Endless Legend 2 at 1.0: Eight Factions, the Sandshapers and Six Weeks of Patches

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Sandshapers do not farm. In a 4X where the food tile is the first reflex, the sixth major faction of Endless Legend 2 only finds food on Sand, a terrain that does not exist in the world and that it has to manufacture itself. Six weeks after the 1.0 release of September 17, 2026, that is the sharpest picture of what the final version set out to add. What remains to be seen is whether the launch kept its promises.

What 1.0 really adds

Version 1.0 closes an Early Access that opened on September 22, 2025. Amplitude Studios and Hooded Horse add three playable factions, which brings the roster to eight: the Sandshapers, the sixth major faction, and two Rogue Factions, the Order of Zelevas and the Severed Claws. A minor faction, the Mangrove of Harmony, completes the set. It came out of a contest started ten months earlier to design both the gameplay and the art together with the community.

The studio also added a consumable born from its Insiders program, the Apotheosis Dirge: if it kills an enemy, a copy of that enemy appears with half its health under your control, and stays with you after the battle. The rest of the content is a very long list of fixes. On the eve of release, the studio stated that every bug with more than five upvotes on the Amplifiers platform had been handled for launch.

Amplitude’s retrospective counts close to sixty updates during Early Access, nearly five a month. Several left a mark: the unit rebalance, the zone of control, multiplayer, custom factions, gamepad support and Steam Deck certification, the narrative overhaul with Retold Tales, then mod support with The Architects. The 1.0 therefore lands on a game that has already been heavily reworked.

The Sandshapers: a faction built against the terrain

According to the official presentation, the Sandshapers are the oldest inhabitants of Saiadha, those who remember a world from before the oceans. They are expansionists and terraformers: they want to claim as much land as they can to fuel their Wishes and their economy, turning it into Sand tiles that are less useful to other empires.

The starting constraint is what makes the faction singular. The Sandshapers only harvest food from Sand, they get nothing from tiles next to a river or a lake, and they can neither cross a river nor build a bridge. To get by, they must find Ruins that only they can see, raise them and then restore them. The Wishes this unlocks let them terraform the tiles around each Ruin into Sand.

This design answers a mistake the team says it corrected. In an early version, Ruins were totems placed by the player that gave bonuses to neighboring districts. The result was too isolationist: you could build a powerful capital and stop there, much like the Kin. Ruins became points of interest spread across every territory, which forces you out of your borders and into contact with other empires.

What matters for the player: a faction that reshapes the map for its own benefit is not a simple numeric bonus. It demands a long-term plan, with a hostile start that softens as the desert spreads. The studio designs it for survivor profiles, and the selection screen labels it Expert.

The risk is twofold. The first is technical: several October patches target these mechanics, such as Sand tiles that were not giving their bonuses. The second is balance. A faction that makes terrain less useful for others can weigh heavily in multiplayer, but that effect only shows up in serious games, and no public data settles it yet.

The Rogue Factions, the most interesting idea of 1.0

Rogue Factions are fully playable variants of major factions that broke away from their origin. They keep the same base affinity but change the traits, the battle affinity, the leader and the quest. The studio added them because Early Access players asked both for more factions to play and for more factions to meet.

The first, the Order of Zelevas, grew from one question: can a faction share the DNA of another without being “the Kin with 20% more attack”? The answer lies in the gauge. The Kin raise it with fortifications, the Order raises it with territory. Same mechanic, inverted behavior: you must conquer instead of fortify. Soldiers are bought with Dust rather than Industry, and the top level removes the city cap.

The Severed Claws apply the same logic to the Necrophage. Cut off from their queen, they have no larvae and enslave minor factions. Destroying a village gives them a unit of that faction, and rebuilding a pacified village gives them population. Their game therefore depends on the minor factions drawn at random on each map. The designer explains that the two pillars of Necrophage identity were kept: a single city, and a reward for killing.

On the strategy side, the appeal is that these variants create choice without asking you to learn an entirely new game. A player who knows the Kin finds the same structure and changes mindset. The detail of both factions is in our Endless Legend 2 faction guide.

The console bet

In August, Amplitude announced Xbox Series and PS5 versions for September, and released a demo on PC and consoles in parallel. The demo numbers surprised the studio: PC turned out to be the least played platform, even if many PC players already owned the game in Early Access. Average playtime was a little over 2 hours on PC, about 1.5 hours on PlayStation and 4.5 hours on Xbox.

That data says console players are not just passing through. It says nothing about port quality. On the interface side, gamepad support arrived with the “Stand United” update, alongside Steam Deck certification, and the October patches keep working on gamepad navigation. Update #43, for instance, adds navigation on the minor faction protectorate cards in the gamepad interface, on Steam Deck and consoles.

What the studio has not published, however, is a comparative review of the versions. Console promises are therefore better read as announcements to verify, not as established facts.

Steam reception and price

At release, Steam rated the game Very Positive, with more than 1,500 English reviews and 88% positive among the latest 206. As of October 26, the Steam page still shows Very Positive, with about 82% positive across more than 2,300 English reviews, and 81% across the 578 reviews of the last 30 days. Reception stays good, but the recent score has dropped a few points since launch. The patches detailed below offer a lead, without proving it.

On price, the game costs 49.99 at base price. It had a 50% discount at launch, then another 50% discount during the Hooded Horse Autumn Publisher Sale announced on October 2. Amplitude presented the first as a celebration of the release. For anyone on the fence, these promotion windows are the most favorable moment, as long as you accept a game still being fixed.

