The Bard’s Tale IV was first introduced back in 2015 on Kickstarter, as a result of the studio wanting to continue the series. It had raised more than enough to meet its goal, and began work. Since its official release date back in early September, it has received some mixed reviews, but overall players seemed to enjoy the continuation. For the most part, some of the bugs and too many puzzles seemed to be getting in the way of having a better experience. However, in an upcoming patch, that should soon change.
Over on the developer’s blog on their Kickstarter page, inXile entertainment’s community manager Paul Marzagalli wrote to a hefty extent about an upcoming patch and new dungeon that would hopefully fix the issues, but keep the puzzles new and exciting.
The new dungeon that will be coming out for free is titled The Royal Necropolis of Haernhold. This dungeon is going to be a new adventure in the Dwarven realm Kinestia, and is a combat-focused dungeon that follows the story in the tomb of the falled Dwarven hero, Gaerwyn. Players will uncover the secrets of this tomb and undo the catastrophe that becomes of it, including several mini-boss fights and two very challenging boss fights in it as well.
This also includes a boss that is randomized. Players are warned of a Tarjan minion, one of the toughest monsters, that begins to stalk them the moment they step foot into the new dungeon. Those inside will have to be aware of the ceiling above them as the minion could drop down at any time to start a fight.
But that won’t be the end of it. Those who are fans of the game’s puzzles will be pleased to know that the puzzles in this dungeon will be new and mind-bending, and absolutely necessary to uncover the secrets of Gaerwyn’s tomb. After all the updates of player balance, gear, and other such things in a previous patch, the developing team has been able to work on making puzzles more intense, and more fun.
As for the upcoming 2.0 patch date itself, it’s bringing in a lot of new features and long requested features. This includes enemy tuning, to balance out the previous patch, high-tier crafting weaponry for end-game players, new portraits which allows for 2 new male elves and 2 new female dwarves, inventory filtering, controller support, and 9 new fast travel locations.
The new dungeon and upcoming patch will be released early 2019. For more information follow inXile entertainment’s twitter account.