Early Access Release Patch Notes

27/10/2026

Release day is finally here as Northgard: Battlegrounds enters Early Access!

This is just the beginning of a long journey as we refine the game going forward. In this patch there’s a bunch new content as well as some balance tweaks to adjust the top performing structures and units that have defined the meta since the last major update. Thanks for joining us on this ride, we have so much more we would like to add in future!

See you on the Battlegrounds!

Features

• A new cosmetic system, Treasures!

• With the addition of a fourth god, you are now randomly assigned 3 at the start of each run, with the god your clan already has favor with being guaranteed.

Content

• Bear Clan joins the battle!

  • 3 Unique Structures: Kaija’s Den, Winter Festival, and the Scabbard of Gram!

  • 3 Clan Skills: Kindred Spirits, Armor Proficiency and Protectors of the Land.

  • And two Warchiefs: Borgild and Kaija!

• Loki arrives as a new god!

  • 41 new cards

  • New TRANSFORM mechanic (have fun with this one :D)

• 3 new structures:

  • Sacrifical Pyre

  • Seal of Valhalla

  • Urdarbruun

• Supporter Pack added - Show your support by charging your enemies with supporter exclusive Warchief skins, battlefield decoration, shield decoration and title.

Balance Changes

• (Raven Clan Skill) Duelist’s Cunning

  • Each time Liv crits in combat, she gains 2/3/4 → 1/2/4 Damage for each ECONOMY.

• (Thor 202) Bloodied Might

  • When struck in combat, gain 2 → 1 Damage.

• Ceremonial Bonfire

  • Each adjacent UNIT gets 1/2/3 → 2/4/6 Burn

• Gjallarhorn

  • Rare → Epic

• Hlidskjalf

  • Max Einherjar 3 → 2

    • With the current state of revive, Einherjar are the best unit in the game at the moment. I’d prefer not to remove their revive as I feel it’s a unique and thematic mechanic. In future we’ll remove any positive or negative stacks they have during a revive. Until then, they needed to come down a little. Spawning 2 instead of 3 reinforces the feeling that this is an ‘elite’ WARBAND.

• Jotunn Camp

  • Stun 0.4 → 0

    • Stun is an older mechanic that we intended to replace over time with Frost. This was the last source of Stun in the game, and we were seeing perma-stun builds using this unit. Stun isn’t an inherently interesting mechanic as there’s no counterplay and feels bad for the opponent. Frost still needs tuning but we think it’s a better direction to pursue for crowd control playstyles in the future.

  • Damage 10/20/30 → 12/24/36

• Kobold Camp

  • Gain 0.1/0.2/0.3 → 0.05/0.1/0.15 Action Speed per ECONOMY.

    • Kobolds were topping the chart with damage on many boards. Action Speed is one of the best return on investment stats in the game, and perhaps it’s unwise that two of our uncommon structures are the best places to get it. In time we’d probably like to rework this ability but for now we just need to knock them down a peg.

• Mjolnir

  • Delay between lighting bolts 0.05 → 0.075

  • Base Strikes 5/10/15 → 4/8/12

• Nastrond (Reverted)

  • Fertile: Each adjacent UNIT gains 15/30/45% Health → 5/10/15 Poison.

• Sentry Camp

  • Action Speed 0.6 → 0.5

• Watch Tower

  • Each adjacent MELEE gains 35/70/105 Health → 25/50/75 Armor for each TOWER → RANGED.

Improvements & Fixes

• Massive reduction in unnecessarily large textures across the board to help improve performance.

• Yggdrasill is now able to benefit from Ancient Rituals.

• Fixed various soft locks caused by being unable to press the ‘next’ button.

• Fixed Baldr’s Shield Wall, should now correctly give Armor to MELEE units with Armor.

• Fixed a bug where Stag’s free rolls would be discarded when Stag banner hall was picked up.