Soulframe Preludes 16 "Of Hook and Hound": Everything New

Soulframe Preludes 16 "Of Hook and Hound" has been live since September 18, 2026. The update brings pup training, fishing, dynamic weather, transferable Tempers and noticeable combat changes. Digital Extremes switched it on at the end of Soulframe Devstream 17, and six hotfixes have followed so far, the latest two on October 8, 2026.

If you've been following since TennoCon: Preludes 16 is not the same thing as "Warsongs". Mounts, the Vadagar Pact and the new story come later. This overview sorts out what you can play right now and what is still missing.

⚠️ Preludes 16 is not Warsongs

Until early September, all we had was the TennoCon presentation from July, and two packages got mixed up there. Since the official announcement on September 4, the split is clear:

• Preludes 16 "Of Hook and Hound" is the official version number and name. Content: pup bonding, fishing, weather, Tempers, combat. Live since September 18, 2026.
• "Warsongs: A Soulframe Fable" is a separate, later update planned for fall 2026, still without a date. It includes the new story around the Envoy's mother, Tempest Bayor, and the Vadagar Pact. Digital Extremes hasn't confirmed whether riding is part of Warsongs.

The mount itself isn't in Preludes 16 either. According to Digital Extremes, the wolf becomes rideable "later this year". The Mendicant Reinbreaker is not part of Warsongs, by the way: per the patch notes he is already playable, as an Agari with his own Epithet for beating him.

🐺 Pup training: the five stats

You need to finish the Fable "The Shewolf Snared" first. Then you pick one of three pups: Ciar, Cathal or Cuan. The patch notes say the choice is final. You call your pup through the Gear Wheel, otherwise it sleeps in the Nightfold. It has five stats with up to 5 points each: Guts, Speed, Endurance, Curiosity and Heart.

Each pup starts with 3 points based on its temperament, and 15 points are possible in total. You can't max every stat. Ciar is "Clever" (2 Heart, 1 Curiosity), Cathal "Loyal" (2 Guts, 1 Endurance), Cuan "Playful" (2 Endurance, 1 Speed). An aura works from the first point and gets stronger with each one after that.

Since Hotfix 4 you assign learned points yourself: hold "Add", and the choice is final. The temperament starting points are now optional. If you already had progress, your stats were reset once. There is no free respec. Since Hotfix 3, hovering an aura shows its percentage, and you can dismiss the pup through the Gear Wheel.

Only training costs energy. Once your pup is exhausted, it sleeps for about five hours. Canid Kibble lowers energy use, Canid Biscuits briefly boost learning, and Verminia makes both. Until Hotfix 5, the two effects were swapped in the game.

Separate from training, the bond grows through the ranks 0 Wild, 1 Tame, 2 Loyal, 3 Loving, 4 Devoted and 5 Soulbound. Point allocation, auras and food in detail are in our Soulframe wolfpup training guide, and the road to a grown wolf is in the wolf companion guide.

🎣 Fishing: Finner Shrines, lures and angler ranks

It starts with the Votive "Minnow's Hook" at one of three Finner Shrines, which you find with Spectral Sight: on the lakeshore south of Sidae's Stake, in the swamp at Birdie's Bog, or on the coast near Heedoway. It leads you via Grandfa's Hut to Doyen's Spool. Your reward is the Feathered Flier lure, which never runs out.

You equip the rod at the water through the Gear Wheel. Every catch has four steps: cast, lure, reel in, catch. Which fish bites depends on habitat (swamp, lake, coast), time of day and weather. Devstream 17 mentioned six fish species with four variants each. The patch notes give no number.

Release a fish and you get Harmonies and Swell O' Tides. Keep it and you get Clappie Pail and Plaited Freshfish, the ingredients for pup treats. Ten angler ranks make fish tire faster, make perfect casts easier and let you see deeper. More lures are in chests and Sap Crates, and you can carry up to 10 of each.

Since Hotfix 4, the rare lures Scuter, Locustax Streamer and Spindled Bugger drop from Common Chests instead of rare ones, and Enclave vendors sell lures. Since Hotfix 3, the bite prompt only shows up on an actual bite. Hotfix 2 made the shrine in the Kearnhold Lowlands start "Minnow's Hook" again. Details are in our Soulframe fishing guide.

🌦️ Dynamic weather that changes gameplay

Midrath now has fog, rain, overcast skies, strong wind and thunderstorms. According to Devstream 17, the weather is synced for all players, even in your own instance. It doesn't just change the look:

• Thunderstorms raise damage from Voltaic sources. Proc chances, for example from Galvanized Strike, do not go up according to the patch notes.
• After rain you find more organic resources.
• Fog hides you from enemies.
• Rainbows bring more Dracs. The patch notes hint that Arcanics could be added soon.

Cloudquells drive the rain away. Rain also has its own music now.

