Hello, this is Director Lee Jong-Joo.

This is the first update announcement of the New Year.
Oh, and once again, Happy New Year to everyone!
There’s quite a bit to cover this time, so it took some time to prepare.
Let’s dive right into the topics you’ve been most curious about.

New Difficulty: Extreme II
As previously announced, this update introduces the new difficulty level, Extreme II.

Addition of Advanced Difficulty: Extreme II

The first advanced difficulty, Extreme I, was significantly more challenging than normal difficulty, featuring:

Additional mid-boss stages (3 and 8).
Monsters immune to status effects.
Monsters utilizing status effects against players.
This posed a significant challenge for many players. Despite two rounds of balance adjustments, Extreme I remained a notable test of skill.

Extreme II builds upon Extreme I but is designed to feel less extreme compared to the leap from Normal to Advanced difficulty.

We’ve maintained our commitment to avoiding excessive difficulty spikes in Adventure mode, which focuses on farming opportunities. (Challenging content will continue to be offered through features like Infinite Abyss, Threat of Gagharv, and Guild Raid.)

While monster stats have increased compared to the previous level, players can overcome these challenges by utilizing the newly added Smithy Level 4 to enhance equipment or fine-tune resonance stones.

Rewards and Features:
First clears of each stage will reward gold and experience.
Players can obtain up to Tier 17 boots, which have higher max stats than Tier 16 or lower.

Yellow Shoes!?

Stamina consumption per stage remains at 8 pieces of bread, consistent with other higher difficulty levels.
Additionally, new dungeons will be introduced. Hidden Darkbeasts within these dungeons will drop essences used to craft Tier 25 equipment. Successful crafting has a 20% chance of producing Tier 25++ gear (compared to 10% in Extreme I).

We are aware of the inconvenience in revisiting already-cleared dungeons and are exploring ways to streamline this process in future updates.

This difficulty aims to provide more players with the joy of growth while balancing challenge and progression. We hope you’re excited!


Advanced Equipment Crafting System
We are introducing a system where players can craft Tier 25++ equipment using resources obtained from Adventure mode.

While higher-level content still offers guaranteed access to top-tier gear through selection or summon tickets, this crafting system provides an alternative route for obtaining the highest-grade equipment.

Key Details:
How It Works: Sell Tier 24+ equipment (24, 24+, 24++) at the village shop to receive Adventure Points and Pioneer Tokens.
Tokens vary by equipment grade and can be used to craft Tier 25 gear (25, 25+, 25++) in the crafting system.
Crafting requires Radiant Anvils, purchasable with Adventure Points. Players who have completed Forge Level 4 upgrades are encouraged to utilize this system.

Adventurer Skill Preset Added
We understand that manually adjusting adventurer skills to suit various content types has been inconvenient for many of you.
In particular, issues such as incorrect settings being applied to the Hall of Heroes defense team upon logging out or changes made for other content affecting adventurer skills have now been resolved.

We regret that this essential feature has been introduced later than expected.
Adventurer skills will now be saved within the deck settings for each piece of content.

You can utilize up to three presets per content deck. The first preset will retain its current settings, while the newly added second and third presets will require you to configure the adventurer skills again after the update.

Adventurer Skill Preset


Improved Early Game Flow
To help new players adapt and settle into the game more easily, the early game flow is being revamped.

Changes:
The starting point shifts from Ourt Village to a streamlined tutorial adventure map.
The Ourt Village scenario will now serve as a prologue, accessible under the Memory of Heroes category.

Quest - Accessible via Prologue Button

Completing the prologue awards 500 Red Garnets per hero. (Rewards will not be duplicated for players who have already completed the prologue.)

Level Reset Unlocked for Heroes Below Level 40
To help new players adapt more easily, we have introduced a feature allowing free level resets for heroes at level 40 and below.
This change aims to provide players with more flexibility during the early stages of the game when acquiring various heroes.
As a result, heroes at level 40 and below can now be reset freely.
Hero level achievement rewards have also been adjusted accordingly.

※ As the level has changed, you could previously receive rewards at the existing level, but after the update, you might not be able to receive them at the same level. Therefore, if you want to receive the rewards before the update, please do so.

Story Hero Acquisition Event
Players can now obtain certain heroes who join the protagonist’s party during story progression.

NOTE: The image was not translated because it is still currently in development.

Details:
Heroes will be awarded as quest completion rewards.
Retroactive rewards will be provided for already-cleared quests.

Scenario Schedule Adjustments
We had originally promised to update both A Cagesong of the Ocean Chapter 8 and The Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch on January 16th at the same time.
However, while both scenarios are large in scope and contain important scenes we've realized that it would be difficult to bring them to a satisfactory state of completion due to the decentralization of development internally.

As a result, we've decided to release Chapter 8, the concluding chapter of A Cagesong of the Ocean, a week later on January 23rd.

(A Cagesong of the Ocean Very Hard II will be released on January 23rd as scheduled)

We'll do our best to bring you a more complete and emotional ending.

Final Showdown of the A Cagesong of the Ocean

In addition, The Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch will be further refined after the ending of A Cagesong of the Ocean is finalized, and we've rescheduled it for February 6th to ensure that it's a fitting start to Hero Legends 3.

To be honest, I got a little greedy and tried to prepare two big scenarios at the same time.

I put a lot of pressure on our developers, and as a result, I'm largely to blame for the missed opportunities.

This decision was made to provide you with a better scenario, so please bear with me.

The most important thing is completeness, and we will do our best to meet your expectations.

Next Week’s New Character Teaser
To build anticipation, here’s a hint for next week’s new character:
Keywords: Hunger, Blue Eyes, Two Syllables, Blunt Weapon, Prodigy

Thank you for your continued support. Wishing you health and happiness in 2025!

Director’s Note Surprise Coupon
Coupon Code: NQZLF
Validity: Until February 8th, 2025, 14:59 (UTC+0)
Reward: 15 Walnut Bread Baskets