The journey of the Diablo-inspired action RPG Wolcen has been an interesting one: Lords of Mayhem, which was announced in 2015 under the title Umbra, had a very successful Kickstarter, went into Early Access in 2016, and finally released in early 2020, it was not well received. The day after its release, the game was supposed to be "an epic evolution of the genre," but ultimately proved to be "a low-key ARPG backed by deep and complex character progression and maneuverable combat," and worse, it was riddled with technical problems.

Several updates have since been released, and today developer Wolcen Studio announced that the first free content update, "Chronicle 1: Bloodtrail," will be available soon. This update will include "gameplay improvements, new content," and more importantly, "a complete reset of the economy."

As a result of this reset, "characters created prior to the release of Chronicle will be moved to a separate game mode called Legacy and will no longer be able to interact or trade with characters created after the release of Bloodtrail," Worthen Studios explained. Worthen Studios explains.

"However, they will still be able to interact and trade with other legacy characters.

The developers state that this update is "just the beginning of a new Wolcen journey," but judging by the reaction in the Steam comments section, not everyone is so enthusiastic. While there are many messages of support, there are also quite a few complaints about the state of the game. Some postings suggest that this may be the last chance to turn fortunes around, and it is hard to argue that a boost is needed; Wolcen peaked at over 127,000 concurrent players at full release in February, but over the past 30 days has peaked at only quickly dropped to 560 players.

There is also considerable frustration with the lack of communication over the past few months regarding Wolcen Studio's game plans: Wolcen Studio has stated that all these details will be shared "as we get closer to release."