What the alpha is
The DragonBreak Online alpha has been open since 1 October 2026 at 05:00 UTC.
- Free. The game costs nothing to play.
- Open to everyone in the Discord. You must be a member of the DragonBreak Discord to log in, and you must be 18 or older.
- Long term, with no wipe. Apart from a one-time reset when the alpha opened on 1 October, your characters, skills and belongings carry on.
- Bruma and the land around it, for now. The alpha takes place in and around Bruma, which now also takes in Moranda, the Sancre Tor ruins and Minotaur's Rest, and the halls and barracks of the Thalmor Embassy. The border moved out on 7 October to take in more of the surrounding land. Walk past its edge and you are brought back to where you last stood inside it. More of the world opens as the alpha grows.
Installing
The DragonBreak launcher does the work: it keeps its own copy of Skyrim, installs the mods and the multiplayer client into it, keeps them up to date, and starts the game.
- Install Skyrim Special Edition from Steam, start it once, reach the main menu and quit. You do not need the Anniversary Edition upgrade.
- Join the Discord from the home page.
- Sign in with Discord on the home page. Your profile page has the launcher download.
- Run the launcher, tell it where Skyrim is, and let it install everything. The full modlist is also a Nexus collection, if you would rather fetch the mods yourself.
The launcher also keeps itself up to date. If an update fails, it offers a button to download the new launcher yourself, which installs over the old one and keeps your game files. A launcher older than 2.1.47 has no such button: if its update keeps failing, download the launcher again from your profile page and run it once. Since 2.1.48 a failed launcher update no longer locks the Play button, and the launcher tries again when Windows briefly holds the file.
What your PC needs
| System | Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit. |
| Game | Only the Steam version of Skyrim Special Edition is supported (the launcher checks for version 1.6.1170). |
| Memory | 16 GB is the least that works, with the Windows page file left on System managed. Close browsers and other big programs while you play. 32 GB is better for big dungeons with a full party: games on 16 GB machines have closed in the busiest dungeons with nearly all the memory in use. |
| Download | The DragonBreak client and files come to about 1.5 GB, on top of the mod collection. |
Logging in
In the launcher, click Discord Login at the top. Your browser opens; approve the sign-in there and go back to the launcher, which then shows your Discord name. Press Play. There is no separate account or password: your Discord account is your DragonBreak account.
The launcher asks you to accept the Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy, once for each new version. They were updated on 11 October 2026, so if you accepted an earlier version you are asked once more at your next launch.
Your map remembers. The map locations you have discovered are saved on the server for each character, so they stay after a logout, after a game repair, and when you play on another PC.
Character slots
You can earn an extra character slot by playing, and some roles bring more.
| 150 hours | Play 150 hours and you earn an extra character slot, yours to keep, on top of any others you have. The hours of all your characters count together, from the opening of the alpha on 1 October. You are told when you earn it, and it appears on the character screen the next time you log in. |
| /playtime | Your hours so far, and how many are left to the extra slot. |
| Supporters | Supporters get a few extra conveniences, such as extra character slots; ask in our Discord. |
| Playtesters | The Pre-Alpha Tester role still gives one extra character slot. |
Your journal (F3)
Press F3 to open your journal. It has a tab for each part of your character's life, and it opens on the tab you used last. Some tabs show only when they have something for you.
| Profile | Your character at a glance. Its Status section shows your level and any points you have to spend, your hunger and rest, Death's Chill, any jail time, and the dungeons resting for you. Its Racial Power box tells you what your people's power does and has the button to call on it, once a real day; the Khajiit's comes with a later update (see Racial Powers). Under it, the Help box lets you spend your level points, call a GM, report a problem, get unstuck or open a ticket with staff, without typing a command. If you are a supporter with an identity reroll, you can start it there too: the character creator opens again for a new race, look and name, and your skills and gear stay. |
| Faction | Your factions, once you belong to one or have been invited. |
| Court | If you hold an office or a place in a hold's household, or have been offered a post: the court, its offices and who holds them. You accept or decline an offered post here. The hold's ruler and its Steward also set the hold's tax rate and the offices' weekly wages here, though nobody sets their own wage. |
| Stats | Opens on Current Effects: the time left on Death's Chill, your hunger, Well Rested and Well Fed, and any jail sentence. Your character's history follows. |
| Skills | The Wheel of Skills, your skills and their tiers. K opens this tab too. |
| Magic | Once you have taken up Arcane Arts or Priest: your schools of magic and their ranks, your prepared spells, every spell you know, and tomes to look for next. |
| Deity | Every god and faith: what they rule, their boon, their shrines, and where their worship breaks the law. You can turn to a new god here, once every 7 days. |
| Supernatural | For vampires, werewolves and anyone carrying their disease. The tab takes the name of what you carry: Vampire, Werewolf, Sanguinare Vampiris or Sanies Lupinus. |
| World | The world as it stands when you open the page: who is about, who rules, what is open, the time, the named beasts abroad and the wildlife that roams. |
| Nobility | The County of Bruma's fiefs and its roll of nobles, for everyone to read. A noble also sees their title, and a Baron or Baroness their fief's houses and its treasury. The Count or Countess grants and revokes titles here. See the nobility of Bruma. |
| Settings | General: your menu keys, such as chat, journal, skills, emotes and push to talk. They take keyboard keys and the middle mouse button; Mouse 4 and Mouse 5 are set in the launcher's settings. Controls: the game's own keys, which you change in the launcher. Voice: your microphone and speakers, push to talk or voice activity, a volume for each player near you up to 400%, and a volume for all other players together up to 300%. Someone talking is at full volume out to about 5 metres. Interface: the Quiet or the Classic look, health, magicka and stamina bars that fade once they are full, and a chat that fades when you are not using it. |
Ranking members of the Thalmor also see a Thalmor tab. Your gold is no longer shown on the HUD: your inventory shows it.
