Patch Notes - Steam Next Fest 2025

Highlights

• New Aru Immortal: Atzlan, Prophet of the Roots

• Bots: Play against and with bots in 1v1, 2v2, and PvE modes

• Canyon (Mission): Procedurally generated PvE

• Build Grid: For a more satsifying base building experience

NEW

Atzlan - Prophet of the Roots

Our First Permanent Hero Immortal

When we first set out to make Immortal, the question was raised whether Immortals would be Heroes on the battlefield like Warcraft 3 or Commanders like Starcraft 2 Co-op. To which we replied, why not both? This was eventually refined into 3 distinct Immortal categories. With the release of Atzlan, we now have representation from each category. Ajari, Orzum, and Mala are Commanders; Xol is a Temporary Hero; and Atzlan is a Permanent Hero. As the name suggests, Atzlan is a permanent fixture on the battlefield. You'll start with him in your base, and he'll only disappear when "killed". However, since he is immortal, he can be brought back for the low low price of 25 pyre. We've got some more mobile Permanent Heroes in development, but Atzlan is special in that he has 0 movement speed and can only live on one of his Root Buds.

Vanguards

• Resinant: A deployable *Artillery* unit that trades mobility for range and area damage. If you've been with us for a while, you'll remember this guy was once a standard Aru unit that was replaced with the Brood Anchor. Back from the dead (like all reborn) the Resinant features a minimum range when deployed and gets a maximum range boost when deployed on Rootway.

• Root Shepherd: A fast, anti-light *Skirmisher* unit that helps Atzlan spread the Rootway and can be upgraded to be hidden while on Rootway. The Root Shepherd has a bouncing attack that does less damage on each bounce.

Powers

• Summon Root Bud: Summon a Root Bud at the target location. Over time the Root Bud will spread Rootway to a maximum distance. Root Buds can only be Summoned near Strongholds (Grove Hearts and God Hearts) or other Root Buds and only on Rootway. This spell is cooldown only (no Pyre cost) and stores 6 charges, so feel free to spread the Rootway to your heart's content!

• AddedProphet of the RootsMove Atzlan to a new Root Bud, or bring him back to the battlefield if he's been defeated. Atlzan Blesses Root Buds he visits, giving them a massive HP boost and buffing nearby units. This also instantly spreads Rootway to the maximum distance from the Root Bud.

• Wall of Roots: Summon a Wall of Roots, a targetable building with HP that can only survive permanently on Rootway. If built off Rootway it will lose HP quickly. Click and drag to draw where you want the Wall.

• Summon Deep Wyrm: Atzlan's Ultimate Ability! A force of immense power, the Root Wyrm cannot be controlled or destroyed. During it's timed life it will seek and destroy enemies on the Rootway before returning to the Deep. He has a lore accurate name, but we all call him "Steve".

We're all really excited to put the Prophet of the Roots into your hands and see what kinds of tactics and strategies you come up with! As always, please give us your ruthlessly honest feedback *after* trying him out.

Bots!

• One of the most requested features, you can now play against and with bots in 1v1, 2v2, and PvE Missions. You can select the Immortal and difficulty level of Bots in the Teams page of the custom lobby flow in the Main Hub. Please note that these are VERY basic bots and we'll be improving them for future patches. Please let us know how it goes! Are they too easy? Too hard? Are certain behaviours too easy to exploit or take away from the immersion of the experience? Everything you write in our discord is read and considered with an open mind.

UX

Build Assist Preview

• Build Assist will now show you the next thing it's planning to build. You can use this to get a jump on things. Remember that Build Assist will always take the most efficient path to build the army you have selected. This is one small improvement in a long line of planned upgrades. We've got a lot of wild stuff planned for Build Assist, much of it a result of your feedback, so please keep it coming!

Build Grid

• Hell, it's about time. One of the things we've set out to do when iterating on the build grid concept is to create consistent walling rules. For this test, buildings with at least 1 square adjacent will form a wall. This means no ground units will be able to pass through regardless of their size. Single square gaps and buildings (or terrain) that touch diagonally (the points of the corners only) will not form a wall, so any ground units will be able to pass through. The goal here is that players (especially new players) won't have to find a YouTube tutorial or memorize exact placements on each map to create walls with confidence.

Evenly Distributed Upgrades

• If you have mulitple copies of a tech building and queue upgrades, they will evenly spread out between those buildings instead of stacking up on one. (looking at you +1/+1)

Teleportation UX

• Teleport abilities will now work if you target somewhere without vision (except if it's higher ground).

Art Upgrades

• Omnivore Attack VFX

• Soul Foundry Production VFX

• Alloy Depletion VFX

• Godphage Model

• Tower Core Model

• Ajari Salvation Urn Model

• Ajari Main Hub Animation

Balance

Orzum

Scepter

• Empowered Attack Upgrade also increases range of both attacks by 250.

Mala

Rain of Blood

• Rain of Blood now makes enemy units move 15% slower (in addition to all its current effects).

Dread Sister

• Birthing Storm no longer creates Quitl from temporary units.

Q'rath

Castigator

• Alloy Cost reduced from 175 to 150.

• Damage vs Ground targets increased from 8 to 16.

Magi

• Shields reduced from 125 to 75.

• Heal duration increased from 1s to 2s.

• Mana Pool increased from 75 to 100.

• Population Cost decreased from 3 to 2.

• Mana Cost per heal decreased from 10 to 8.

Shar'u

• Life increased from 220 to 300.

• Smite ability now gives 50% mana refund if it does not hit the target.

Zephyr

• Damage increased from ~~20/25/30~~ to 22/27/32. (vs Light/Medium/Heavy)

Aru

Aarox

• Aarox movement speed decreased from 610 to 490.

