🗺️ What’s Next for Mithril & Mud

We’ve shipped 8 patches since Early Access launch, squashing over 60 bugs, adding expeditions, offline production, automation, a full soundtrack, and a mountain of balance tuning. That’s all in the first three weeks — and we’re not slowing down.

Mithril & Mud is a passion project built by a tiny team, and we’re pouring every spare hour into making this the best dwarven mining game we can. When you drop a bug report in Discord at midnight and see it fixed in the next patch — that’s us hunched over a keyboard with too much coffee and a stubborn refusal to ship broken things.

We want to be straight with you — we’re working on this game every single day. You might notice updates slowing down compared to the rapid-fire patches at launch. That’s intentional. Instead of pushing a bunch of small fixes every few days, we’re shifting to larger, more impactful updates that each bring meaningful new content and systems. The quality bar is going up, and we’d rather take the time to get things right than rush something half-baked out the door.

Your feedback has already reshaped major systems. Expeditions, offline workers, the automation suite, the entire balance curve — those all came from conversations with you. We read every message, every review, every “hey this feels off.” It matters more than you know.

So — what’s coming next?

🔓 Progressive Automation Unlocks

Right now, the automation panel opens all at once. That’s changing.

In an upcoming update, automation will become part of the progression system itself. Individual automation capabilities — auto-assign workers, auto-buy upgrades, auto-delve deeper, auto-convert resources — will be unlocked as upgrades that you earn through gameplay. Early depths are hands-on. As you progress, you’ll unlock the tools to let the mine run itself, piece by piece.

This means automation won’t just be a convenience toggle — it’ll be something you work toward and feel rewarded for reaching.

👑 Dwarven Heroes & Kings

A brand-new system is in the works: named dwarven characters with unique passive bonuses. Each hero brings something different to your operation — production boosts, expedition perks, combat strength, or resource efficiency.

Heroes persist through prestige, giving you meaningful long-term choices about how to shape your playstyle across runs.

⚔️ Click-to-Attack Raids

Raids are about to get interactive. Instead of watching your Runic Warriors handle everything, you’ll be able to click to fight trolls and dragons directly. We’re exploring a craftable relic — something like a Dwarven Warblade — that unlocks click-to-damage during raids, with visual feedback like slash effects and floating damage numbers.

This turns raids from passive DPS checks into moments where you can jump in and make a difference.

🏪 Trade Post Overhaul

The Trade Post is getting a rework focused on ongoing maintenance. Nations will require a steady stream of Trade Points to maintain their relation bonuses — relationships decay over time without upkeep.

You’ll also get a priority system so you can choose which nations to sustain first when Trade Points are tight. This turns trade from a set-and-forget system into an active strategic layer.

💎 Shadowsteel Rebalance

Shadowsteel currently piles up faster than you can spend it. We’re rebalancing the income side — making Shadowsteel drops rarer and more meaningful so that when you find it, it feels like a real reward rather than just another number going up.

🎮 Steam Deck Investigation

We’re looking into Steam Deck compatibility. Godot 4.6 already exports to Linux, so the foundation is there. The questions we’re working through: touch/controller input, UI scaling at 1280x800, and whether to go Proton or native Linux. No promises yet, but it’s on our radar.

🔮 Also On the Horizon

  • 🏆 Elite Achievements — Ultra-rare goals (1–5% rarity) like D20 speedruns, defeating Lithodore without warriors, and lifetime ore milestones
  • 🎯 Tooltip Audit — A pass across every panel to fill in missing tooltips and improve discoverability
  • 📉 Blessing Diminishing Returns — Preventing exponential blowout from repeatable blessing depth multipliers
  • 🖥️ Minimalist UI Mode — A Stellaris-inspired toggle for a stripped-down, compact interface
  • 🏛️ Visual Artifact Shelves — Procedural display racks near the mine showing your crafted artifacts like a trophy room
  • 🔄 Challenge System Rework — Redesigning challenges to feel more rewarding and less grindy

🙏 Thank You

We know Early Access means trusting us with your money before the game is finished — and we don’t take that lightly. Every patch is us trying to earn that trust. We’re a small team punching above our weight, and we’re not going anywhere.

If you have thoughts on any of these features — or ideas we haven’t thought of — drop by the Discord. Some of the best features in the game right now started as a message from a player. Yours could be next.

The mine goes deeper. Stay tuned. ⛏️