Hello! I bet you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you all here. It is because the world is ending (boo!) ... but in a fun way (yay!). Buckle up, this one’s gonna be a big one.

It has been six years since I dropped the first version of Ravager. Since then “I” have become a “we” of like-minded perverts – and together we have written three Lord Of The Rings trilogies, drawn enough images to fill the Museum of Modern Art, and recorded more voice acting than Skyrim. Ravager is the best story that I have ever had the pleasure to tell, and it is coming to a close.

Kind of. Let me talk about what you can expect; we’re near enough to the end, now, that I can talk with proper confidence.

Version 7.0 is the last major update that we’ll make in Early Access. It is expected to arrive very soon, in November 2026.

If you’ve been following a major plotline – the Cataclysm, the Proteans, the Infernals, or a very naughty warlock – this is when it will be resolved, decisively, one way or another. And it will be you that will decide the outcome, of course.

We’ve really pulled out all the stops for this. Each culmination has a massive branching script with new art, new animations, and new music to fit. They’re coming together extremely nicely, and I am very excited to share them with you; alas, I can’t say more than that.

Our soundtrack was released three years ago; since then, Exo Spectra has continued to compose new music for us. Character themes that were made in the intervening years (for Balthorne, Issa, Maelys, and Valzira) will be added to the existing soundtrack, for free.

We’ll also release a second album, which will serve to showcase the absolutely spectacular arrangements that Exo has put together for the game’s conclusion. Really can’t exaggerate how good this new stuff is. I’ll put the albums in a bundle together, so that if you already own the first one you will get a discount on the second.

We've received a lot of requests to localise Ravager into different languages. Ravager has a very large script (over 1.5 million words!), which unfortunately makes it impossible for us to afford any professional translations. We tried supporting fan-translations – but it became clear that we were the weakest link in that process, and so we’re going to open them up to everyone.

We will host a translation forum on our Discord server with downloadable game scripts, technical guides, and localisation advice; you’ll be able to post and download translations there. We’ll also make adjustments to the game so that translations can be smoothly modded in, and then let you work your magic.

Version 7.1 is when we’re gonna do our main release. Version 7.1 is expected to arrive in February 2027.

You’ve waited long enough to become an eternal dragon-king – and after all these adventures, you certainly deserve the crown. If you are betrothed to a princess, this will also mean a wedding ceremony, and you can expect festivities to be suitably flavoured by their mores. This marks the natural conclusion of our main story (for now), and we will be giving it proper due...

…but it might not be quite as simple as that. Depending on your playthrough, you might come across one or two surprises along the path to wedded bliss. We’ll be including them in the 7.1 release as well.

Save Reset

Ravager started as a project to teach myself coding, and my grubby fingerprints are still left all over it. We’ve maintained save compatibility for six years – but the moment comes when you gotta bite the bullet, and get rid of all that spaghetti code. I think “leaving Early Access” is the only wholly justified time you can do that, so that’s when we’re doing it. And we’re doing it to put a new code structure into place, which is properly optimised for modding - more on that in a moment.

When I wake up, my first thoughts are about Ravager. I work on Ravager until I need to sleep – and then when I am in bed, my last thoughts are about Ravager. This game is my vocation and I absolutely love it, but after half a decade it is probably wise to spend some time remembering that I am a human*.

Touching Grass

I’d like to go visit some places. There’s lots of them, and I am reliably informed that some are very interesting and/or beautiful.

Playing Games

I haven’t had the chance to play Cyberpunk 2077, or Baldur’s Gate 3, or really any game released in the last five years. I should do that.

Booping Snoots

I recall that I had friends, once. I ought to message them, and see if they want to hang out again.

We now begin our post-release support for Ravager. These additions will be released as free updates, as and when they’re ready.

Wedding Nights

It would be a shame to finish the story without properly celebrating your marriage with your princess (or, if you are a confirmed bachelor, a conveniently-positioned member of the service staff). So we will make sure you can do that, in the style to which you have become accustomed.

Dynasty

And if that princess happens to be pregnant, it would be a shame if you couldn’t see what naturally follows. So let’s meet junior, too, before we consider our story truly ended.