⚒️ Transferring Tempers at Tuvalkane

The biggest system change for weapons: every time you salvage a weapon, each Temper on it gets 1 progress point, and 10 points means learned. Duplicate Tempers count twice. You can salvage from the inventory, from the ground and now from the Arsenal as well. Anything you salvaged before finishing "The Steelsinger" doesn't count retroactively.

You can transfer ("Strike") a Temper onto any rank 30 weapon of any Craftwork, as long as its Temper limit has room. Legendary allows 5 to 8 Tempers. You need The Steelsinger, Tuvalkane rank 3 and a learned matching Temper. Each Strike costs 1 Glow, 1 Amber and 1 Faer Lampyrite, which now stack to 99. A Strike can't fail. Where to farm the Amber one is in our Amber Lampyrite guide.

Striking the same Temper over the same Temper doubles its effect. Transfers are permanent, so changing your mind means paying again. "Refine" is now called "Enhance Craftwork". Six new Tempers: Grounding Spell, Conjuration, Severed Root, Hollowed, Well Woven and Invader. You can favorite items in the Arsenal with F or R3.

🏷️ Epithets: names for legendary weapons

When you upgrade a weapon to Legendary, Tuvalkane asks you to name it. For weapons that are already legendary, go to "Enhance Craftwork" and pick "Name Weapon". You can rename at any time. You unlock titles through activities, and only some of them count retroactively. Four examples from the patch notes:

• Destrier: defeat the Mendicant Reinbreaker.
• Mistbrand: 100 parries.
• Gladen Scythe: complete Glades of Andurin 25 times.
• Hoard-Warden: collect 10,000 Dracs, counts retroactively.
• Changes: Hotfix 1 removed the unobtainable Epithet "Star Mortar", and Hotfix 4 added five new ones, such as Finnerkin for swimming 1,000 meters.

⚔️ Combat: parry, reach, rune energy

Per the patch notes, the startup delay on parries is gone, and the parry cooldown no longer slows down blocks. In Devstream 17 the developers put the old delay at 0.15 seconds. The warp, meaning the magnetism of all weapons toward targets, is also heavily reduced. Stand too far away and your swing hits air.

Several attack types got buffs. Sprint attacks deal more damage, dodge attacks more Stagger, and Spectral Strikes both. Heavy attacks, Arrow Hail included, deal much more Stagger and still hit hard with physical or Magick damage. Hotfix 2 improved bow aiming.

Runes charge up through attacks, and that scales with Spirit. Pull Smite gives less charge than before. Outside of combat, runes slowly lose their charge.

🗿 Totems: main hand only

Per the patch notes, Totems now only work in the main hand. On top of that, there are targeted changes:

• Damage Totems have a smaller radius.
• Splatting Sploot is weaker, Smiting Stag triggers Smite less often.
• Turn Tusk confuses longer, conditional armor Totems last longer.
• A bug with Dewclawer is fixed.

👹 Enemy changes

Enemies have slightly lower defense and slightly lower Stability scaling. The Envoy only flinches at a higher threshold when blocking heavy hits. Garren Rood and the Vadagar Stag use unblockable attacks.

• Life scaling above level 30 is higher.
• After you defeat an Agari, enemy level goes up by 4.
• Ode casters heal with a longer cooldown.
• Melee Sinecure attack more aggressively.
• Lady Deora has more Life in the Torment Stag.
• You can turn off the new camera shake under Accessibility with "Screenshake".

🤝 Matchmaking and better chests

At Revival Shrines, the game now looks for up to three more Envoys at the same shrine. The nearest shrine is always marked on the map, the Journal shows your progress, and "Leave Party" cancels. For dungeons, you start the search in the entrance room. You need to have finished "Rise, Envoy", and it doesn't work under the Cogah.

Solved puzzles guarantee a rare chest, with a chance for a second one. Dungeons without puzzles get more randomly placed rare chests, and hidden spots have a higher chance. Weapons from rare chests drop at Military or better everywhere. Ode Drones sometimes carry a rare chest.

The hotfixes reworked loot further. Since Hotfix 3, Rare Chests hold up to 2 weapons or fragments, and Enclave weapons come as Officer instead of Sovereign. Since Hotfix 4, Rare Chests give more weapons, and dungeon Rare Chests contain Hushed and Whispering Chordstones.

Since Hotfix 4, Common Chests no longer contain Dracs, but they are the only source of Talismans: Direskull in the Dendrit overworld, Synod's Bell Jar in the Ode'n overworld, Orengall's Fang in Glades of Andurin and Wazzard's Wish in the Rovgot Ruins.

