when will we get the combat overhaul update ?

[Veronica Hohenheim]

Its been a long time since I played this game.I wanted to wait 1.22 but then saw the new tease posts abt next update so decided to wait for that instead.Should have been quite a few months and not sure if that update went live.Is there a estimate release date or is it just guesswork ?

[MirthOfManus]

Soon(TM)

[Michaloid]

Anego doesn't give out release dates. They just update when they do. So we could be waiting the rest of the year, or it could drop on January.

[Michaloid]

In the meantime i recommend the better attack mod. Which hits what's in front of you, it's not a combat overhaul, but it's something.
https://mods.vintagestory.at/betterattack

[LadyWYT]

7 hours ago, Veronica Hohenheim said:

Is there a estimate release date or is it just guesswork ?

In my experience, the devs don't really post estimated release dates, save for maybe when they're on the final RC candidate and about to release stable. Basically, updates are ready whenever they're ready, and how soon that is hinges heavily on how much content the devs are trying to shove in the update, how many bugs they have to squash in the process, and how much community drama they have to deal with during it all.

Aside from that, I will also note that based on what I've seen floating around, I'm not sure that 1.23 is a full overhaul of combat specifically, as much as it is just making some major changes to how the armor works. To be fair, that's no small change either, especially with some of the other goodies it could potentially come with, but I don't really expect the combat to be too much of a departure from the relatively simple system we have currently.

[VANTABlack2000]

22 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

In my experience, the devs don't really post estimated release dates, save for maybe when they're on the final RC candidate and about to release stable. Basically, updates are ready whenever they're ready, and how soon that is hinges heavily on how much content the devs are trying to shove in the update, how many bugs they have to squash in the process, and how much community drama they have to deal with during it all.

Aside from that, I will also note that based on what I've seen floating around, I'm not sure that 1.23 is a full overhaul of combat specifically, as much as it is just making some major changes to how the armor works. To be fair, that's no small change either, especially with some of the other goodies it could potentially come with, but I don't really expect the combat to be too much of a departure from the relatively simple system we have currently.

Given what I have heard on the Armor updates it's going to be pretty interesting. With all the stuff I see them teasing about I have no idea when the update will come out though. On Mastodon I know they have posted teasers for Horses and Mechanical Power Polishing.

[Maelstrom]

Based on history the 1.23 update should start dropping within 4 to 6 weeks.

maybe

possibly

hopefully

 

[Streetwind]

Each update cycle usually starts with a long period of silent work in the background.

Then at some point, we get a public prerelease version, which will be highly unstable and not recommended to make actual serious playthroughs with. New prerelease versions tend to come fairly quickly after that as issues are fixed.

After a number of prereleases, we eventually get a release candidate build, which will be almost good enough. It will likely also update several times.

Then, finally, we will get a stable build as an official release (and then the post-release hotfixes and patches start).

 

Based on past experience, the time between the first prerelease and the stable build tends to be around two months. Meaning, as long as you're not yet seeing any prerelease builds, the update is at least two months away.

[MKMoose]

17 hours ago, Veronica Hohenheim said:

Is there a estimate release date or is it just guesswork ?

With no official date, we can only estimate. The typical release cadence has been about 8-12 months between stable releases, with prerelease cycles lasting about 2-4 months, based on the last four major updates.

We are currently about 6 months after the release of 1.22 stable, and we have seen relatively few teasers for 1.23, which leads me to believe that the prerelease is likely still several months away, especially since the winter holiday season is getting close and it naturally tends to create delays. I would start anticipating the first 1.23 prerelease no earlier than late January, with a prerelease window closer to 2 months similar to 1.22 since it would be unimpeded by winter holidays.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

2 hours ago, MKMoose said:

With no official date, we can only estimate. The typical release cadence has been about 8-12 months between stable releases, with prerelease cycles lasting about 2-4 months, based on the last four major updates.

We are currently about 6 months after the release of 1.22 stable, and we have seen relatively few teasers for 1.23, which leads me to believe that the prerelease is likely still several months away, especially since the winter holiday season is getting close and it naturally tends to create delays. I would start anticipating the first 1.23 prerelease no earlier than late January, with a prerelease window closer to 2 months similar to 1.22 since it would be unimpeded by winter holidays.

There are a few teasers on the Discord, so if you're not there, then it looks like there's nothing being updated, but Elvas is working on dungeon updates, Saraty is working on horses, and Nat... well, Nat made this:

[MKMoose]

11 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Aside from that, I will also note that based on what I've seen floating around, I'm not sure that 1.23 is a full overhaul of combat specifically, as much as it is just making some major changes to how the armor works. To be fair, that's no small change either, especially with some of the other goodies it could potentially come with, but I don't really expect the combat to be too much of a departure from the relatively simple system we have currently.