Mod Support

With the new code structure in place, and any issues ironed out, we can now go hard on mod support. We’ll get the Workshop up and running, and we’ll write documentation to help fan-creators. My goal is to support loading multiple mods, so you can customise and extend your experience however you like.

There are a few more things that we have planned out, but have had to deprioritise in order to avoid the curse of eternal development. These will be added as further free updates.

Waifu Conclusions

We’ve spent a lot of time with all our waifus (and husbandos), and their stories deserve a proper conclusion too. Due to our branching plotlines, this is a very large undertaking – but we want to do it anyway.

Remaining Fates

It has always been a design goal of mine to give every waifu a unique and exciting fate scene with every horde. We’re most of the way there – 69 scenes (nice) and counting – but there are still a few combinations that are yet to receive this honour, and we’ll be filling in those blanks. 

Epilogues

With our stories firmly concluded, I think it would be neat to have some narration that gestures at what happens afterwards… until the thread is picked up by Ravager II, of course.

It is the twenty-first century, and there is no need to stop adding things to a game as long as you have the means and inspiration – and we’re certainly not short on inspiration. Lots of characters and storylines got descoped along the way and, if it is sustainable to do so, we can re-scope them. I have the first DLC expansion already in mind (hint: it has centaurs in it). If it pays for itself, we’ll make more.

Our collaboration with Cumkeys initially hit some technical challenges; a fully-rendered interactive movie turned out to be rather more performance-demanding than we would have liked. Thankfully our coders have since worked some absolute magic with the RenPy engine, and we’re powering ahead once again. A short technical demo of The Party Mascot will be released soon, with a larger release planned for early 2027.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2732680/Permission_to_Dock/

We have not forgotten our foray into space! Permission To Dock is currently sitting in cryosleep while we focus on finishing Ravager, but it is very much alive. We look forward to defrosting it, and giving it a suitable launch after Ravager has left Early Access. P2D's initial release is planned for mid 2027. 

It’s been a while since we’ve caught up on development - I’ve been very busy, err, catching up on development! With the assistance of Mattrex, DoItToJulia, and her corral of supporting writers, we’ve been pushing the main plotline forwards as fast and hard as – as, well, a dragon might. There will be no update this month, because we are getting ready to release version 6 next month.

Yes, we have officially decided to stop fooling ourselves, and to start calling an Act an Act. Act V Chapter Two pushed Ravager over 1.5 million words (not including code!); it is now officially Act VI, and we are updating our version numbers to match. The last parts of Act VI are being finalised and playtested now – they’d be done already, but we decided to add quite a lot of bonus treats for you all, so you can look forward to those.

We have already begun work on the first elements of Act VII (formerly Act V Chapter Three). In keeping with our drive to finish the main plotline, we’re initially focusing entirely on the very most exciting elements: the decisive resolution of any Realm-scale threats (friendly or otherwise), getting crowned, and (most likely) getting married to your betrothed of choice. There will be a few twists and turns along the way, but I don’t want to spoil the surprises!

When all this is done, and we’ve tidied up any missing elements, we will consider ourselves to have reached main release. But our work will not stop there! Wedding nights, your draconic progeny, final scenes with all of your waifus (and husbandos), epilogues... there’s a lot we’d like to add, and we want to do that with the main release already under our belt (and without holding up the conclusion to the story!).

And once all of those are done, we can start thinking about expansions. I have some ideas.

Thus begins 2026, and the Year Of Troj- err, The Horse! Whilst I’ve been quiet over the festive period, that is not the same thing as being (entirely) idle. So let’s have a look at everything that has been happening, and is about to happen.

Our new year’s resolution is “finish the main plotline; no seriously; do it”. Over the last few months I’ve been working with lead editor DoItToJulia and our new project manager Midnight Iris to slave our entire writing capacity to that end. Previously, Mattrex and I would work through the main plotline sequentially, while DoItToJulia’s writing team worked with us on the remainder - but that was vulnerable to sudden incapacity and logjams, as we’ve seen.

