Patch Info

Recommended Level: Everyone's invited

About the Arcade Mode update

(Those of you who've already read the frontline news can scroll past this part!)

Until now only a small percentage of players got much enjoyment out of Arcade Mode. The mode was a cold, hard place with little of Story Mode's charm, but with all of the combat's brutality. Basically, we didn't feel like the game mode felt much like Grindea, and we wanted to change that, while also giving players who previously loved the mode more varied and interesting stuff to sink their teeth into.

We did several things to improve the general Arcade Mode experience, but the biggest by far is the complete revamp of the hub town, Arcadia. Before, your total score made some minor changes to the town and added a few NPCs with quests. Now, you earn gold by doing runs, which you can then spend on different buildings that all provide some useful or not-so-useful feature! Among the useful features, you'll now be able to practice against bosses you're having trouble with, make the mode easier (or harder) with treats and curses, train perfect guarding in the dojo, and getting potions to help you out.

We hope having this anchor will help people find purpose with the mode, and perhaps accidentally find meaning with becoming better at the game as well!

Aside for that we've made some pretty big changes inside the runs as well, like new Event Rooms that buff you or give you special treasure, and new NPCs that help you out in different ways.

Four new floors have also been added, ending the mode on floor 16 instead of floor 12 (featuring Mt Bloom and Tai Ming).

...but most importantly, you're now accompanied by your new best bud Trunk!

Regardless if you enjoyed the mode before or didn't care for it much, please do try the revamped version out! We hope with these changes we can capture the hearts of more players now than before!

The Future of Arcade Mode

We feel we now have a very solid foundation for Arcade Mode, which we can expand upon quite easily in small bursts by adding new NPCs, upgrades and quests bit by bit.

If you get good at the mode you're probably going to notice a shortage of quests that take place on the final floors; the idea here is that we're going to make some of the buildings upgradeable, and these upgrades unlock higher level quests (like adding a second floor to the tavern, for example). That's for another time, though!

More Insight

If you want to follow the progress and get a glimpse of the wonderful hell/heaven hybrid that is game development, you can check out our DevBlog! Be warned that it contains spoilers, though!

What's next?

It's (let's all say it together) finally time for me to start implementing the next part of the story, which takes place in a desert and a port town! I'll put the Stable build in its own dev fork and parallel to doing desert stuff I'll fix any serious issues that might've escaped the Frontline crowd.