While I wouldn't expect a huge overhaul, Tyron's June 2026 Development Update clearly describes plans that go well beyond an armor rework:

Quote

This it the big one. Believe it or not lads, the team has decided that Combat should be a focus for the next big update. Here's what we want to look into: Tighter, more visceral hit detection; More varied attack animations; Possibly rework of armor- and weapon tiers; A few more types of weapons; and more! The combat changes will be in good hands - we have Maltiez, author of the mod Combat Overhaul, on our team to advise us, we abducted the infamous SaltyWater to help us with animations and conveniently we just received new combat hit detection tech from the Glint team as they are also currently working on combat \o/

Also, based on this Discord message from Red Ram, it seems likely that we will see two-handed weapons:

Quote

This next update does actually have the potential to touch upon at least some inventory aspects, due to two-handed weapons and some other things.  We'll see.

 

3 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

There are a few teasers on the Discord, so if you're not there, then it looks like there's nothing being updated, but Elvas is working on dungeon updates, Saraty is working on horses, and Nat... well, Nat made this:

So far, starting from the armor rework post, we've had ~11 teasers for 1.23 in #devlog since (counting multiple posts on the same feature as one teaser). For reference, 1.22 saw ~25-30 of them, although individually smaller. Granted, 1.21 had 5, I think, so it's not exactly a reliable metric.

Tsu has been working on mechanical power and new colliders other than AABBs, and the development update post mentions a number of other things which may or may not make it into 1.23, including several new plants, pets, inventory sound, and other stuff. Lore planned for 1.23 and possible changes to temporal storms have been mentioned in a relatively recent interview.

The main reason why I'm saying that there's relatively few teasers, though, is that we've seen almost nothing related to combat so far, beyond the armor rework survey which was explicitly focused on stylistic options and not gameplay. For an update focused on combat, it would seem natural to post at least a couple teasers related to combat prior to the prerelease, if only to build up anticipation for what is supposed to be the focus of the update.

Ultimately this is mostly just a guess, but a simple estimate between time passed and features planned tells me that a prerelease closer to the high end of ~10 months after the last stable seems more likely. October-November are not implausible but seem too early to me unless they're planning a long testing phase, and December seems highly unlikely due to winter holidays.

[VANTABlack2000]

4 hours ago, MKMoose said:

With no official date, we can only estimate. The typical release cadence has been about 8-12 months between stable releases, with prerelease cycles lasting about 2-4 months, based on the last four major updates.

We are currently about 6 months after the release of 1.22 stable, and we have seen relatively few teasers for 1.23, which leads me to believe that the prerelease is likely still several months away, especially since the winter holiday season is getting close and it naturally tends to create delays. I would start anticipating the first 1.23 prerelease no earlier than late January, with a prerelease window closer to 2 months similar to 1.22 since it would be unimpeded by winter holidays.

Thanks for the breakdown. It's good to get a good idea on how updates have gone in the past. I can't wait for 1.23, but good to know I have some time to play my current run before the update comes out most likely.

I only just now got copper pick in my current run. I am currently exploring around seeing where I want to make my next base. Ideally I would like to make a Redwood Treehouse base, but I haven't actually found Redwoods while playing before, so I suspect i will have to travel pretty far south for to find them. My current base is a quick temp base set up near spawn. I am trying to go for more of a forest base since I am doing hunter because it feels fitting.

[Maelstrom]

5 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Ultimately this is mostly just a guess, but a simple estimate between time passed and features planned tells me that a prerelease closer to the high end of ~10 months after the last stable seems more likely. October-November are not implausible but seem too early to me unless they're planning a long testing phase, and December seems highly unlikely due to winter holidays.

Historically the update cadence has been 2 per year, one in the spring and one in the autumn.  However, the last year or two that cadence has started to falter somewhat.  I still anticipate the first 1.23 update in the next 6 weeks.

[LadyWYT]

5 hours ago, MKMoose said:

While I wouldn't expect a huge overhaul, Tyron's June 2026 Development Update clearly describes plans that go well beyond an armor rework:

Fair enough, but the armor rework is the only thing I've really seen direct evidence of. I'm not saying the other stuff won't be in the update, mind you, but the devs do tend to get overly ambitious and it's not unusual for a few things to need more development time and get pushed to a later update. Oceans and the status effect system being examples of such. Thus I do like to keep my expectations somewhat tempered, especially when speculating about it.

