This week’s location showcase for our At the Heart of Ruin expansion reveals the Ember Mines, a highly contested site that once belonged to the Dwarves of Dvendar Tharr, but has recently become a den for the numerous scavenger gangs that plague Varnurud. Whether it's sacrificial burnings or the enjoyment of human flesh, these savages are hardly the kind you’d be happy to encounter in the Ember Mines’ depths. No wonder that few go near the site – to do so is to invite death – though the resources within are said to be plenty, and there is talk of far more down the shaft than mere scrap.

In the northwestern reaches of Varnurud, a monument to Dwarven splendor rises from a stone platform, a vestige of ruined Dvendar Tharr – its immense size and state of preservation are testaments to the craftsmanship and skillful architecture of the ancient Dwarves of the faded kingdom.

Though none who dwell in these forsaken lands now know its origin, some theorize that the statue was erected to honor a thane or king whose name was lost to time in the millennium since the Calamity. As for its name, “the Hollow King”, it is unknown if it is a metaphor for the king that once was or simply a descriptor; indeed, its interior has been hollowed out and the cavernous gullets that bore inside the mountain from its base share the characterization.

Since Vagrus’s console release on the 31st of March, life at the studio has been hectic. We’ve been fixing bugs and trying to keep up with the deluge of coverage on offer. It’s almost proven too much! In this article, we’ve put together some of said coverage for your perusal.

First and perhaps most poignantly, Playstation and Xbox elected to support us by featuring the game’s trailer on their wide-reaching platforms, helping the release to reach a lot of potential new players. Then, there are the sites that cover specific platforms – NintendoEverything, GoNintendo, XboxEra, TheXboxHub, and CompleteXbox – all of whom dedicated an article to our release.

It’s no secret that At the Heart of Ruin, our upcoming expansion, features a veritable cornucopia of scorching locales. Death by exhaustion, flame, or combustion is likely to be a frequent occurrence. Yet perhaps more than any location above ground, the subterranean depths of Dvendar Tharr are the worst; rivers of lava cut through rock, frequently blocking the way, making exploration a tenuous and perilous notion.

As we ramp up the teasers for At the Heart of Ruin’s release, some of Varnurud’s most perilous landscapes come to the fore. While the mountainous realm’s northernmost reaches are a far cry from the red-hot, scorching locales closer to the volcanos, they pose a different kind of threat  – one emanating immense dread. In so many respects, this is no man’s land.

Since our console launch, we have received a lot of love and support from our community, as well as some interesting questions. We have collected the most common ones – along with answers to them – in this post. Hopefully, players looking for something can find it here.

Q: What kind of game is this exactly?

Great news, everyone: Vagrus - the Riven Realms and all of its DLCs are now live on Xbox, Nintendo Switch, PS4, and PS5! It’s been a long, hard road getting the game into a ready state for consoles, offering the features necessary that allow it to play well on these platforms, but we got there, and we can’t wait for console players to sink their teeth into the experience.

Hey everyone,

We return to you with another round of updates, this time the focus being on performance improvements and save game files. Controllers received some love as well, fixing inconsistencies, updating UI, and squashing bugs that pertained to them specifically. We also reworked the Extras Menu due to requirements on certain other platforms, though admittedly, its functions are much better now, allowing you to listen to tracks of the OST there and check out other extra content you own.

Excitement builds steadily as Vagrus's console release draws closer, and at the studio, the mood is elated. We cannot wait to introduce the game to an entirely new segment of the player base, which, according to the feedback we’ve received thus far, can hardly wait for the release. Thus, as we march onward to the 31st of March release date (for Xbox, Nintendo Switch, PS4, and PS5), we thought it’d be fitting to share some of the features that we think make the game play well on consoles. It’s certainly not your typical console release, though, if not for anything else, then for the mix of genres that is Vagrus.

The theme and look of this week’s location reveal for our upcoming DLC, At the Heart of Ruin, is quite different from the previously teased ones, all fiery and desolate. It is true that vagri who brave the Mountains of Fire will mostly traverse a volcanic hellscape replete with peril of the scorching variety, but what lies beneath is also intriguing.