld and combat scenes.

• Stability Fixes:

• Fixed numerous save/load issues (scenarios, nodes, trader availability, transition states).

• Fixed various bugs, e.g. targeting bugs, stamina effects not applying, tooltip inconsistencies.

• And tons more stability fixes.

Demo & Build Support

• Demo build system implemented:

• Restricts playthrough to a limited part of the game.

• Demo win screen and proper end screens for win/loss/demo.

Summary

Since late June, Lost In The Open has seen a huge expansion of content (abilities, traits, units, scenarios, art, icons, music), heavy gameplay balancing, major localization cleanup, UI/UX polish, audio-visual upgrades, and significant performance/stability improvements.

The game is now richer, smoother, more balanced, and more stable. It is ready for Early Access.

We hope you enjoy the game on Friday! We will happily read your reviews and feedback.

Feel free to join our Discord.

Kindly,

Black Voyage Games