You will follow the story of young Tungdil Goldhand, a dwarf raised among humans, who embarks on a journey to find his lost origin. On his quest, Tungdil will meet up to 12 companions who can join his party, all with individual skills and their own backstory. Among them you’ll find the furious dwarf twins Boindil and Boendal, who’ve fought hundreds of battles. But there are also unusual figures like Rodario, a human actor, who is a weak fighter but knows every dirty trick in the book and can masquerade himself to catch his opponents by surprise.

The Dwarves will feature an unprecedented, physics-based real-time Crowd-Combat System. Battles will mostly feature a few brave heroes against huge hordes of enemies (think “Helm’s Deep” in The Lord of the Rings). And to fight back hundreds of orcs, but you’ll need some tricks. So imagine a swing of your hammer will not only hit the five orcs closest to you, but will also throw them backwards into the ranks of their filthy brothers… maybe pushing some of them down a cliff. The whole enemy crowd pushes and shoves, squeezes and stumbles all at the same time and it’s pure fun to raise havoc among them with special attacks and powerful spells. It’s only through tactical use of the environment and all of the heroes skills that players will be able to survive against the hordes outnumbering them by 100 to 1.

You can travel to over 200 locations on the dynamic map, where you will face enemy troops and varied quests. Your decisions will influence the story – will you face a raiding orc horde and risk your neck or do you allow them to plunder a nearby village? We bet the inhabitants won’t appreciate that! Many of the most important locations on the world map can be visited in detailed 3D isometric levels. Here you can talk to NPCs, trade, and explore the world and its rich history.

We are aware of performance-related issues in the console-builds distributed to media for review purposes. We want to assure that the Dwarves is getting a Day-1-Patch addressing aforementioned issues on PS4 and Xbox One. It will also add some improvements to UI, camera controls and the world map. Here is the list of fixes, that will be going live with release:

Changes for Xbox One and PS4

Performance Optimizations

• Lag-spikes in multiple locations fixed
• Better FPS in multiple combat arenas due to preloading, enemy behavior changes and enhanced trackers
• Better FPS in additional locations due to graphical adjustments/optimizations
• Some texture adjustments (slightly better loading times, reduced potential lag spikes)

Graphical Improvements

• Soft particles in all quality settings
• Updated fog in multiple locations
• Added effects (Steam, smoke) in multiple locations
• Tone-Mapping/HDR adjustments in multiple locations

Improvements

• Many camera colliders had been optimized for less camera jumps/clipping problems
• Nav-Mesh/Character collider improvements
• UI improvements in Shop-, Level-Up, Party and XP screen; HUB fixes
• Rodarios Fake Death ability works as described now
• Balancing changes in some battles
• Added a hint to the worldmap to show how many days a village will withstand its attackers
• Boindil can’t knock himself out anymore by running into walls
• If the game is paused, there is now an indication for that and an info how to resume
• Sidequest marker for the worldmap
• Additional loading screen tips

Bug fixes

• Potential crash bug after restarting Mifurdania Woods fixed
• Potential crash after fighting with Bislipur for the first time fixed
• Bug after introduction of Andokai/Djerun fixed
• Bug after climbing down the oak tree fixed
• It’s no longer possible to be trapped between objects
• Fixed some rendering issues with characters in the UI

Others

• More music in the credits scene
• Added missing supporters to the orc army in the credits scene
• Added a second slot for AutoSaves. Both slots alternate
• Added Chinese language

Total Download-Size for the Patch will be: 7,13 GB on Playstation™4 and 3,09 on Xbox One.

Key Features:

• The main character in the game is the dwarf Tungdil, who grew up among humans. Over the course of the story he gathers a group of up to 12 companions around him; each of whom have a unique backstory and individual battle skills.
• Before each battle you assemble a group of up to four heroes, who then fight against hundreds of enemies simultaneously… Helm’s Deep sends its regards!
• Innovative Crowd-Combat System: Enemies have a flocking behavior and react using realistic physics. Every action of the player has an impact on all enemies.
• You travel across Girdlegard on a world map that contains dozens of battlefields and places just waiting to be discovered.
• Bestselling author Markus Heitz is directly involved in the project as a consultant and will contribute some quests and brand new characters.