I’ve been working with both to get the main plotline outlined in advance, parcelled, and absolutely everyone on it - which means we can write the whole thing simultaneously. We’ve pulled in old hands and recruited new talent for the task, including John Drake. Thus far, this approach has yielded extremely good results, and we expect to be moving that waterline up very quickly over the next few months.

This is another area of focus – we want to get all of our art up to a common, final standard, in time for our main release. To that end, we’ve moved our splash artist over from Permission To Dock to focus exclusively on new pieces for Ravager, and we’re inviting back Sintax Error to help with the remainder of our character art. For our scene art, we’re bringing in three(!) artists to do a turbo enhancement sweep on our older pieces - including Sommelier, who you may already be familiar with from their work on Seeds Of Chaos.

But that’s not all! I’m working with HereToHelp to get all of our sprites properly scaled and aligned, and with Amon Ra on getting the newest ones animated. He’s begun breathing movement into our new-look “messy” sprites, and what I’ve seen so far looks amazing.

Our musician Exo Spectra has already done a fabulous job with our soundtrack – and now he’s turning his attention to the rest of Ravager’s soundscape, going through scene by scene and adding environmental and action foley. The last update saw that applied to the start of Act I, and lots more is to come. And there will be enhancements to our music, too, as he finds places for alternate themes and variations.

Voice acting has been part of Ravager’s signature from the very first build, and that’s another area I’m paying a lot of attention to. We’ve brought in fresh cutters and engineers to help with our backlog of raw recordings, and I’ve been running between our cast of voice talent to get them back into the recording booths. Where a character isn’t yet cast, or the old voice talent is no longer available, I’ve been finding new faces – most notably, Fenrah Alesari will be taking over for our darling serpentine daughter.

The unreasonably vast size of Ravager – about 1.3 million words, which is more than twice the length of Lord Of The Rings – makes translation efforts difficult. I’ve brought in Majaeste to help Soulphase coordinate our fan localisation teams, and to support new translators. If you’re bilingual, and would like to assist their efforts (in exchange for shiny benefits), please let us know in our Discord server.

And that’s (much of) what we’ve been up to! Given the nature of the internet, I expect some of you will be concerned that we are overworking ourselves – and others convinced that we are doing nowhere near enough. The truth of the matter is that we are doing as much as we sustainably can, in the smartest manner we can come up with. The end is in sight. And we’re getting there, soon.

Hi dragon fans! The last time I had the chance to talk was back in July - unknowingly mere days before the crackdown started. Between that, the art overhaul, and work progressing the story, I haven’t had the chance to respond to all your lovely (or kindly critical) comments - sorry! But I have a lungful of air now, so I’ll take the opportunity to get you up to speed.

Main Plotline

This has been our main priority, and Mattrex and I have been working together on it. Our branching narrative means that it’s more work than you’ll see in any given playthrough (and needs to accommodate all playthroughs), but that’s the chalice we’ve chosen to sup from. I’m going to talk about its scope, so skip this section if you want to avoid very minor spoilers about what to expect.

The end of Chapter Two has three sequential phases:

After discussing with the team, I have decided to break from tradition - we will release each phase as it is ready, rather than waiting to dump it all at once. Our changelogs will tell you exactly what is delivered and when. This will stop you from waiting, aid us in testing, and allow us to avoid most/all of the logic pitfalls that typify a major update.

This means that we will release the first phase in the next update! Woo! Depending on how the last steps go, our next update will arrive either at the end of this month or sometime in the next one. Wish us luck.

We’re not sitting on our laurels after the recent overhaul. Lubbio will continue drawing our new scenes and critical remasters, now with more focused support from me, and I am also getting some help from Sintax on bringing old pieces up to a final standard. Anon has been moved over from her work on Permission To Dock to make more splash art for us, and Amon Ra is back on creating new animated scenes.

Back in the innocent days before the entire adult game landscape was set on fire, I reached out to other creators about future collaborations. I am excited to say that this has borne fruit! Though I can’t say too much right now, we will be working with a very talented person on the creation of a small but perfectly-formed little game. It’s early days yet, but you can look forward to the announcement sometime in the next few weeks.

