Fellowship season 3 overhauls loot, difficulty, and nearly everything else in a 2,000-line patch

Early access co-op RPG Fellowship just dropped its season 3 update, and the patch notes were so long that developer Chief Rebel had to split them across five separate Steam posts — over 2,000 lines of changes in total. The studio is betting this overhaul will finally hook players on its core pitch: dungeon-running with friends, minus the grind of a full MMO.

The biggest shift is to the loot system. Community director Hamish Bode told PC Gamer that the old system had a problem — players would find the best gear and immediately stop caring about items. The new system is designed so there's always something worth chasing. Necklaces now roll random defensive bonuses for every hero, giving you a reason to keep checking for upgrades. If you land an item that fits your build perfectly, the new Tempering system lets you boost all its stats. Bode was careful to note that Chief Rebel didn't want to tip into Path of Exile-style complexity — loot has variables, but not so many that useful drops feel impossibly rare. Crafting is also in the mix, so if you go several runs without finding anything useful, you can salvage drops and funnel those resources toward the gear that actually matters for your build.

Season 3 also directly addresses complaints that the previous season was too easy. Bode explained that the team tried to smooth onboarding for new players by tuning dungeons down, but badly underestimated how powerful the new tank and healer heroes were. "People who were running the new tank and the new healer — it's almost worth saying — broke the game a bit," he said. That miscalculation pushed Chief Rebel toward much larger-scale testing this season. Bode said he personally wants Fellowship to deliver the kind of satisfaction you get from finally beating a frustrating Dark Souls boss — and that players going apathetic because the game is too easy is a far worse outcome than players finding it too hard.

The season 3 patch is live now in early access. With the loot overhaul, rebalanced difficulty, and a deliberate pivot away from MMO-style busywork toward tighter action RPG mechanics, Chief Rebel is framing this as a turning point for Fellowship — the version of the game that finally delivers on what it was always trying to be.