Six weeks of patches: what the launch says about itself

Between September 18 and October 22, Amplitude published eleven numbered updates, from #37 to #47, and five quick hotfixes, from Hotfix #21 to #25. The version went from 1.0.116 the day after release to 1.0.218 on October 22. That pace is a responsive studio’s, but it also shows that the release shipped with real problems.

Several examples are telling. On September 23, Update #39 fixed a bug where armies drowned against the Aspects, which the studio itself described as making the faction unplayable. In early October, Update #44 removed the Severed Claws’ ability to consume for Corpses, because they were “still feeling a bit Necrophage in their heart”. It also fixed a flaw that kept Sand tiles from giving their bonuses to the Sandshapers.

Saves were the most delicate point. Hotfix #23 resolved games that could not load after the minor faction and Lord’s Estate fixes. Update #46 fixed further loading problems, while acknowledging that some older saves were permanently corrupted and apologizing for it. Hotfix #25 then fixed a freeze reported the day before.

Editorial reading: these patches do not disqualify the 1.0. They remind us that a “full release” label does not mean total stability. The point to watch is save continuity from one version to the next: a 4X is played over long sessions, and a lost save costs more than a visual bug.

What to watch

For PC players, the balance of the Sandshapers and the Severed Claws, the newest in the roster, remains the main unknown. Recent patches still touch their core mechanics, which suggests tuning is not finished. For console players, feedback on gamepad comfort, especially in heavy management during mid and late game, will be the real test.

The studio also promised an official roadmap, without a date. It said it wants to observe first reactions before adapting future content. One technical point deserves attention from modding fans: the 1.0 changelog flagged that the toolkit to upload mods was still missing from the game files.

If you hesitate, the decision comes down to three criteria. You like asymmetric factions and accept a game still being tuned: the 1.0 is worth it. You want a stable, polished 4X: wait a few more weeks of patches. You are looking for an entry point: take the Kin of Sheredyn and leave the Sandshapers for later.

Going further

Endless Legend 2: faction guide since 1.0, the detail of the eight factions and the player profile for each.
All our Endless Legend 2 articles, the game’s hub.

Endless Legend 2: 1.0 Arrives September 17 With the Sandshapers on PC, PS5 and Xbox

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Amplitude Studios and Hooded Horse announced on August 4, 2026 that ENDLESS Legend 2 will leave Early Access on September 17, 2026. Version 1.0 arrives on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series, with a sixth major faction, the Sandshapers, two Rogue Factions and a new minor faction. The central question is how these additions fit a game where the water recedes with every Tidefall.

Update, October 26, 2026: version 1.0 came out on September 17 as planned, with the Sandshapers, the Order of Zelevas, the Severed Claw and the Mangrove of Harmony, and the game has since received several patches. See the release announcement on Steam.

The Sandshapers, sixth major faction

According to Amplitude’s announcement, the Sandshapers are the oldest civilization on Saiadha. They remember a world before the oceans, and their sacred duty is to terraform the planet back into a desert. Like other major factions, they bring a faction quest, units, heroes, technologies and traits, also available in the custom faction creator.

Two Rogue Factions and one minor faction

Version 1.0 introduces Rogue Factions, variants of existing factions. These splinter groups share a lot with their parent faction, but each has its own quest, story and playstyle. The first two are the Order of Zelevas, a conquest-focused variant of the Kin of Sheredyn, and the Severed Claw, a Necrophage variant that can only replace its losses by enslaving other factions. With the Sandshapers, that makes eight playable factions at launch.

The Mangrove of Harmony is a starfish-like minor faction designed with the community. It brings its own hero, quest, new villages, recruitable units, a new population and two hero skills.

PC, PS5 and Xbox Series

The September 17 date applies to PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series, according to Amplitude’s community post. On PC the game is sold on Steam, the Epic Games Store and the Microsoft Store, at €49.99 in Early Access. Two physical PS5 editions are announced with Strictly Limited, timing to be confirmed.

Consoles are a first for the Endless Legend series: the original game only came out on PC, according to the Amplitude Store listing. Amplitude has already shipped other games on console, such as Endless Dungeon.

What to watch

Balance is the real test: a faction that turns land into sand runs against the game’s central mechanic, and the risk is that it hampers other factions instead of opening new ways to play. The quality of the PS5 and Xbox Series versions remains to be checked at launch.

For anyone already playing, July’s Retold Tales update reworked the quests of two factions ahead of this 1.0.

Going further

Our Endless Legend 2 hub: every article on the game.
Endless Legend 2 faction guide for 1.0: the playable factions.
Endless Legend 2 1.0 launch analysis: the review after release.

Sandshapers — After Strategy

Endless Legend 2 at 1.0: Eight Factions, the Sandshapers and Six Weeks of Patches

What 1.0 really adds

The Sandshapers: a faction built against the terrain

The Rogue Factions, the most interesting idea of 1.0

The console bet

Steam reception and price

Six weeks of patches: what the launch says about itself

What to watch

Going further

Endless Legend 2: 1.0 Arrives September 17 With the Sandshapers on PC, PS5 and Xbox

The Sandshapers, sixth major faction

Two Rogue Factions and one minor faction

PC, PS5 and Xbox Series

What to watch

Going further