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A free playtest opens on Thursday — request access now

The Valdrys playtest opens on Steam on Thursday 24 September at 6 PM EDT (22:00 UTC), and it is free. To join, open the store page and press Request Access under “Join the Valdrys Playtest”. The button is up already, so you can ask today; Steam lets you know when you are in.

All five playable classes are in the build. Early Access follows in late 2026 at $14.99, bought once, with no subscription — and a wishlist is still the single most useful thing you can do for the game before then.

Twenty Steam achievements, and a drawn login screen

Twenty achievements are live on the Steam page, from first blood to the last world boss, and they unlock the moment the server grants them — the server decides, Steam only records it. The login backdrop is a drawn scene again: the photograph that stood in for it during the beta was AI-generated, and it is gone from the game for good. Everything else in Valdrys is licensed or hand-made and is listed on the credits page.

Under the hood, the server got a login gate: only so many connections may be inside the handshake at once, so a patch-day rush of everyone reconnecting together queues politely instead of knocking the realm over. The load-test harness now drives the full client path from a second machine, storms and all.

Valdrys is on Steam — wishlist it

The store page is public, the build is approved, and the game is officially Coming Soon on Steam. $14.99, Windows, bought once. The release date will be announced here and on Discord first. If you want to help the game before it launches, a wishlist is the single most useful thing you can do.

The update that shipped with it is already live on the server: thirteen new monster attacks — Living Bomb, Chain Lightning, Blood Drain, Frost Nova and more — every regular camp now plays two cards instead of one, every world boss has a new beat in its rotation, escapes break a freeze as well as a root, and boss cast bars no longer promise an interrupt that cannot land.

The Frozen Grotto

The delve is a real ice cave now, and it stands in daylight rather than in the dark — an open frozen valley, walled with the snowplains set, with a shoreline that meets the water without a black seam and a minimap of its own. Level 10 and up.

Every bolt has a flavour, and every cast has a name

Basic attacks now split by school: fire, ice and venom bolts and arrows, each with its own effect rather than one shared streak. Shadow Bolt silences what it hits, and Withering Bolt freezes it for two seconds.

Monster specials announce themselves on a named cast bar, so interrupting is aiming at something rather than guessing at it. Camps can also be marked elite — a starred camp hits harder, draws bigger, and is meant to be walked around at the wrong level.

Moderators, and a contract you can walk away from

Moderation is a rank now rather than a favour. Moderators can mute and issue timed bans with the evidence attached to the report, and they cannot action each other.

The Slayer's /abandon is gone. Cancelling a contract is a priced button in the Slayer window instead, so dropping an assignment you do not want is a decision with a cost rather than a free re-roll.

One mouth, three destinations

The dungeon door reads your sigil. A Lone Sigil opens the Ossuary to you alone, a Twin Sigil opens Fort Amir for two, and a Warband Sigil opens the Stormrock Ruins for five. These are different maps, not the same corridors relabelled, and every camp inside relevels to the party the key expects.

The Ossuary becomes an interrupt dungeon

Its bosses cast things worth stopping. Because three of the five playable classes own no stun at that level, each dangerous cast carries its own interrupt window rather than assuming you brought the right class — the dungeon asks for attention, not for a roster.

It also stopped lying about its level. The Ossuary advertised 15 for its whole life while its monsters ran 25 to 30; it is gated and tuned at 20 now, and the zone card says so.

The combat-feel pass

Four passes, in order. The character stops sliding when you change direction. Being hit became something you can see and feel. The damage numbers speak with one voice instead of three. And a cast is legible the whole way through, from the keypress to the payoff.

The balance pass, and a weapon ladder that climbs

Pure damage dealers sit at the top of the damage table where they belong, and the battle priest can fight rather than only mend. Blinding Sun works for the first time.

Every weapon tier was checked against the tier below it, and the inversions — where the upgrade you saved for was quietly worse — are gone.

Capes, quivers, and a crossbow that is really a crossbow

The back slot is real. Capes hang from the collar, take their wearer's colours, and follow the body through running, casting and every swing. The Archer's Ranger Quiver shares the slot, and the Arbalest is a genuine tier-4 crossbow — gripped and drawn as one — rather than a bow wearing a new name.

Ten channels

The realm runs as parallel worlds, picked from the minimap. Your character is the same in every one of them — only the world around you differs — so a busy channel is a reason to step sideways rather than a reason to wait.

The realm has a name, and a real front door

The game is called Valdrys. The client now connects to play.valdrys.com rather than a raw address that changed whenever the connection did — so nobody has to be handed a new set of numbers again.

More importantly, the connection is now verified. The client checks the server's certificate instead of merely encrypting the wire, which means a machine on your network can no longer quietly answer in the realm's place. Certificates renew themselves without the server going down for it.

Roaming world bosses in the Bloodgrounds

Named bosses now wander the full-loot frontier. They carry contributor loot, so a kill pays everyone who actually fought it rather than whoever landed the last blow, and they stay off the minimap — you find them the hard way, usually by walking into one.

Consumables get their own rail

Potions, food and scrolls moved onto a dedicated hotbar rail instead of competing with your abilities for slots. A long-standing bug where one potion restored five times what it claimed has been fixed, and there is now a test that recomputes the value from the item table so it cannot drift again.

An arena with a ladder, seasons and stands

Ranked matches now have a rating, a season, a match history and a visible ladder — plus stands you can spectate from. A ready check means you are asked before you are pulled out of whatever you were doing.