Following Sandbox Interactive’s decision to move to a seasonal update model for Albion Online, the new year will bring the next major update, Crystal Raiders. The update will revamp guild warfare, add a brand new weapon type, and expand or revamp many other features.
The update arrives on January 8th. Conqueror’s Challenge is being reimagined, with rewards updates in order to encourage participation in various activities. The season-end reward chests are extremely important to a new addition: Crystal Weapons. In order to create these new weapons, you’ll need to source Artifacts from Conqueror’s Challenge reward chests. Three of these weapons will arrive with the patch, with three more each season. Infinity Blade, Rift Glaive, and Astral Staff are the first, and they each have their own extra bonuses.
- Infinity Blade (Sword): Delivers a double charge-up strike that devastates foes
- Rift Glaive (Spear): Deals massive damage while piercing through crowds
- Astral Staff (Arcane Staff): Rains a shower of deadly stars down on enemies
One of the biggest additions, Territory Raiding, is coming to serve the goal of constant conflict . Daily, a guild will receive season points and siphoned energy based on the stored energy in your territories. This is another dimension for Guild Seasons. There are opportunities to steal raw siphoned energy from another guild's territory outside of planned invasions. The time you have to make an attempt is down to just one hour, something the team is using to create a more focused challenge with a sense of urgency, but also create more opportunities for guilds to engage in conflict or ways to gain advantages on another.
Hideouts also get a revamp to make them more linked to territory ownership. They’ll also become harder to destroy the longer they stand. Meaning a reward for good defenses, but also an added challenge for those who want to try upending that defense.
The team will also continue to build on the content introduced in the Wild Blood update, including Tracking. Elite tracking targets will arrive. Dropping silver and loot, they’ll add another type of PvE content for groups to tackle. There are other improvements to features, to the map, and more also planned to kick off in Crystal Raiders.
The team has a minisite devoted to the new update, along with a new dev intro video for theis new chapter. See more at Albion Online.