That’s it from me - I’m headed back to the story mines. Thank you all for your support during this very tricky time; I look forward to proving your faith justified.

Hi hi, dragon fans! It's been a while since my last State Of The Realm post - too long, in fact. I’ve been dwelling in a big bank of brain-fog since the start of the year, and trying to figure out exactly why that might be (overwork? seasonal depression? burnout? pituitary nonsense?). Turns out I have ADHD! And have had it forever, but nurturing Ravager as it grows has suddenly made it a problem.

The good news is that ADHD is typically very responsive to medication, which I am commencing imminently. I’m not saying that a taste of Malagar’s infernal crystal stash will transform me into a productivity wyrm overnight - but I’m not saying it won’t do that. Just in case, I’ve brought Midnight on board as a transitional project manager, and Nyah in a more persistent capacity as my glamorous assistant.

The merit of being a whole-team production is that progress still gets made, even when the executive layer is dysfunctioning. So there’s lots to look forward to for you all! Amon Ra has just completed an impressive roster of new animated scenes, DoItToJulia and her writing squad are busily fleshing out the game with oft-requested content, Sintax Error is providing our waifus with some facial beauty treatments, HereToHelp is continuing to prettify our UI and brief our artists, Irrelevant is working on some little treasures for Steam’s point shop, and Mattrex is continuing to chip away at the next main plotline development.

We’ll keep up our monthly updates, big or small, while I am getting myself back to full capacity. But hopefully we’ll see fewer of the ‘small’, and much more of the ‘big’. Thank you for your patience - I look forward to seeing it well rewarded. Time to sharpen those claws!

A new year dawns! The team has scraped the ice off of our smut-engines, and we’re right back into full production once again. This year is going to be the toughest one for us, creatively and financially, as we bring Ravager towards its glorious conclusion and lay the groundwork for what comes after. But we do like a challenge.

Our lead writer Mattrex and I will be focusing on the ‘main plotline’. First we’ll finish up Chapter Two: an expanded kobold hatchery, herald interactions, the war council, reconquest mechanics, updated horde visits, the final court event, and another snuggly sleeptime. I’ll aim to have some progress on this track in each monthly update, big or small, until it is done. Then we’re going to begin work on our final segment, Act V Chapter Three.

Meanwhile, the rest of our writing team under DoItToJulia will be fleshing out our content with new waifu content. I think it’s important to build ‘wide’ as well as ‘tall’, and Julia’s team will be providing a satisfying girthiness to our work. You can look forward to more crossovers, more personal flavour, and more exotic things to do with your waifus.

HereToHelp, who just finished the rebuild of our graphics system, is continuing his quest to make Ravager available to as many people as possible. The first version of this will be a ‘streamer mode’, which makes Ravager compatible with the onerous demands of different platforms. The second version of this will be Ravager: Moon-Friendly Edition, which will be of interest to players in more censorious localities. That effort goes hand in hand with our localisation team under Soulphase, who will be pushing hard to improve our support for other languages.

Our art team will be busy making illustrations for all our new content, as well as giving our more dated assets a good scrub. Ravager has been in production for five years, and our artists have developed their prowess and style over that span - so let’s make sure that this is reflected in the final cut.

Anon, who illustrated our beautiful splash art, has joined us as a visual lead for our next project, codenamed P2D. She’s been doing a lot of pre-production work, which I’ll be able to share with you soon. If you love Ravager, but crave a more unified art style, you’ll be very pleased with our approach for P2D. A full announcement will go up after our next update.

And of course there are the countless heroes who make this all possible: codesetters, playtesters, voice talent, sound engineers, translators, and many more. They’re all gonna keep the engines turning as we race towards our destination.

It has been observed that I’m a little dry with communication, and that’s something I want to fix (for people who like getting lots of updates). So I’m now active on X and Bluesky, and I will aim to use them to share a little tidbit of what we’re working on each week. So follow me if you like the sound of that.

And for everyone else: I wish you a glorious Year Of The Snake! Shé nián kuàilè!

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