Bark & Blade

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• Patch Notes·5 May 2026Official

  Bark & Blade Patch: Capes, Kennel Pups & UI Frame Pass

  What's New Capes: your wolf can now wear a cape. You start with the Security Blanket; tattered, warm, the first thing he ever protected. Small armor and health bonus. Other capes show up in your inventory under a Capes section; click to wear, click again to take it off. Hover an icon for stat bonuses. The King's Cloak drops from the lich: defeat the lich and the King's Cloak is yours. More armor, more health, plus melee damage, ranged damage, and a small speed bump. The wolf-king before you was, by all accounts, the goodest of boys. Rescued pups live in the kennel now: every pup you carry home from the world shows up at your kennel, playing in their own fenced yard. Walk close and their name floats above their head; step away and it fades. They wander, sit, sleep, and get up to puppy mischief while you're off finding more lost siblings. Improvements Stats panel explains every number on hover: Health, Stamina, Armor, Speed, Scent, melee, ranged. Hover any of them and the tooltip walks through what built that number: base, bone-milestone bonus, weapon, helmet, cape, talents. Armor shows the actual damage-reduction formula and the diminishing-returns note. Tooltips match the panel they belong to: inventory items get a small dark wooden card. Wildlife Friends and kinship perks get a mossy stone tablet. Stats and Talents get a clean medieval frame. Same info, different paper. Raven popup is tucked in the top-left now: Daily Challenges, "New Path Open!", "Found a Bone!", and every other raven message sits in a small framed card in the top-left so it stops blocking the middle of the screen. Title is cream-white instead of broken yellow. Polished popups across the board: Daily Challenge announcements, raven messages, item tooltips, and combat callouts ("Blocked!", "Parried!") now render on hand-painted parchment and ironwork instead of plain dark rectangles. Same information, much closer to the rest of the game's theme. Procedural dungeons stay lit at night: dungeons used t...
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• Patch Notes·1 May 2026Official

  Bark & Blade: First-Person Fix, World Edges (first area test), Feedback

  What's New Send feedback right from the title screen: a new icon in the bottom-right of the main menu opens an in-game form for bug reports, suggestions, or general thoughts. Pick a category, type your message, tick "Include game log" if you want us to see what your game was doing, and hit Send. Reports are anonymous on your end; we just see the message and your Steam ID so we can follow up if needed and keep spam out. The edges of the world feel like edges now: large open areas (the island, desert, starting forest) get proper natural boundaries instead of invisible walls. Where you can no longer go, you'll see dense thickets, cliff edges, dunes, fallen logs and rocks, with distant mountains and far islands sitting on the horizon to make the world feel like it keeps going past your reach. Approaching the edge gently fades in fog and a vignette so you feel the limit before you bump into it. Expect all other areas to get updates soon following the first area's boundary update in this patch. Bug Fixes First-person view (P) is properly first-person now: the camera locks onto your dog's head bone instead of floating in front of him, so when you bark or shake your head the world moves with you the way it should. XP and Level Up popups that used to land off-screen now appear in front of you, and the stamina icon and text actually show up during sprints, dashes, jumps, and ranged attacks while you're in first-person. Third-person view is unchanged. Corvus mourns properly: when you fall, your raven companion now drops to the ground beside you and lies still, instead of hovering frozen in mid-air with his wings tucked. He was always meant to do this; he was just pointed at an animation that didn't exist (spelling is difficult). Wolf no longer hovers and drops at scene start: the spawn-in routine used to set you down a few units above the ground and let gravity catch you up, so every scene began with a brief mid-air fall. The wolf now snaps onto the actual terrain right after ...
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• Patch Notes·22 Apr 2026Official