• Aarox cost decreased from 35/35 to 20/20. (Alloy/Ether)

Brood Anchor

• Cystic Crawlers can now move on team Rootway.

Wraith Bow

• Wraith Bow movement speed increased from 400 to 500.

• Wraith Bow air missile cooldown changed from 1.1s to 1.4s.

• Damage increased from 15 to 22.

Godphage

• Population increased from 6 to 8.

• Damage Upgrade Cost increased from 100/100 to 250/250 (Alloy/Ether).

Known Bugs

• Visual bug with Hallowed Ground buff for Sipari Shield

• Some tooltip titles exceed the tooltip box

• Name plates are too high in the Main Hub

• Spectator UI starts with a blank panel in the bottom right. As a workaround, you can shift select 2 entities to make it disappear or select a single entity to see the Details Panel.

• A number of UI elements are placeholders (they should be somewhat obvious).

• Zooming out in spectator mode causes health bars to be comically l o n g.

• Creating a Lobby with only bots as players (you would be the spectator in this case) nearly instantly launches the game.

• When you leave the game it will nearly instantly relaunch.

• Many video tooltips are blurry/unreadable

Missions

New

• Canyon (Mission) : Procedurally generated mission with random main and bonus objectives.

• Holdout and Golem Factory now have additional bonus objectives that depend on the selected difficulty.

• Missions now have a seed.

General

• Missions have the option to be played with an allied Bot.

• Updated enemy bases

• Removed enemy base modifiers. They are now part of random bonus objectives.

• An Enemy Base is now considered as destroyed when all the unit training buildings and Strongholds are destroyed.

• The total number of enemy bases and the number of destroyed enemy bases are now displayed in the objective panel.

• Enemy bases next to the player's starting location don't have anti-ground defense buildings anymore.

Updated the enemy unit composition selection:

• At the start of the mission, the game selects between 1 and 3 unit compositions. A unit composition is made of 1 core unit, 1 support unit and 1 anti-air unit.

• Enemy units can use their abilities.

• Units with abilities can finally be selected when generating enemy unit compositions.

• The enemy can train tier 2 units on normal and tier 3 units on Hard.

• The selection of enemy unit composition is less chaotic.

• On Normal and above, there is always a Tier 2 unit composition.

• On Hard and above, there is always a Tier 3 unit composition.

Updated the mission score:

• Removed the bonus objective performance score

• Added the maximum possible score for main, bonus objectives and enemy bases to destroy.

• Destroying an enemy base now gives 100 score. The maximum score possible to get from destroying enemy bases now depends on the number of enemy bases.

• The mission's elapsed time is now a bonus score.

Updated Alloy and Ether resource packs:

• They can now only be picked up by ground units.

• AdjustedAlloy resource packDecreased spawn chance from 20 to 5%. Increased the resource gain from 50 to 300.
• AdjustedEther resource packDecreased spawn chance from 10 to 3%. Increased the resource gain from 50 to 200.
• AdjustedPyre resource packDecreased spawn chance from 5 to 1%.

• Changed the color of the Alloy resource pack minimap icon.

• In Holdout and Golem Factory, the resources outside of the player's base, Pyre camps, Tower Foundations now spawn on random locations.

• Players now start with a small group of random units and with 100 Pyre.

• On hard, insane and immortal, the enemy has all researches enabled at the start of the mission. When a neutral entity attacks or is attacked by an enemy units, they are both revealed during 5 seconds.

• Changed the objective completed and mission notification sounds.

• Added a notification when the game stage reaches the Mid-game and the Late-game.

• Specifically in missions, Pyre resource packs gives 25 Pyre to all players.

• Re-enabled Ajari as a valid enemy immortal.

Holdout

• The Nexus' aura now affects the player's units in the entire map.

• Significantly increased the effects of the auras.

• The Nexus upgrade remaining time, remaining life and its aura effect are now displayed in the objective panel.

• Adjusted the quantity of enemy units in each wave

Rae Siege Turret:

• It now shoots 4 missiles that deal 25 damage.

• Adjusted the Nexus' life so the time for a Rae Siege Turret to destroy the Nexus doesn't change.

• Reduced the build time from 180 to 60 seconds.

• Adjusted its height and added player color.

• It now has an attack range of 2850 and a minimum attack range of 1500.

• It can only target ground units.

• Units with the Elite buff now do a special attack every 2 seconds regardless of their weapon attack speed and their air/ground target type.

• Removed the unit class restriction for the spawning of Elite units

• AddedNexusprevent decals from being drawn on it. Also added player color on it.

• The additional time for the last nexus upgrades now depends on the difficulty:

  • Easy: 0s

  • Normal: 20s

  • Hard: 40s

  • Insane: 60s

  • Immortal: 80s

Golem Factory

• The Power Core's remaining life is now displayed in the objective panel.

• Removed the aura of the Power Core and the Rae Golem.

• During the high intensity phase, always reveal enemy units that attack the objective and the player's base.

Rae Minor Golems:

• Increased Life from 450 to 500

• Increased Attack Damage from 25 to 50. Removed the Bonus Damage to Medium and Heavy.

• Derelict Golem buff reduces the Attack Speed from 50% to 75%.

Rae Golem:

• Increased damage from 100 to 200. Reduce attack speed from 4 to 5 seconds.

Bugfixes

• FixedMission ScoreFixed a bug where a mission's elapsed time was counted before the player has selected difficulty, including some part of the loading part.
• FixedEnemy attacksFixed a bug where enemy units that would spawn from the edges of the map wouldn't take into consideration the player's air unit ratio.

Tutorial

• When the player starts the tutorial with an immortal that isn't Orzum, there is now a message to inform the player to restart the tutorial as Orzum.

• Fixed a bug where the Soul foundry bonus objective would be repeatedly triggered after being completed.