2025 Winter Update Announcement

Roadmap

Prof. Pho's Growth Guide Revamp

• The Growth Guide is getting a major rework. All quests and the UI will be changed to provide far more useful rewards meant for character progression.

• The existing quests will be removed. Make sure to complete them before the update.

Skill Build & Equipment Guide

We will collect data from high Combat Power players to assess two systems for newbie players.

• Skill build recommendation: check which skills to equip. The recommended setup can be immediately applied.
  

• Equipment recommendation: check top 5 item picks for each Equipment Slot. This aims to help new players who are unsure what they should be wearing.

• Weapon and Armor recommendations are not available. Instead, a more elaborate guide is under preparation due to the complexity of said equipment.

Dungeon Improvements

1. Trosh's Nest improvements

   • Map structure changed to help beginners farm El Resonance EXP.
     

2. Monaterra and Serpentium general dungeon, as well as Abyss Solo Mode monster stats will be lowered.

3. Solo Mode will be expanded to Serpentium Raid.

   • Stage 1 will be changed to Solo Mode (no change to entry Combat Power).

   • Some patterns will be altered to suit Solo Mode.

Title Count Adjustments

Other Adjustments

1. In Doom Aporia, you can now drop the weapon in Stages 1 and 2 as well. The probability of acquiring a weapon is lower than Stage 3.

2. Exascale Amplification Circuit low-value options (0.5%, 0.6%) will be removed. With this, the probability of acquiring 0.7%, 0.8% circuits will be increased.

3. Circuit craft cost will be lowered to 200,000 ED.

4. Unique Atma Magic Stones will be changed to tradable.

5. An exchange that allows you to obtain all unique Atma Accessories will be added using new materials.

6. Hair dyeing pity system will be added. Collect points through dyeing and exchange them for a color of choice.

7. Batch hair dyeing will be added. When dyeing hair with A/B parts the same color, only 1 color palette will be consumed.

8. You will be able to retry in Spirit's Lord Temple dungeon.

9. Basic consumables (when creating a new character) will be improved.

New Region - Mirror Dell

• Mirror Dell consists of 6 story-rich solo dungeons. Instead of playing all 6 dungeons, some dungeons are assigned to you automatically each week.

• The El Search Party receives a call from a mysterious silhouette and heads to the unknown area of Mirror Dell, a city of mirrors. The search party members scatter across different realms, struggling to leave Mirror Dell.

• Through these new dungeons, you can level up your Artifact Pets that have not had an update in a while, and obtain new Artifact Equipment.

• You can increase your Artifact Stage through a quest. Your Artifact Pet will change its appearance after the quest is complete.

• A new identifiable effect is added to "Hidden Power" (fourth line).

• The existing upgrades like Spirit Stones will also be available on the new equipment.

Henir's Creation - Devil of Chaos

• A special dungeon that allows you to practice Raid and Giant Boss patterns before entering multiplayer will be added.

• Cannot resurrect and only one person can enter.

• This mode offers additional rewards that increase as you progress. These include Abyss Mystic Stones, Refined Exikel, Core Data Backup Module etc., as well as an item that increases Doom Aporia Accessory Drop Gauge.

Avatar Dyeing System

• Due to structural issues with old items, Avatar Dyeing will only be accessible on newly released avatars.

• However, as an exception, we will prepare a package of an older avatar for when the update is first released so that you could experience the new system.

• Dyeing pity and batch dyeing will also be applied.

Balance Patch

As said in a previous notice, many adventurers expressed regret over the last balance patch.
A large portion of characters was not included in the previous patch due to issues with controlling balance caused by excessive party synergy impact on endgame.
In the coming year, we plan to reduce the impact of synergy on gameplay while increasing each character's individual performance.
But before committing to big changes, we will review all characters once again in the upcoming balance patch, and instead of focusing on a small group of characters, numerical changes and skill trait adjustments will be implemented on a larger scale.
We are also preparing a test server for balance patches. There will be several test periods, and the first test period is scheduled to be released at the end of February 2026.

We will provide more details through a separate notice at a later date.

Events

• This time, the Combat Power boosting event will give away +11 Tenebrous Armor with Lv. 21 Reforge.

• +11 Submergence of Abyss - Phantom Weapon (Stage 5) can also be obtained again. Although, the quests that can convert the timed variant to a permanent one have been relaxed, and the event will last longer than it did before.

• Free Spirit Challenger as event reward (might be KR only).

• A new event that will help acquiring Amplification Circuits for Exascale will be released.

• The 18th Korean Anniversary will be celebrated by giving away Bloody Nightmare Ice Burner Full Set (permanent). The anniversary event will be slightly different from previous years, and we are planning to provide various additional rewards.

• While you wait for the Winter Update, we have prepared events such as free Mod (E) book cube timer on December 4th, as well as an event where you can receive cute KakaoTalk emojis featuring Hedgehog. There is also a collaboration with a chicken brand planned for January 2026.

• Elsword Pop-up Cafe: we are planning to meet with our adventurers at an offline event that will be hosted in the first half of 2026.

• There will be an event providing special rewards as a gift of gratitude for long-term players ("senior adventurers") who have helped our new and returning players.

• Korean players will be able to connect to Elsword through Nexon Link on mobile devices. However, party play is restricted.