About Drehmal 2.3 And Beyond

Keeko100
Dec 31, 2025
10 min read

Happy holidays and happy New Year, everybody! It's been a really great year for the dev team and we're currently enjoying some well-needed time off. Good food and good company is important! I hope all of you are enjoying this time of year too.

While most of you are no doubt here to learn about Drehmal’s future, my fellow devs Dome and Mouton are here to talk about something arguably more exciting. It’ll be a long one, but please, do give it a read! And stick around to learn some news about Drehmal 2.3: [REDACTED].

BEYOND MINECRAFT

Hey Drehmari, DomeMaster here!

It’s not like me to invade Keeko’s development update posts like this, but I wanted to take a couple minutes of your time to tell you about an exciting development that has been lurking behind the scenes for a while: we officially have an independent game studio now!!!

LUX NOVA STUDIOS is named for the blue, red, and yellow light that shines through the stained glass windows of medieval French Gothic cathedrals. Coined by Suger, an abbot and advisor to kings in the 11th Century, the “lux nova” of the refurbished ambulatory of the Abbey of Saint-Denis was said to be like the sublime light of God.

The image of the stained-glass window is emblematic of what we value in game design. We want players to repeatedly experience our games in a new light as they unlock knowledge gates, discover unlikely truths through environmental storytelling, and become surprised and inspired again and again by the beauty of learning something new about themselves and the real world around them. Great games filter and distort lived experience into something meaningful, empowering, and emotional.

All this said, while we have lots of plans for the future, don’t expect another Drehmal right away. The Lux Nova team has some great developers, but it’s also much smaller and has a lot less experience with game engines outside of Minecraft. Still, please do support us! We see this new endeavor as a future lifeline for our team, as we want to make games for a living and it just isn’t realistically possible nor ethical for us to do that by monetizing Drehmal in Minecraft Java at this late stage. In the future, we hope to do that by releasing our first title on Steam, but until that point, please know that Patreon support is tremendously appreciated and helps us get a little closer to our dreams.

Now, here’s a word from the inimitable MoutonDemocrate, the Director of our newest project in the works:

Hey all, Mouton here. It's been a second.

Drehmal is probably my favorite game project ever, working on it and playing it were absolutely essential parts of my journey through the medium of video games. However, after developing in Minecraft for years (damn, it's been years ??), one grows weary of the limits of the game. Minecraft is very much NOT a game intended to be used as a game engine, and it sometimes feels restrictive. Enter Lux Nova, which has allowed me to work with the friends I've made in the Drehmal dev team (and a few more new friends!) on a project not limited by the bounds of Vanilla Minecraft. It has felt so incredibly great.

Today, after plenty of successes and plenty of failures, I finally have an official announcement: we've got something in the works.

I won't talk about it too much just yet, but I can share a few details. The first that you will see of the new game will be a very short demo. So far we've spent a lot of time on design, and not too much on development. It's a simple game, but I think our designing efforts will make it enjoyable, and it should give you a taste of what the full game might be.

Secondly, it's got NOTHING to do with Drehmal.

Without spoiling anything, I will say the game is mostly pretty wacky. It’s also serious, sometimes. We’re currently working on a free playable demo, and the game’s initials are “DTGI”! Once the demo launches, we’ll be creating a new LNG Discord server for discussing about DTGI and future demos/playtests, as well as development updates on LNG projects!

While me and Dome are announcing this to you all, I want to take a bit of space here to state something: I am so, so proud of the studio right now. We've taken what I thought would be a simple, basic game with few deep points to a project with dimension, with purpose. This is cinema, this is art, and this wouldn't be anything without the team. So when the game comes out, when we'll introduce the members of the team to you, I want you all to remember this paragraph and recognise them as the incredible dev team they are.

This was Dome and Mouton, signing off. Expect anything!

WHAT IS 2.3?