[VANTABlack2000]

23 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Fair enough, but the armor rework is the only thing I've really seen direct evidence of. I'm not saying the other stuff won't be in the update, mind you, but the devs do tend to get overly ambitious and it's not unusual for a few things to need more development time and get pushed to a later update. Oceans and the status effect system being examples of such. Thus I do like to keep my expectations somewhat tempered, especially when speculating about it.

That's fair. It's usually fair to have less expectations and be surprised when the update comes then to expect all these things and get disappointed when it isn't all there if that makes sense.

Have they teased anything before on Oceans and the status effect system? Now I am curious tbh.

[LadyWYT]

2 minutes ago, VANTABlack2000 said:

Have they teased anything before on Oceans and the status effect system? Now I am curious tbh.

Oceans were supposed to be included in 1.20, but got delayed to 1.21 due to technical issues and a need to get an already-delayed update actually launched. Status effects, as far as I'm aware, were initially being developed for 1.22 before getting postponed in favor of the team pivoting to shelves. I'm not sure if there were any technical issues prior to the pivot--it doesn't seem like there were--so while it's a little disappointing in some ways, the shelves are still very nice to have, and having them now means having a place to store all the ingredients needed for herbalism, since it's likely(but not guaranteed) an herbalism system would be added alongside status effects.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

8 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Oceans were supposed to be included in 1.20, but got delayed to 1.21 due to technical issues and a need to get an already-delayed update actually launched. Status effects, as far as I'm aware, were initially being developed for 1.22 before getting postponed in favor of the team pivoting to shelves. I'm not sure if there were any technical issues prior to the pivot--it doesn't seem like there were--so while it's a little disappointing in some ways, the shelves are still very nice to have, and having them now means having a place to store all the ingredients needed for herbalism, since it's likely(but not guaranteed) an herbalism system would be added alongside status effects.

Side note you know Tyron is a man in love with his wife when he delays a whole feature because his wife mentioned she might like some shelved to decorate her house. We're still not sure if she was referring to in-game or real life.

[VANTABlack2000]

7 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Oceans were supposed to be included in 1.20, but got delayed to 1.21 due to technical issues and a need to get an already-delayed update actually launched. Status effects, as far as I'm aware, were initially being developed for 1.22 before getting postponed in favor of the team pivoting to shelves. I'm not sure if there were any technical issues prior to the pivot--it doesn't seem like there were--so while it's a little disappointing in some ways, the shelves are still very nice to have, and having them now means having a place to store all the ingredients needed for herbalism, since it's likely(but not guaranteed) an herbalism system would be added alongside status effects.

That sounds about right. My guess is that they didn't really get Oceans working as intended, so it will just have to wait.

I can see herbalism being along side status effects since I am not sure how that would work unless you have plants or something to turn into potions or something to inflict status effects. One thing I do wonder if they will do when status effects are implemented is Status tipped arrows and/or weapons.

Either way I trust Anego to do well with the updates.

[user 21]

when i say so

[ArgentLuna]

At the speed of which all updates should come ~ when its ready

[Michaloid]

4 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Historically the update cadence has been 2 per year, one in the spring and one in the autumn.  However, the last year or two that cadence has started to falter somewhat.  I still anticipate the first 1.23 update in the next 6 weeks.

With the last two controversies that hit in the same month, i suspect that not much was made this month yet. Which could mean a delay. But, we'll see.

[LadyWYT]

3 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

We're still not sure if she was referring to in-game or real life.

Why not both? 

[Zaph42nd]

17 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Fair enough, but the armor rework is the only thing I've really seen direct evidence of. I'm not saying the other stuff won't be in the update, mind you, but the devs do tend to get overly ambitious and it's not unusual for a few things to need more development time and get pushed to a later update. Oceans and the status effect system being examples of such. Thus I do like to keep my expectations somewhat tempered, especially when speculating about it.

For sure, I could see melee being the first thing to consider reworks but through progressive changes rather than major updates (think it'll require some community feedback to fine-tune any combat changes). I'd imagine armor will be towards the middle of those reworks, likely being introduced but expanded upon later since it's a complex mechanics change. Seems to match the experience I've noticed with some other updates, reworks and rebalancing really only happens in sub-versions, pre-releases tend to feel a little less balanced/tuned in (but in exchange get more access to major mechanics) and first-release/non-hotfix updates tend to start out a little janky or have content need tweaks/improvements. Now what I'm curious about is if reworks will also eventually hit ranged combat too, it's more mechanically nuanced than melee but still worth making some changes to imo

[MKMoose]

On 10/6/2026 at 10:54 PM, Maelstrom said:

Historically the update cadence has been 2 per year, one in the spring and one in the autumn.  However, the last year or two that cadence has started to falter somewhat.  I still anticipate the first 1.23 update in the next 6 weeks.

