Hawthorn is still in development with no announced release date. Pages state which build they describe · Fact base last reviewed September 13, 2026.
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53 records, each with a verification state and the sources behind it. Filter by category or by how confident we are, and see exactly which fields are still unpublished.
Last reviewed September 13, 2026
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One of the three confirmed playable species. The Summer 2026 build added a dedicated fur pattern and colour system for Mouse characters.
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A confirmed playable species with the only confirmed movement advantage in the game: flight. Owl flight was reworked in the Winter 2025/2026 build and a new flight system shipped in Summer 2026.
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One of the three confirmed playable species. No species-specific mechanics have been published yet.
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The pet taming system was expanded so you can feed creatures and build affinity with them over time.
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Butterflies were added to the world in the Summer 2026 build.
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Hawthorn is described as a world where animal and fey folk meet; the Steam page calls it "a sandbox RPG realm of anthropomorphic animals and fairy creatures".
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Recruit endearing NPCs to your village. Each has their own personality, story, job preference, decor taste and leisure activity.
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One of three village stats added in the Winter 2025/2026 build. Happiness reflects how content a villager is with their current day.
Morale tracks how content a villager is with the village as a whole and accumulates from Happiness over time.
Affinity tracks how much a particular NPC has been befriended by a particular player, unlocking dialogue and friendship events.
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You can assign NPCs jobs instead of jobs being hard-coded — but not every NPC enjoys every job. NPC farmers will water crops for you.
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Villagers now have leisure activities to unwind with after work.
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Villagers chatter with each other about what is happening around them — for example commenting on the rain while it rains.
A journal in the menu tracks every conversation you have had with NPCs.
Crops exist as items and must be watered to grow. NPC farmers can take over watering for you.
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Furniture items exist with their own recipes. Villagers care about the furniture and decor in their home, and items can be hung on walls through the building system.
Food items and food crafting recipes are part of the foundational game.
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Crafting stations exist as part of the foundational crafting system.
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Recipes exist for both furniture and food. New recipes and recipe icons were added in the Summer 2026 build.
A dye system and a clothing system for your character shipped in the Summer 2026 build.
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Resources can be dragged around the world with a rope; dragging was improved in the Winter 2025/2026 build.
Fishing is confirmed as a core activity, but NEARstudios has not published the item or tool used for it.
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Most world resources (pickups) have been implemented with procedural placement that reacts to world events, and they were tuned for performance.
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New plants and resources to gather were added in the Summer 2026 build, alongside new plant physics.
Fishing is a confirmed activity ("harvest, fish and farm"), but no fish species, sizes or locations have been published.
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Wood is the obvious building material for a game about rebuilding homes among the roots of great trees, but no timber resource has been officially named.
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No mining or stone resource has been confirmed by NEARstudios.
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Watering is a confirmed requirement for crop growth, and NPC farmers can do the watering for you.
The valley the game is set in: a large, ever-changing area where resources and points of interest shift over time.
The village you rebuild. Its layout was expanded in the Summer 2026 build, and the game now begins with a proper story introduction here.
The official description places your village on the shore of a lake in Windermere.
Ruins were added on the outskirts of Windermere in the Summer 2026 build.
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Homes are rebuilt and decorated among the roots of great trees, which anchors the village’s fairytale look.
The wilderness around the village is where you explore for resources and treasure, and where the strange creatures come and go.
Homes were improved so you can see inside from the outside and watch weather from within. Updated homes shipped in the Summer 2026 build.
In the backstory, woodland creatures built a trading post in forgotten Windermere Valley before the village was abandoned.
An entirely new area map shipped in Summer 2026, and the expandable game map has been under construction since the Winter 2025/2026 build.
A new quest system was built for the full game as part of the Winter 2025/2026 work, alongside new story and dialogue tools.
A new and improved dialogue system shipped in the Winter 2025/2026 build, built to scale for sandbox play.
A storyteller system drives procedural events and was part of the scalable tooling built in Winter 2025/2026.
Steam lists random events that make each player’s sandbox story unique as a headline feature.
All four seasons are in, with rain and snow bringing unique challenges, and seasonal traditions to celebrate.
The weather system was updated in the Summer 2026 build.
Steam lists a headline feature: choose a peaceable solution to each conflict, or choose the path of combat.
No boss encounter has been confirmed by NEARstudios. The game does promise combat as an option and "defend against the elements and forest tricksters".
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You create your character from a variety of species and backgrounds, with a fur pattern and colour system for Mice added in Summer 2026.
Small-scale co-op runs as private sessions you invite Steam friends to. Online co-op and LAN co-op are both listed on Steam.
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Controller support for gameplay shipped in Winter 2025/2026, with full UI support in progress.
A new world and character save system shipped in Winter 2025/2026. A rare save-corruption bug was reported during the August 2026 playtest.
Editorial playstyle: own the food chain — crop plots, watering routes and NPC farmers — so the village never starves and cooking stays supplied.
Editorial playstyle: focus on housing, layout and decor so villager Happiness and Morale stay high and new recruits have somewhere to live.
Editorial playstyle: range into the wilderness and the ruins for resources and treasure, and feed the crafting pipeline back home.
Editorial playstyle: work the social layer — dialogue, gifts, decor and jobs — to raise Affinity and unlock friendship events.