Wartales Community Update 7: Free Crime Hub, Prisoner Skill Trees, 72% Steam Sale

Shirogames.com Shiro Games has shipped Community Update 7 for its million-selling medieval tactical RPG Wartales — a free overhaul of the game's crime and prisoner systems that goes live alongside a 72% Steam discount on the base game and the console debut of a full horror expansion, making today an unusually strong moment to pick up or return to one of indie gaming's most consistently supported RPGs. Enter The Lair: Crime Finally Gets Its Own Home Base The headline addition in Community Update 7 is The Lair, an underground hub built entirely around outlaw play. Prior to this update, Wartales rewarded theft, robbery, and general lawbreaking through a diffuse suspicion system — players could live a criminal life, but that life lacked a dedicated infrastructure. The Lair changes that design equation directly. The full The location is not handed to players automatically. Mercenary bands must accumulate enough suspicion through genuinely criminal activity — stealing, robbing, and running afoul of the authorities — before informants scattered across the world will share the location's whereabouts. Once inside, crews can fence stolen goods, take on criminal bounties, purchase exclusive weapons unavailable from legitimate merchants, and chip away at their suspicion level before the law closes in. This matters as a design choice, not just a content addition. Giving the crime playstyle a dedicated home base grants it the same infrastructural legitimacy as the game's existing merchant and camp economy — a design philosophy that distinguishes games where alternative playstyles are genuinely supported from those where they are merely tolerated. The Lair is the mechanical argument that being a criminal in Wartales is now a first-class way to play. Prisoners Are Now People (With Skill Trees) The other major overhaul is the prisoner system. Previously a relatively shallow mechanic — capture an enemy, hold them, recruit or ransom — prisoners in Community Update 7 now have dedicated skill trees, needs and desires tied to each captive's individual traits, and a fully reworked trust progression. Hidden objectives can be discovered and used to shift a prisoner's loyalty in either direction. Capsule Computers confirmed all prisoner system rework details from the official press release. Players also gain greater direct control over captives both in camp and during combat, turning what was a holding mechanic into a genuine strategic consideration. A prisoner who has built enough trust under the right conditions becomes a potential asset; one whose hidden objectives you failed to account for may work against you. The design shift moves Wartales closer to the relationship-driven companion systems that have made games like Baldur's Gate 3 so emotionally resonant, while keeping the interaction grounded in the game's survival-management logic. "The new features and improvements included in Community Update 7 represent not only a substantial update to Wartales , but a reflection of our ongoing commitment to listening and engaging with player feedback," said Quentin Lapeyre, Game Director at Shiro Games. "New additions like The Lair and overhauled Prisoner System allow both new and returning players to sink their teeth into a wealth of new content." Combat Moves Faster, Character Sheets Are Cleaner Community Update 7 introduces a new End Round button that instantly skips the remaining turns of any mercenaries who have not yet acted in a given combat round. Crucially, the skip can be canceled at any moment — so players who change their mind mid-round can step back in and reposition rather than committing to an action they realize is suboptimal. Shiro Games has also improved AI calculations and smoothed out camera movement throughout combat. Outside of combat, the character sheet has been redesigned with a three-tab layout covering core stats and character information, relationships, and secondary classes — making it easier to manage a growing mercenary roster without navigating between screens. New Maps, Armor, and Personal Quests Round Out the Update Beyond the system overhauls, Community Update 7 delivers three new armor sets obtainable through purchase or theft from wandering merchants, six new battle maps spread across the regions of Alazar, Harag, Gosenberg, and Edoran, personal mercenary quests tied to individual characters in the player's company, and a broad pass of bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements drawn from community feedback. What Wartales Is — and Why That Matters Today For players unfamiliar with Wartales , the game is worth understanding on its own terms before deciding whether to pick it up on today's discount. The Set in the ruins of the Edoran Empire, a once-dominant medieval civilization brought low by a magical plague a century before the game begins, players build and lead a band of mercenaries who are not heroes — they are