Kind of depends on how far you go with "historically", but if it's not too far then you could say that we're both wrong in some capacity.

The dates and intervals for the last 9 updates. Release dates based on update post dates, may sometimes be +/- one day due to time zones.

	Prerelease	Stable	Prerelease duration [months]	Prerel. after previous stable [months]	Stable after previous stable [months]
v1.22	Feb 5	Apr 21	2.5	5.4	7.8
v1.21	June 16 2025	Aug 25 2025	2.3	4.9	7.2
v1.20	Sep 18 2024	Jan 17 2025	4.0	8.0	12.0
v1.19	Oct 28 2023	Jan 17 2024	2.7	6.3	9.0
v1.18	Feb 24 2023	Apr 19 2023	1.8	5.8	7.6
v1.17	June 14 2022	Aug 31 2022	2.6	5.1	7.6
v1.16	Dec 1 2021	Jan 10 2022	1.3	4.5	5.8
v1.15	May 23 2021	July 16 2021	1.8	5.5	7.3
v1.14	Oct 21 2020	Dec 5 2020	1.5
	v1.19+	Average	2.8	6.2	9.0
		Std. deviation	0.8	1.4	2.1
	v1.15+	Average	2.3	5.7	8.0
		Std. deviation	0.8	1.1	1.8

 

Versions 1.16 and especially 1.20 seem like outliers, but the rest has quite consistently kept within the 7-8 months range in the last few years. Based on this, predicting a new prerelease before the end of 2026 is very reasonable, though frankly I might still hazard a guess and say that the 1.23 prerelease will probably only come in 2027, given the large variety of new features and systems that are likely to be included. We'll see how it goes.

We've got a genetics API feature mentioned today in the #devlog Discord channel, by the way.

 

On 10/6/2026 at 11:31 PM, LadyWYT said:

Fair enough, but the armor rework is the only thing I've really seen direct evidence of. I'm not saying the other stuff won't be in the update, mind you, but the devs do tend to get overly ambitious and it's not unusual for a few things to need more development time and get pushed to a later update. Oceans and the status effect system being examples of such. Thus I do like to keep my expectations somewhat tempered, especially when speculating about it.

As much as I get your point, I will say that with Tyron having emphasized in the past that he doesn't normally actually promise anything in roadmaps (which I think is contradictory with the definition of a roadmap, but anyways), it would be very odd to now say "the team has decided that combat should be a focus for the next big update" while also describing multiple features to look into and new tech from the Glint team and mentioning two new hires in relation to the combat changes, and then for some reason neglect it regardless - combat has gotten a level of emphasis orders of magnitude higher than most teased features get. To add on to that, Red Ram has explicitly confirmed that new weapons are planned for 1.23. A number of things in the same development update post are marked with the "we don't know yet which of this stuff will be in the next major update" disclaimer (just like status effects in the 1.22 "aspirational roadmap"), but combat is I think very clearly not one of them.

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Versions 1.16 and especially 1.20 seem like outliers, but the rest has quite consistently kept within the 7-8 months range in the last few years. Based on this, predicting a new prerelease before the end of 2026 is very reasonable, though frankly I might still hazard a guess and say that the 1.23 prerelease will probably only come in 2027, given the large variety of new features and systems that are likely to be included.

I would say early 2027, maybe mid 2027 at the latest. Mainly because 1.23 sounds like it's going to contain some rather significant changes, and not as much minor additions and bugfixes(like 1.19). Plus I would be surprised if the Maltiez drama hasn't gummed up the works and further delayed things.

 

2 hours ago, MKMoose said:

As much as I get your point, I will say that with Tyron having emphasized in the past that he doesn't normally actually promise anything in roadmaps (which I think is contradictory with the definition of a roadmap, but anyways), it would be very odd to now say "the team has decided that combat should be a focus for the next big update" while also describing multiple features to look into and new tech from the Glint team and mentioning two new hires in relation to the combat changes, and then for some reason neglect it

I suppose another way to put it is that I do expect some combat changes next update, since yes, it would be a little strange to tease that kind of change and not deliver. However. I don't expect the massive overhaul that some players seem to expect/have demanded. A change to how armor is crafted, and what stats it grants the player, yes. A few new weapons to play with, yes. New weapons behavior itself, not really, save for perhaps needing two free hands in order to use items that qualify as two-handed. Maybe a new monster that poses a different kind of threat to the player. Perhaps status effects, finally. But I don't really expect new combat moves/concepts like power attacks, stamina, dodge rolls, etc; I still expect the combat overall to remain the relatively simple system we have currently.