Encamp Devlog, August 2026

The Barrow Warden

Encamp has its first boss. To fight it, build a Barrow Altar out in the swamp and fill it with Withered Bones, Grave Ash and Iron-Bound Censers. A pawn has to stand at the altar to start the fight.

The Warden stays on its own ground and will not follow you home. The mounds around its arena keep raising more dead until you break them. After the first kill, the next fight costs less to start.

The Warden drops its maul, shroud, crown, seal and skull. Mount the skull on a Trophy Mount back home. When you use it, every pawn nearby gets stronger for a while, and then the mount needs a long rest.

Training Grounds

You can now train your pawns. In the Jobs panel, set a pawn's role to Training and pick Melee, Shooting or Toughness. Pick Auto and they train whatever they are worst at. Toughness is a new skill. It lowers the damage a pawn takes and helps them dodge.

There are nine training stations. Each one only trains up to a certain level.

Training uses up food and arrows, though some arrows can be picked back up. Stations wear out and train at half speed until they are repaired. You get an alert when a pawn is too good for their station. Level 20 is the top. After that, pawns only get better by fighting.

Production Rooms

Workstations now need the right kind of room. Build walls and a door, then put the main station inside, and the room knows what it is. There are workshops, from a crafting table up to a machine shop, plus Hot Works, a Weavery, a Laboratory, a Kitchen, a Library and a Training Ground.

All the stations in a room share one list of things to make. Each room also helps the work done in it. A library speeds up research, a kitchen keeps food fresh longer and a training ground speeds up training. If a room is missing something, like a door or a bed, the build menu tells you.

Research

Research now uses up study supplies: Paper, Books and Lab Apparatus. Your scholars take them from crates in the research room. If the crates run empty, research slows to a crawl until you refill them. The research panel shows about how many minutes of supplies are left.

The Writer's Desk has to be inside a finished library, which means four walls, a door and no kitchen or workshop stations. Later research needs a Laboratory with a Lab Bench in it. The Research skill is now called Intelligence. When a research finishes, a card shows what it unlocked and what to research next.

You can also tell a workbench to keep a set amount in stock. For example, set it to keep 20 Paper and it starts again whenever you have less.

Quests and Colony Events

There is now a quest log on the toolbar, with steps and rewards. There are three stories to play through. The Pursuit of Knowledge walks you through writing, your first library and your first scholar. Standing Water starts when your scholar finds an old drawing inside a mining book nobody can read. The Fourth Mouse is about a stray cat that keeps leaving dead mice on someone's blanket, and it ends with you naming the cat.

Story moments now show up as event cards about one of your pawns by name. Some choices only appear if that pawn has the right trait. You can put a card aside and read it later, but it goes away if you wait too long.

The World Map

Press M to open the new world map. It shows what your pawns have seen, and the rest stays dark until someone goes there. Drag to move around, scroll to zoom and double-click to jump the camera there. Right-click to drop a marker and name it.

The map shows your home flag, outposts, quest spots and pawns, plus bandit camps and ruins once you find them. It is saved, so it is still there when you come back.

Building and Clearing

You can now upgrade a building where it stands. A wooden wall can become a stone wall without tearing it down first. When you place an upgrade, the preview says "Upgrading".

The new Clear tool removes things in one go. Drag a box to cancel build orders, tear down buildings and clear bushes and stumps. Right-click one thing to clear just that. Your builders pick the materials back up.

Food and Cooking

Food now goes bad over time. Food left on the ground spoils fastest. A barrel or crate keeps it longer, and a pantry room keeps it longest. Rotten food can be turned into compost for your fields. Pawns also put their bowl away after eating.

There are new recipes too: Boiled Potatoes, cooked on a campfire or stove, an Antitoxin Tonic, and a knife made from a boar tusk.

Raids and Wildlife

A lot of August went into fixing raids. Wolves and bandits no longer show up at the same time. Raids are now sized to how many fighters you have. Wolves and raiders break through things in their way instead of walking around them.

Several raid bugs are fixed. Raiders no longer freeze in the middle of an attack, chew along a wall next to an open gap, or stand at your wall forever after a failed retreat. Wolves in a pack no longer attack each other.

Other Changes

• Every workstation has its own work animation. Pawns hold the right tool and show what they are making.
• The game loads faster.
• There is a new vehicle, the Automobile, an open car that carries four pawns.
• New plants grow in some biomes: Bogwort in the swamp, Sulfur Crust and Saltpeter Bloom in the desert, and Cotton Grass in the tundra.
• Knocked-out pawns can no longer walk to bed. Someone has to carry them.
• Pawns on soldier duty wake up when you are attacked and grab their gear.
• Mood and stress have been rebalanced.
• Blood no longer piles up forever after a long fight in one spot.
• The toolbar has new icons and the menu has a new background.