Hi Path of Titans Community, this is Matthew, the Studio Lead of Alderon Games.

I wanted to share an update on what to expect from the next patch, along with some behind-the-scenes context on what the team has been working on.

Patch timing and why the First Major Update for 2026 might be delayed

With the way game patching schedules work, if developers want to release a game patch in December before console companies close down their patch certification process for the year, the patch must be done and submitted before the end of November. At Alderon, most of our time spent in early December was focused on bug fixes and support for the Riparia Update to ensure the launch was as smooth as possible. The team then went on holiday break soon after. Because of that, we do not have enough work completed on the next update for it to release in early January.

We also had some team members get sick over the holidays, including myself, and some team members requested an extended holiday so they could return in the new year at full capacity. That has pushed things back as well. However, with no updates planned for early January, this lets us address some important things I'll explain below.

Unreal Engine 5.7, World Partition, and saving 500 MB to 1 GB

We are upgrading Path of Titans to Unreal Engine 5.7 and transitioning our maps from the older 'World Composition' rendering method to the new 'World Partition' method. Without getting too technical, this new map loading method lets us break the map up into smaller chunks so less of the map needs to be loaded at once. This means we now save roughly 500 MB to 1 GB of game memory on all devices. That is a big win for players who have been running into crashes on devices with low RAM, like iOS, Android, and Switch, where 500 MB of memory is the difference between being unable to load the map vs running the game perfectly. World Partition is also much better at handling loading assets without causing the hitches or stuttering that some players previously would experience when walking into new areas of the map.

When we created Riparia, we aimed to create a super detailed and intricate map that was fun to explore and travel, but as players have seen, this means the map used about 1 GB extra RAM to load. By using World Partitioning, we are now able to comfortably run Riparia on even the lowest end devices we support. This also means that we aren't going to run into any memory issues if we do at TLC for Gondwa and Panjura in the far future, and bringing their quality and detail levels up to the same standard we set for Riparia.

Given the nature of where the AI industry and the AI bubble is headed, and the way it is impacting hardware costs and availability, we want to make sure Path of Titans is not held back by a RAM shortage. Game consoles have gone up in price and it looks like we will expect to see game consoles cost upwards of $1000 during 2026. We are glad that this won't affect Path of Titans as much, as the game is available on many devices and is as accessible as ever.

While we started the 5.7 engine upgrade in October last year, there are still some bugs left for us to fix from the upgrade. Overall the game is running much better than it did on Unreal Engine 5.6. We noticed rendering issues on Mac were fixed, and many rendering issues on Windows DX12 and Linux were fixed as well. There are improvements expected on Mobile and Consoles too. I do expect every time we do an engine upgrade our system requirements will go up slightly, however, so please keep in mind.

Hiring and Expanding the Team

Thanks to your support over the holidays, we plan on hiring more developers. We will be bringing on an additional AI programmer to help out with dinosaur AI, something that's extremely important for the game's PvE aspects and for future quests we plan on adding. While we have already made good progress on dinosaur AI, having an additional programmer on the team will speed up its development. We also plan on hiring a dedicated team member to focus on anti-cheat and making sure the game is secure. While Path of Titans has an extremely low cheater rate, we want to make sure it does not get out of control like we have seen in other games.

In December we also brought on two new programmers who are currently ramping up on learning the game project and the engine right now. In a few months, they'll be able to start tackling some of the more difficult tasks the game faces, and we should see even quicker progress on development and faster turnaround times for bug fixes as a whole.

Dino Transfers

Our backend team is going to be starting work on Dino Transfers soon when everyone is back from holiday. With this system, players will be able to play the same character across all maps on official servers without the need to grow a new dinosaur for each map. We also have some cool ideas around letting players transfer dinosaurs from official servers to community servers, if approved and enabled by the community server owner. Since it's a complicated feature and we want to make sure we get it right, it might take a while.

Matchmaking Improvements

We plan on making official server matchmaking improvements which are targeting adding a dedicated solo mode to the game and reducing megapacking outside of the group slot limits for players that want that to be an option. I had hoped to get this done in time for the Riparia release however didn't have time to make the patch submission cycle. We look forward to rolling that out in 2026 as the team catches back up from being on Holiday.

I will also be running more stress tests on the game for 200 player servers to collect data for our team to make more optimizations so we can hopefully reach that as our gold standard for server capacity. The previous stress tests have been extremely helpful, and we've already made many changes and fixes to the game to improve server performance in a meaningful way.

Final Thoughts

I truly believe we have entered a golden era of Path of Titans, and we have some amazing things planned for 2026. More dinosaur TLCs, new creatures, improvements to the quest system, and more. We plan on covering a lot of this in future Dev Blogs to give you a bit more of a breakdown on everything planned.

Thanks again for your support as we continue improving Path of Titans. We remain absolutely committed to delivering all the features planned for 2026 and everything we promised during our Crowdfunding Campaign. Thanks to everyone who purchased the game, gifted the game, and purchased skin packs to support development!

See you in-game, Matt