  Bosses, NG+, Controllers & More

  This is the biggest Bark'n'Blade update to date. Six unique area bosses with multi-phase fights and cinematic intros now guard the path forward. New Game Plus keeps the challenge going with prestige upgrades and ascending dungeon tiers. Full controller support means you can play the entire game with a gamepad. Your dog's story gets deeper and there's more to do than ever! Boss Fights 6 Unique Area Boss Fights - every area now has its own multi-phase boss encounter with cinematic camera intros! Face Thornback the Elder Treant in the Ancient Forest, battle Tidecaller the Giant Hermit Crab at Barkshore Beach, outsmart Prismacore the Crystal Sentinel in Sparklepaw Caverns, endure Cindermaw the Fire Drake at Emberpaw Peak, hunt Sandwhisker the Dune Serpent in the Dusty Tail Dunes, and overcome the Nightmare Shepherd in Moonpaw Meadows. Boss-Gated Progression - three bosses guard the path forward. Defeat Prismacore to shatter the crystal barrier blocking Emberpaw Peak. Slay Cindermaw to cool the lava bridge to the Dusty Tail Dunes. Overcome the Nightmare Shepherd to dispel the fog blocking The Shadow Keep. The other three bosses are optional encounters for brave explorers. Boss Health Bars - a dramatic health bar appears at the top of the screen when you engage an area boss, showing their name, current health, and phase indicators. Boss Save Progress - defeated bosses stay dead across save and load. Your fastest kill times are tracked per boss. In New Game Plus, all bosses respawn with increased health and damage. New Game Plus Start a New Cycle - beat the Lich and start over with escalating challenges! Enemies hit harder and detect you further with each cycle. Your talents, puppies, kennel, coins, and cosmetics carry over; everything else resets. Prestige Upgrades - earn prestige points each cycle and spend them on 10 permanent upgrades: extra armor, health, stamina, sniff range, bonus coin drops, and a golden trail effect. Ascending Dungeon Tiers - dungeons have their o...
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• Patch Notes·16 Mar 2026Official

  Bark'n'Blade - Wildlife, NPCs, Weekly Dungeons & More

  14 species of wildlife now roam with realistic day/night behavior, NPCs respond to your barks with hilarious multi-step conversations, weekly dungeon mutators keep every run fresh, and ghost replays let you race against friends. Plus a work in progress update: wolf customization and puppy pack abilities. A Living World The Environment Comes Alive - 14 species of wildlife now roam the game! Elephants graze by day and sleep under the stars. Crocodiles bask in the sun and patrol the water at dusk. Wolves howl back when you bark, and the whole pack joins in. Foxes dart playfully in the twilight. Deer freeze and bolt as a herd. Ravens circle overhead and caw from their perches. Not all animals may be in the game yet, but will be soon, along with any fixes necessary. Play Bow - (work in progress) press E near a calm animal to drop into a play bow. Each species responds differently: wolves get excited and circle you, cats slowly warm up, foxes play a darting game, and raccoons waddle right up to inspect you. Cat Trust - (work in progress) cats remember your play bows. Visit them enough times and they'll go from hissing to rolling at your feet and purring. True to life. The World Reacts to You - (work in progress) bark at trees and watch leaves flutter down. Sniff flowers and they bloom. Run through puddles for a satisfying splash. Startle birds from bushes and watch them scatter. Circle Walk Idle - your wolf now sometimes walks in a slow circle before lying down to idle. The raven lazily circles overhead to match. Snappier Idle Recovery - your wolf gets up much faster when you start moving after sitting or sleeping; no more awkward slow stretching while already running. NPCs & Conversations NPCs Can Pet You! - approach any village NPC and press E to receive pets! They bend down and give your wolf a good scratch. Hearts float up around you. Bark Conversations - some NPCs now respond to your barks with multi-step conversations. Each NPC has a unique personality; some are cal...
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• Patch Notes·11 Mar 2026Official

  Bark'n'Blade - Flaming Sword & Performance Boost

  Find the flaming sword and watch enemies burn. Every area runs smoother now, the Crystal Caves got a massive FPS boost, and the compass minimap got a visual overhaul. What's New Flaming Sword - find and claim a powerful flaming sword that replaces your trusty longsword in the same weapon slot. Press 4 to draw it just like before, but now with fire! Burning Enemies - enemies hit by fire weapons now visibly catch fire! Flames cling to them and follow their movement for the full burn duration. Improvements Performance boost across all areas - every area in the game now runs smoother. Particles, lights, and effects beyond your view are automatically managed so your GPU only works on what matters. Expect higher framerates everywhere, especially in dense areas like the ancient forest, crystal cave, lava peaks, and dungeon. Crystal Cave performance boost - the crystal cave runs significantly smoother now. Crystals, lights, and particle effects beyond your view are automatically managed so your GPU only works on what you can actually see. Expect much higher framerates while exploring underground. Minimap glow-up - the compass minimap got a visual overhaul with bigger cardinal labels, a thicker double-ring border, intercardinal tick marks, a facing-direction cone on your blip, and a larger compass needle. Looks sharper and reads better at a glance. Minimap hides behind menus - the minimap now politely tucks behind the pause menu, full map, and progress panel instead of floating on top of everything. Bug Fixes Combo counter no longer sticks on screen - pausing the game while a combo counter (x3, x5, etc.) was showing no longer leaves it frozen on the screen forever. Damage numbers now show the correct weapon - dealing damage with a sword equipped now properly shows "Longsword" (or the correct weapon name) instead of always showing "Bite". Coming soon: build and customize your very own kennel! Currently in testing.
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