working-class fighters who need to eat, rest, and get paid. Characters tire during travel and must camp; if they are not fed, they desert. Every mercenary can die permanently. The game has no main quest by design; Shiro Games deliberately omitted one, citing a belief that games like Skyrim are more interesting when players ignore the prescribed narrative and forge their own. The result is a game that generates its own stories from the intersection of its mechanics: the hungry mercenary who steals food on a mission, the prisoner whose trust you spent weeks building who betrays you at the worst moment, the horse that dies in combat and genuinely costs you economically. Rock Paper Shotgun described the game as having "Joe Abercrombie vibes" — a reference to the grimdark fantasy author known for morally complex, survival-focused stories where no character is entirely safe. That context matters today specifically because the base game is currently The Curse of Rigel Comes to Xbox Today Separate from the PC update, Wartales — The Curse of Rigel expansion launched today on the Xbox Store. The DLC, which released on PC in December 2025, takes players into the County of Rigel — home of the Sylve Forest, a canopy so dense that sunlight never reaches the ground. Players investigate brutal murders while managing their party's dwindling light and sanity against corrupted predators, with a new Thaumaturge class — an alchemist who wields vapors to bolster allies and weaken enemies — available free to all Wartales players regardless of whether they purchase the expansion. GameDaily confirms the Rigel Xbox launch alongside Community Update 7. The console arrival of Rigel follows July's The Fief expansion landing on Xbox, and April's Fires in the Capital DLC — a pattern that shows Shiro Games actively closing the gap between PC and console content libraries. What It Means to Promise Seven Free Updates and Deliver Wartales launched on April 12, 2023. In the time since, Shiro Games has delivered seven numbered Community Updates — all free — alongside a steady cadence of paid expansions: Pirates of Belerion (December 2023), The Tavern Opens! (April 2024), the Pits and Skelmar Invasion (late 2024), Beast Hunt (April 2025), The Fief (September 2025), Fires in the Capital (April 2026), and The Curse of Rigel (December 2025). A formal annual roadmap, published each spring, has outlined upcoming content with unusual specificity for an independent studio. The The studio — founded in 2012 in Bordeaux, France, and previously known for the Viking strategy hit Northgard — received The 2026 roadmap has already confirmed a Q4 2026 annual Expansion DLC introducing mounted units — cavalry in Wartales , a feature players have long requested — as the next major paid content addition. Frequently Asked Questions What is The Lair in Wartales, and how do I unlock it? The Lair is a new underground hub location added in Community Update 7, designed for mercenary bands who pursue the game's Crime and Chaos playstyles. To unlock it, players need to accumulate enough suspicion through criminal activity — theft, robbery, and similar acts — until informants scattered across the game world are willing to share its location. Once found, The Lair allows players to fence stolen goods, accept criminal bounties, purchase exclusive weapons unavailable from legitimate merchants, and lower their suspicion level when the authorities are getting too close. Is Wartales free to play, and what does the Steam discount cover? Wartales is not free to play — it is a premium game. However, as of today's Community Update 7 launch, the base game is 72% off on Steam, with all DLC discounted up to 35% as part of a timed Midweek Sale. Community Update 7 itself is a free download for all existing owners. New players picking up the base game today during the sale will receive Community Update 7 automatically. What platforms is Wartales on, and which versions are getting today's update? Wartales is available on PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch, and Xbox Series X|S. Community Update 7 launched today on PC. No simultaneous update date for Switch and Xbox has been announced for this specific update. Separately, The Curse of Rigel expansion — originally a PC-only release from December 2025 — is also available on Xbox as of today, September 7, 2026. What does the Wartales prisoner system overhaul actually change for players? Prior to Community Update 7, prisoners were primarily a transactional mechanic — capture them, hold them, and choose whether to recruit or ransom. The update gives each prisoner a dedicated skill tree, needs and desires tied to their individual traits, and a reworked trust system with hidden objectives that can be discovered and used to influence loyalty. Players also have greater direct control over captives in camp and in combat. The practical effect is that managing prisoners is now a genuine strategic consideration rather than a background bookkeeping task.