Heya, it’s Keeko again. I feel like I’ve got a tough act to follow - I’m just helping make a silly little Minecraft adventure map, not a full-fledged independent game! We’ve still got some good stuff to show though, so let’s just get to it. There’s a lot to see!

First and foremost: Drehmal 2.3: [REDACTED] is currently under development, but it will be some time before it is ready. We do not know how long, and we will not know for some time! We know that many are still under the impression that Drehmal development is on an indefinite hiatus, which has not been the case for 12 months now. So we wanted to make that clear to as many people as we could, and try to be a little more transparent about what 2.3 will actually have.

Drehmal 2.3: /REDACTED/ is, effectively, split into two parts. That first part is a thorough polishing of the moment-to-moment gameplay experience of the map; be it rebuilding outdated towns, overhauling regions we find lackluster, rebalancing underwhelming abilities, or tweaking systems as we see fit. And one part of the game we find particularly lacking is…

The Capital Valley! The start of the player's journey. This was the first spot we looked at when thinking of things we wanted redone in 2.3! The current opening simultaneously railroads players too much and too little; it's a little odd in an open world exploration map to be following a road for your first hour and then be pointed directly to a major story location, only to finish said location and then be given no further direction. So we're aiming to throw players "to the wolves" a little sooner, giving them a taste of what Drehmal is really like from the get-go. There'll still be some guidance, though less direct. More a trail of breadcrumbs to follow.

Another goal of these terrain reworks is to better show the history of the world, both in the factions that ruled it and the nature that formed it. Drehmal has an incredibly deep, layered past that we've tirelessly fleshed out behind the scenes for the past two years. We want to do a better job of reflecting that in-game. Some examples include…

...a lusher, more tropical Heartwood, that better represents the diverse ecosystems in place...

...a more dramatic Black Jungle, that looks as if the ground itself could warp and buckles...

...and, of course, logging operations on the outskirts of civilization.

Of course, it's not just terrain getting this treatment! When we first set out to make 2.3, so way back before we went on hiatus, our big ticket item was town reworks. A lot of villages and cities in Drehmal feel... out of place, or have a dated build style, or simply do not represent themselves well. So some of these reworks are going to feel wildly different...

...such as Gozak! Yes, that is indeed the heart of the forest itself! Like I said, wildly different.

Ebonrun's gotten some changes, too...

And... hm. What could this place be...?

We want to bring this history to the forefront, deepening your relation to the realm not just through text, but through the world itself. We think a lot of locations in the map simply do a poor job at this. There's a reason for that, of course! Many were made when it was just Rift and I on the team. We simply did not have the manpower to fully represent Drehmal's timeline (it also didn't help that said timeline was still being written!).

Of course, these reworks aren't JUST about the lore, but it's about the overall quality of the experience. Some regions and towns are just... boring. They lack variety or are just of an outright lower standard. We want Drehmal to be as good as it can be, and these reworks are a huge part of that!

There's plenty more of the update we're not comfortable showing just yet. We have many more reworks underway and even more planned, as well as some systems changes we're still writing out. For example, we've been trying to iron out a total overhaul to Devotion for quite a while now - when we have something concrete to share, you'll be the first to hear it!

If you'd like to support us monetarily and get extra sneak peeks, you can subscribe to our Patreon! Right now, we have some music samples, extra spoiler images, exclusive concept art, and a downloadable world file for the Gozak rework. We're hoping to post more world files for town reworks in the future. No predictions on when - they'll be ready when they're ready.

Anyway... about that other half of the update.

WEIRD, DIFFERENT, AND KINDA INSANE

Now, despite the impressive scale of what we’ve shown thus far, we would not be working so long and so vigorously on an update that only consists of polishing in the form of town, region, and Devotion updates. We’ve taken on a lot of new team members for good reasons, and they’ve put truly astonishing amounts of work into the map. However, most of it hasn’t been towards these reworks. It’s gone towards something new. Something weird, different, and, as mentioned, kinda insane.

