Whether you’re deep in game development or returning to a paused narrative design project, now’s the perfect time to revisit articy:draft X. The latest update brings a host of quality-of-life improvements, fresh plugin tools, and behind-the-scenes upgrades designed to streamline your workflows to support more creative flexibility.
Smoother Start: UX/UI Improvements for creating and importing projects
Creating and importing projects just got a lot more intuitive, thanks to a series of UX/UI refinements:
- Cleaner Dialogs – We’ve trimmed away optional clutter like language, project descriptions and cover images during setup. These can now be adjusted inside your project when it actually matters.
- Smarter Field Validation – Fields now show visual cues for issues — color-coded icons tell you whether something’s informational, a warning, or a real error. You can read more about each issue in the icon tooltip.
- Better Dialog Validation – If you’re flipping through long multi-page dialogs, “Next” and “Previous” buttons now tell you where validation issues live on the “Next”/”Previous” pages relative to the currently visible page. And to make sure you didn’t miss anything, submitting buttons such as Create, Import or Apply will only be enabled once all the validation errors in the dialog are resolved.
- Editable Paths – Need to paste in a directory path manually? Now you can. File/directory fields are no longer locked to the browser view.
- Streamlined Source Control Management (MU Projects) – The SCM system is now selected on the first page, and the rest of the setup flows more logically from there
New MDK Powers for Devs:
If you’re building your own tools on top of articy:draft, this update adds several useful enhancements to the MDK (Macro Development Kit):
- Configuration Framework – Easily create persistable data for your plugins, complete with optional UI, all in just a few lines of code.
- Plugin Configurations Tab View all your plugin configurations in one place with the new dedicated Tab in the Project Settings
- Toolbar Extensions – Want quick access to plugin features? You can now add custom buttons directly to the toolbars across different views.
- Better Change Detection – More consistent and detailed property change callbacks, including lists, help you track and respond to edits more accurately.
- Asset Callbacks – Plugins can now respond when assets, files, or thumbnails are created—great for automation workflows.
- New Property Types – Custom Export Settings now support multi-line strings, multi-object pickers, and multi-language selectors.
New plugin: VO Extension (ElevenLabs)
This one’s especially fun. The new VO Extension plugin makes it easy to work with voice synthesis from ElevenLabs. It allows you to integrate synthesized voice lines into your articy:draft library for your entities, based on existing text. Curious how your super serious character would sound with a funny squeaky voice? Have at it! But silliness aside, this plugin can help you better understand what you wish for in a character’s voice and give clear instructions to your voice over artists. Similarly, voice over artists can experiment with different timings and start recording when it’s already narrowed down without so many do-overs and straining their voice.
Highlights:
- Easy access to your voice library via plugin-managed “Template Feature”
- Access synthesized audio files directly within your project
- Ideal for prototyping voiceover timing or previewing dialogue tone
QoL improvements
- Searchable Dropdowns Long template dropdowns are now searchable, making complex data entry much faster.
- Proofreading-Friendly Localization You can now export the same language as both the reference and target language in localization exports. This opens up a smooth path for internal proofreading.
- SSO for Perforce – Teams using Perforce now have Single-Sign-On (SSO) support
And of course, no update would be complete without chasing down and flattening a few digital critters—check out the change log for the full list of ⚙️ bug fixes.
Why This Update Matters
This is a solid leap forward for how you interact with projects, customize your tools, and iterate on complex workflows. Whether you’re a solo writer, part of a studio team, or building internal tools on top of articy:draft, these changes aim to make your experience more intuitive and powerful.
If it’s been a while since you last opened articy:draft, this is a great moment to jump back in.
Ready to explore? Open your project or start fresh—we’ve made both easier.
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