# Manor Lords New BETA version is available for testing (0.8.078) - Product: Manor Lords (https://whatsnew.fyi/product/manor-lords) - Vendor: Slavic Magic - Date: 2026-06-06 - Original notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1363080/view/690885345687896988 - Permalink: https://whatsnew.fyi/product/manor-lords/releases/2026-06-06-new-beta-version-is-available-for-testing-0.8.078 What's New is an index, not a publisher: every entry below links to the vendor's own release notes, which are the authoritative source. Entries are labelled where they are hand-curated sample data, pre-releases, or drawn from a secondary source such as a developer blog. Reuse: the summaries, labels and curation here are © What's New. Quote freely with attribution and a link back; wholesale republication of the corpus is not permitted — terms: https://whatsnew.fyi/terms. The vendors' own release notes remain their publishers'. --- - **changed** — Refactored pathfinding system to reduce time spent waiting for a path - **added** — Added island system that quickly rejects paths between different enclosed zones - **changed** — Refactored character locomotion and collision to use proper substeps to reduce differences between different game speeds - **changed** — Refactored Squad move commands to form wide line in open field, 3 column line on roads, and scattered formation over buildings, with ALT key to preserve previous relative Squad offsets - **changed** — Refactored group pathfinding algorithm - **changed** — Overhauled Game Setup screen aesthetic - **added** — Added Gamepad controls - **changed** — Added Granary, Storehouse, Trading Post, Homeless Tents, and Bridges to locations to avoid idle tasks - **changed** — Squads try to align combat formation to their shape when fighting on roads - **added** — Straight army paths are now saved and restored when loading - **changed** — Sightings of neutral Squads happen less frequently and messages are grouped together - **fixed** — Neutral Squads no longer stop or slow down game speed - **changed** — Families become homeless only when their home burns down instead of when it catches fire - **changed** — Church Lv1 & Lv2 boundary increased to make space for future levels - **added** — Added info about permanently assigned animals to building floaters - **changed** — Improved tooltip when player does not have enough resources during Burgage Plot placement - **changed** — Ungarrisoning is now forced when demolishing to prevent asking person inside to leave - **changed** — Increased garrisoning speed into Deep Mine - **fixed** — Unread quests and letters are now properly displayed after loading a save - **changed** — Ale is no longer consumed by Lv1 Families - **changed** — Ale crafting output reduced from 2 to 1 Hello everyone, Finally, geez! If you look at the version numbers, we've had 13 internal versions since the last Beta dropped. Annoyingly, this update is mostly technical, plus some cosmetics and a lot of bugfixes. The new style of the GUI will be most noticable (main HUD will soon get a similar makeover), but you should also notice a large improvement in performance, pathfinding quality and unit collision quality. The trickiest bits were: - You don't want to get units stuck together, but you want units to get stuck _a little, _otherwise combat feels too weightless. - You want the same results while playing on 1x, 4x and 12x but you don't want to do 12x the work on the CPU. You need to somehow improve the simulation resolution on high game speeds but without sacrificing performance. This causes a constant struggle, obviously we need the game to play smoothly and to be responsive, but a lot of the charm of ML is the details. Normally in games where you watch things up close (RPG let's say) you'd make the world near the camera detailed while far away you can tone things down, in ML, since the player is actually competing with other Lords, this would affect balance, so we can't do it too much, and the game speed multiplier makes things even trickier to solve. In any case, this is the sweet spot we landed on so far. Is it perfect? No. But it can still be pushed in various directions depending on feedback. For instance we're experimenting with Oxen having more detailed collision avoidance than other workers since there is fewer of them but you tend to notice it more when they bump. I also considered doing more refined collision avoidance during early game when there aren't thousands of characters to simulate yet, and when players tend to watch more closely. But maybe it's too much "cheating"? To be honest. My bet is you guys will say "it's fine, where are the Perks????" :) ## How to Access the Beta --- **Saves:** To avoid any potential issues, it’s recommended that you back up your saved files before switching to a beta version. **Mods:** Please remove any mods. They will most likely crash the game. > **To find your Manor Lords Steam saves.** > - Press Win + E - Go to %USERPROFILE%]]AppDataLocalManorLordsSavedSaveGames into the search bar. **To try the BETA, please follow these steps:** - Open Steam - Right-click on Manor Lords in your library - Select Properties - Go to the BETAS tab - Enter the password: veryNiceBasket - Choose "pre_release" from the "Beta participation" drop-down list - Wait for the game to update the files (if nothing happens, restart the Steam client) - Launch the game You can report (https://steamcommunity.com/app/1363080/discussions/3/) and [bug reports](https://steamcommunity.com/app/1363080/discussions/2/) on the Manor Lords Steam forums or join us on (https://discord.com/invite/manorlords) for bug reports and discussion about the latest patch. --- ##### Patch Notes — Version 0.8.065–0.8.078 (Beta) ##### Major Changes - Major updates to the pathfinding system to reduce time spent waiting for a path. - Added a proper “island” system that quickly rejects paths between different enclosed zones (Manor Castles, riversides with no bridge connection and so on). - Further refactored character locomotion and collision to use proper substeps in order to reduce differences between different game speeds. - Refactored Squad move commands: When moving multiple Squads by short RMB release, it defaults to forming a wide line when commanded in an open field, a 3 column line when commanded on a road and a scattered formation if commanded over a building area. To use the previous behavior (keeping relative Squad offsets), the player has to hold the **ALT** key when giving commands. - Refactored the group pathfinding algorithm. - Overhauled the Game Setup screen’s aesthetic. - Added Gamepad controls. ##### Minor Changes - Added Granary, Storehouse, Trading Post, Homeless Tents, and Bridges _[Truncated at 4000 characters — full notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1363080/view/690885345687896988]_