Home › Reference index › What 1.0 changed
v1.0 · checked 2026-09-18
What 1.0 changed
The short answer
1.0 shipped on September 17, 2026 on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, about twelve months after Early Access opened on September 22, 2025. It is not a content patch on top of the Early Access build: it adds a sixth major faction, introduces rogue factions as a category, and rewrites numbers that Early Access guides still print as current.
Added in 1.0
Official| What | Detail |
|---|---|
| Sandshapers | The sixth major faction. They are the oldest civilisation on Saiadha, remember a time before the oceans, and treat terraforming the planet back to desert as a sacred duty. Like every major faction they arrive with their own faction quest, units, heroes, technologies and traits, and they are available in the custom faction creator. |
| Order of Zelevas | A rogue faction: a conquest-focused variant of the Kin of Sheredyn, with its own faction quest, story and gameplay. |
| The Severed Claw | A rogue faction: a variant of the Necrophage that can only replace its losses by enslaving other factions. |
| Mangrove of Harmony | A new minor faction, starfish-like, developed together with the Amplitude community. It brings its own hero and questline, new villages, recruitable units, a new population type and two hero skills. |
Rogue factions are the studio's own description for splinter groups that share much with their predecessor faction while carrying a distinct quest, story and playstyle. 1.0 is the first time they appear.
Rewritten before 1.0
the changes that make old guides wrong
Most of the drift did not happen at 1.0 itself; it happened in The Gathering, the major update of December 16, 2025, and in the monthly updates either side of it. That is why an Early Access guide can be stale even though it was written about the same game.
| Change | Where it landed | What it invalidates |
|---|---|---|
| Territory sizes increased by 30% | The Gathering, 2025-12-16 | Map-density advice and expansion-pace comparisons written before December 2025 |
| New game speed options, with mechanical differences between the choices | The Gathering, 2025-12-16 | Any turn-count benchmark that does not state its game speed |
| Necrophage economy retaken | The Gathering, 2025-12-16 | Early Access Necrophage economy figures, and the note below on its single-city constraint |
| Pacification quest flow reworked | The Gathering, 2025-12-16 | Step-by-step pacification walkthroughs from the first months of Early Access |
| Aspects improvements | The Gathering, 2025-12-16 | Aspect coral and influence figures from before that date |
| Diplomacy adjustments | The Gathering, 2025-12-16 | Early Access diplomacy-threshold tables |
| Main game screen rebuilt | November 2025 update | Screenshot-based interface walkthroughs and "click here" tutorials |
| AI unit management improved, then AI expansion improved | October and November 2025 updates | "The AI never pressures you" advice from launch |
| Simultaneous turns: the AI now locks its turn instead of holding moves, and active-player indicators are on by default | November 2025 update | Complaints and workarounds about the AI appearing to take two turns |
Sourcing note: the itemised list above and its dates come from the publisher's own press release for The Gathering (2025-12-16) and from the game director's State of the Game post (2025-11-19). The AI win-rate series the director published is a studio-side measurement, not an in-game statistic: 10% before the October 2025 update, 23% after it, and 43% in early figures from the November update while it sat on the public test branch. The director says plainly that there is no magic number and that the figure is only a loose way to check that the AI applies pressure.
Habits that no longer work
- "Expand as fast as the map allows." Territory grew by 30% in December 2025 and the AI both expands and upgrades units far better than it did at Early Access launch. A launch-era opening is no longer a safe opening.
- "Luxury boosters are cheap." The cost of activating a luxury booster was recalculated away from the old flat model. Players reported the new cost climbing well past what their stock could pay; the studio has acknowledged the balancing notes and has not published a replacement formula. Details and the community numbers are on /luxury-resources/.
- "Read the Necrophage economy off an Early Access chart." That economy was retaken in December 2025.
- "Skip the tutorial." The November 2025 update reworked it, so a skipped tutorial no longer skips the same thing it used to.
What did not change
- The turn structure is still simultaneous, and the studio has said it will not add sequential turns or hotseat, because the simultaneous structure sits too deep in the design to replace.
- There is still no naval technology or naval gameplay. The oceans recede instead, which is how the map opens up.
- The game still ships without Denuvo.
- There is still no in-game encyclopedia.
Stale-versus-current at a glance
| Value | Early Access figure | 1.0 status |
|---|---|---|
| Playable major factions | 5 at Early Access launch, with a sixth promised | 6 |
| Rogue factions | None | 2 |
| Territory size | Baseline | +30% since 2025-12-16 |
| Necrophage economy | Original | Retaken 2025-12-16 |
| Luxury booster cost | Flat per city, 10 of a resource (player-reported) | Recalculated; current formula not published |
| Steam Deck | Runs, but "needs more work" per the studio FAQ | Verified |
| Main game screen | Original layout | Rebuilt in the November 2025 update |
One caution that applies to this whole page: the release plan itself moved. The January 2025 reveal said Early Access would launch with four factions and add two more by full release; the September 2025 launch FAQ said Early Access would start with five. Both are first-party statements, made eight months apart, and they disagree. This site prints both dates rather than picking one.
Sources read for this page
Every source this page was written from, checked 2026-09-18.
- Steam store page, app 3407390
- Amplitude official blog — ENDLESS Legend 2 releases into 1.0 on September 17
- Reddit — EL2 factions so far
- Amplitude official blog — State of the Game, November 2025
- Hooded Horse press release — The Gathering multiplayer update
- Steam discussion — luxury resources / booster cost
- Amplitude official blog — ENDLESS Legend 2 Reveal (2025-01)
- Amplitude official blog — All you need to know (launch FAQ)