Last Epoch's Frostborn season arrives 1 October with a new game director

Last Epoch's next season has a date, a name and a new person in charge. Eleventh Hour Games says Season 5: Rage of the Frostborn launches on 1 October at 11am CDT, and the studio has handed the Game Director role to Mike Weicker while co-founder Judd Cobler concentrates on running the company as CEO.

A demigod, three new skills and a rebuilt faction economy

The studio's own Steam announcements lay out what is coming. The new seasonal mechanic is Rage of Morditas, built around Morditas, described by Eleventh Hour as the vengeful Demigod of Bloodshed. There is a new pinnacle boss waiting at the end of it, three new skills named Radiant Lance, Summon Tide Elemental and Dreamslash, and a set of what the studio calls chase-worthy unique items. Both of the game's trading factions, the Merchant's Guild and the Circle of Fortune, get major updates.

Who is Mike Weicker?

Weicker has been at Eleventh Hour Games from the start and has hosted the studio's Friday developer Q&A stream for more than 200 episodes. In the announcement post, the studio said he wants to build the greatest action RPG ever made, and that his weekly presence in Discord and on stream will not change. Cobler, who co-founded the studio and has fronted Last Epoch's public communication for years, stays on as CEO and will still be around to help shape where the game goes next.

The whole run-up, published in advance

Rather than drip-feed the schedule, Eleventh Hour published the entire countdown at once. Hype Week runs from 21 to 25 September, with daily reveals on the seasonal mechanic, the boss fight, faction updates, new skills, new items and quality-of-life changes, capped by the full patch notes. The Season 5 supporter pack is revealed on 27 September, developer tour stops with Raxxanterax and AaronActionRPG follow on 28 and 30 September, Twitch drop details land on 29 September, and the season itself goes live on 1 October alongside the First Blood event for players racing to beat Pinnacle Morditas first.

Last Epoch is a paid action RPG on Steam, listed at 33.99 EUR with a Metacritic score of 80, developed by Eleventh Hour Games and published alongside KRAFTON. Season 5 is the first full season under the new director.

Our opinion

Handing the Game Director's chair to the person who has answered questions on a livestream every Friday for four years is a quietly sensible move. Last Epoch's problem has never been the ideas - the skill trees and the crafting are among the best in the genre - it has been the gap between what a season promises and what players actually get when the servers come back up. Weicker is the known quantity, and a fresh boss, three new skills and a rebuilt faction economy is exactly the kind of reset the game needed after a quiet summer. The date is the easy part. Hype Week will tell us whether Rage of the Frostborn is a real step forward or a reskin with a demigod on the cover.