📦 Other changes

• Three new weapons: Grimana (sidearm, one of Orengall's claws), since Hotfix 3 only from Glades of Andurin dungeons at level 25 and up, the club Wreath from Mendicant enemies, and the staff Gystalt from Ode'n enemies.
• Gystalt bugs fixed: runes for clients (Hotfix 2), Fellust now works (Hotfix 3), no more lost sustained fire after "Blessed Meeting" (Hotfix 4).
• Suit of The Sleeve: Coronal, Gilet and Buskins are available for Favour from Alca's Children. Orengall's armor set now comes from the Siege of Kearnhold and can no longer be bought from Alca's Children.
• Preludes Honour Talisman for everyone since the last reset.
• Standing is now called Favour. Enclave vendors sort by rank.
• More XP for Fables, mini-quest Votives and Agari.
• Inventory slots from 300 to 350 can be bought in steps.
• Invites now also work in the Eternium Garden, plus Switch 2 controller icons.
• New hair rendering according to Devstream 17.

🩹 Hotfix 5 from October 8, 2026

The fifth hotfix mostly touches the pup and fishing:

• Treasure digging: your pup digs up buried treasure in Midrath, both rare and common. Digging doesn't depend on stats or auras, trains nothing and costs no energy.
• Fetch: costs less energy, but Endurance only grows after several rounds in a row. Petting is blocked during Fetch and has lower priority than other actions.
• Food: the effects of Canid Kibble and Canid Biscuits were swapped. That's fixed.
• Guts: abandoned fights no longer give progress. Hovering an aura highlights the matching stat.
• Fishing streaks: perfect casts and bites build a streak up to 15, which gives bonus experience after the catch. A miss or putting the spool away ends it. Single fish give less experience in return.
• Weapon preview: dropped weapons show rank and rarity, and Totems and runes get rank frames. Players on the forum report that the preview currently shows every weapon as rank 0.
• Bug fixes: inventory can be bought up to 350 slots again, releasing Totems and runes multiple times caused account problems, the Sproutspring Totem shares Smites with the nearest party member again, the Flayed Reaper no longer falls through the world after its jump attack, and fishing in the Nightfold is blocked.
• Visuals: the effects of the Orengall Pact were reworked. Our Soulframe pacts guide covers what the pact does.

🩹 Hotfix 6 from October 8, 2026

Hotfix 6 followed on the evening of the same day with four fixes:

• Petting your pup could be used to get through walls, doors and barriers. That's fixed.
• Script errors when feeding Canid Kibble and Canid Biscuits are fixed.
• A script error when your pup digs is fixed.
• A script error in Epithet progress is fixed.

Neither Hotfix 5 nor Hotfix 6 adds a pup respec. The details are in the wolfpup guide and the fishing guide.

✅ Preludes 16 and Warsongs: status overview

🔭 Looking ahead to Preludes 17

For the next update, the developers made no promises in Devstream 17, only named focus areas. Pacts should play a bigger role in regular combat, players without open Fables should get better goals, and bow users more attention. Public drop tables are a goal, plus around ten new hairstyles. Console versions are not promised: according to DE, there are no contracts with console makers.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions about Soulframe Preludes 16

When did Soulframe Preludes 16 come out?

On September 18, 2026, right after Soulframe Devstream 17. It had been announced for "mid-September".

Can I ride my wolf now?

No. Preludes 16 only brings pup training. According to Digital Extremes, the wolf becomes rideable later this year.

Is the Vadagar Pact in Preludes 16?

No. It belongs to "Warsongs: A Soulframe Fable", which is announced for fall 2026 without a date.

How many points do I need to learn a Temper?

Ten, per the patch notes. Each salvage gives one point to every Temper on the weapon, and a duplicate Temper counts twice. Older sources still say 30.

Which weapons can I transfer Tempers to?

Any rank 30 weapon, not just legendary ones. The Craftwork's Temper limit decides how many fit. Legendary allows 5 to 8.

Can I retrain or swap my pup?

No. The patch notes say the pup choice is final, and there is no free respec. Since Hotfix 4 you assign points yourself, and that choice is final too. If you already had progress before, your stats were reset once.

What did Hotfix 5 change?

Mainly the pup and fishing: treasure digging, cheaper Fetch, the fixed Kibble and Biscuits swap, and fishing streaks up to 15. It also fixed buying inventory up to 350 slots.

New to the game? Start with the Soulframe beginner guide. All guides are on the Soulframe overview.

As of October 2026: Preludes 16 "Of Hook and Hound" with Hotfix 6. Based on the official patch notes for Preludes 16 and Hotfixes 1 to 6 (September 19, 21, 24 and 29 and twice on October 8, 2026) on the Soulframe forum. Hotfix details are labeled by hotfix.

Also checked against the official announcement from September 4, 2026 on soulframe.com and Soulframe Devstream 17 from September 18, 2026. Statements that only come from the devstream are labeled "Devstream 17". Player reports from the forum are labeled as such. The patch notes call the currency "Harmony"; in game it has been shown as "Harmonies" since Preludes 16. There is no official wiki.