Every command in one place (U)
Press U, or type / on its own in chat, to open a panel with every command you can use, sorted by topic. Search it with a word or two, such as party, bank, pigeon or bug.
A command that needs more than a click asks for it on the panel: a choice of words, a box for a number or a message, or a list of the people you know to pick a name from. The panel shows the exact line it will send before you run it. The full list is in Commands and Systems.
A new look
Type /appearance to reopen the appearance editor for your own character.
- 500 gold, once a day. The gold is taken only when you save a changed look; closing the editor without changing anything costs nothing.
- Your race, sex and name stay as they are. For a new name, ask a GM.
- Your RaceMenu sliders are kept. What you set with RaceMenu's sliders when you create a character, from face shape and expressions to sizes, body and overlays, is saved with your character, shown to other players, and stays after a relog. Sizes are kept within fair limits. Changing the sliders later with /appearance is not yet saved reliably: that fix comes with the next client.
- Not everywhere. It can't be used in a fight or inside a dungeon, or while you are down, jailed, bound or in a beast form.
When something goes wrong
| /gm <what you need> | Call a GM to you. Every staff member in the game is told at once, with where you are standing, and when a GM takes your call you are told who is on the way. You can also press U and choose Contact a GM under Help & trouble. /gm on its own shows your call, /gm with more words adds to it, and /gm cancel withdraws it. If no GM is online, your call waits for the first one who logs in. |
| /bug <what happened> | Report a bug in game, for example /bug the inn door won't open. It saves where you are and what is around you, so send it while the problem is in front of you. |
| /ticket <pk|mod|report> <what happened> | A private ticket with staff on Discord: pk to ask for a player kill, mod for moderation help, report to report a player. Use it for anything that needs a record. Bugs go to /bug. |
| Report a GM | If a Game Master abuses their powers, open a ticket with the Report a GM button in the ticket panel of our Discord. Only the server owners can read those tickets. |
| Report a Problem | When the game closes or won't start: in the launcher, click the gear, then Troubleshooting and Report a Problem. It sends your logs, including the newest crash log, to staff. Send it straight away. |
| /unstuck | Stuck in the scenery? This takes you to the respawn point of your area, once every 30 minutes. It does not work while you are down, bound or carried, in jail, or within a minute of any fight, with a player, an NPC or a creature. |
The Help box on your journal's Profile tab (F3) does the same without typing: call a GM, send a /bug report, get unstuck, or open a ticket with staff.
If you fall
- A safe start. For 20 seconds after you log in, no creature or NPC can hurt you while the world loads in around you. Attacking or casting ends it early. Other players still can.
- Down, not dead. When you fall you lie bleeding out for 60 seconds before you wake at the temple. A Priest of Expert rank can raise you where you fell with a healing spell, and so can anyone who brings a Draught of Revival.
- Giving up. After 15 seconds you can choose Give up, or type /respawn, to wake at the temple at once.
- Death's Chill. Waking at the temple leaves the chill of the grave in your bones for 20 minutes of play: your stamina and magicka stay low and come back slowly, and healing does less for you. A Priest's healing can lift it sooner. The Stats tab of your journal (F3) shows the time left.
Known issues
- Summon Will-o-the-Wisp is switched off until a crash is fixed.
- RaceMenu sliders and /appearance. Slider changes made with /appearance on an existing character are not yet saved reliably. The fix was in client 0.3.95, which was rolled back on 13 October because it made other players' characters clone and float; it comes back with the next client.
- Waking in Riverwood. Now and then the game loads you into Skyrim, for example the Sleeping Giant Inn in Riverwood, instead of the shared world. Nothing you pick up, wear or do there is saved: the server keeps your outfit and favourites as they were and tells you. Close the game and start it again from the launcher, and if it keeps happening, run Repair Modlist in the launcher.
- Dragons are away for now. A dragon near players was crashing their games, so none appear in the wild or in dungeons until the game client is fixed. Dragon bone and scales come only from a slain dragon, so there are none to be had yet.
Where to go next
- Commands and Systems: what you can type, and the keys that matter (F3 for your journal, K for skills, U for every command, X on another player, H to hide your face).
- The Wheel of Skills: eighteen skills and one pool of points.
- Dungeons and Expeditions: claim a dungeon with your party, or set out on an expedition.
- Gathering and Labour: the work of the land, from the mine to the chopping block.
- Homes and Property: a home of your own, and what comes with it.
- Pigeon Post and Notice Boards: letters, gold by pigeon, couriers to carry your goods, and the work posted at the boards.
- Law and the Concordat: who keeps the peace, jail and bound hands, and the White-Gold Concordat in Cyrodiil.
- Racial Guide: your people, their gifts and powers.
- Server Rules: read them before you play.