So, as mentioned in our Five Year Anniversary post, in December of 2024 I wrote up a frankly ridiculous proposal of something I've wanted to have in Drehmal since its inception - since before we started turning it into a Minecraft map, in fact. Something that's been whispered about the team for years, always with a "probably not" but not once with a "never". Something I've written at least three different gameplay concepts for, mostly as a fun exercise, but also because it was, at least to me, unbelievably awesome. Something that despite the odd way it fits into Drehmal, has utterly captivated us.

Then… what is it? Well, let me just lay a few points out for you:

Intended for players who have beaten the map and reached the final credits
Intended for highly skilled, motivated, and passionate players
Intended to be played in a group, though still possible solo

Unfortunately, that’s all we’re willing to say. I know it doesn’t feel great to dish out all this hype and have nothing concrete to show, but trust me when I say it’ll make a lot of sense why. You’ll see. We just wanted to clear the air and let people know that 2.3 isn’t just polish and reworks. Though we don’t exactly know what to actually call this thing yet, so we’re probably just gonna keep calling it “that weird, new thing”. For the time being.

Just know that we are UNBELIEVABLY excited to get this out to you guys. When? We don’t know. We don’t want another 2.2 where we have three separate delays. It’ll just be ready when it’s ready.

IN OTHER NEWS

If you’re feeling impatient and want more Drehmal to play ASAP, fortunately for you there’s a few things you can play to bide your time!

There is a short, playable teaser for 2.3 available right now, which can be downloaded in our official Discord’s announcements channel, here. It’s not big, and pretty much just contains a cool lore book, but hey, a teaser’s a teaser. And you get a little slice of the revamped Heartwood to check out!

Additionally, there is an unofficial Drehmal DLC - now called Primal Journey - created by tworoundcats prior to joining the team, and has since been updated by him and some additional contributors (some of whom have also joined the team!) If you’ve beaten Drehmal and like crazy weapons and abilities, more collectables, more insane challenges, and fun quests, then you can’t go wrong with Primal Journey. Please do give it a try here and send the developers some love in the primal-journey channel on our Discord! They worked crazy hard on its latest update and it’s a great way to re-experience Drehmal.

Also - in an effort to expose Drehmal to a wider audience - we now have a TikTok! We’ll be trying to post videos there as well as on our YouTube channel. The second-best way to support us outside of donating is to subscribe to these accounts and engage with our posts! So, do give us a follow and share with your friends!

So that about wraps up this end of year roundup post. There was a lot to cover - our new game studio Lux Nova, news about 2.3’s reworked features and hints towards something newer, and just some extra little tidbits for those out of the loop.

A year ago, when I decided to return to Drehmal and dedicate myself to 2.3, I honestly couldn’t have imagined it going so well. I went into this thinking “If we can’t make this weird thing happen, then that’s okay.” But now I really, truly believe in our plans so deeply, and so much more than I ever did for 2.2. I’ve thanked the dev team countless times at this point for what they’ve accomplished. We’ve effectively reformed the dev team, refined our processes, and every individual has gotten even better at what they do, be it building, writing, programming, or art. Hopefully the quality bar of 2.3 is going to be even higher than 2.2’s. Maybe not as vast in scope, but denser, more meaningful, more refined.

Apotheosis taught me a lot, both as a game designer and team leader. Development was a slow, iterative process, where we went into it not really knowing how it’d end up, just with the goal of “improving Drehmal”, in whatever form that took. Even three years after starting 2.2, we were still adding, tweaking, rethinking our plans. It sorta just naturally came together. But now? There’s a plan. An extensive, well-thought out overview of what 2.3 will be and what that “new thing” is. We believe in it so much, and we can only hope you will love it as much as we do. Even if it takes time to reach fruition.

Thank you for listening to my crazy rambles, and I’m sorry 2.3’s gonna be a little while. It’ll be worth it. I promise.