PS4 ~2.72GB | Xbox One ~3.02GB | PC ~3.02GB

NEW HERO: SAKURA, THE HITOKIRI

• The Hitokiri are relentless executioners. Wielding the masakari, the Samurai battle axes, they can enter a special state to chain heavy attacks infinitely and perform special moves. They dictate the flow of combat with charged attacks and uninterruptible moves.

Difficulty: Medium

• Relentless executioner with multiple mix-ups

• Hard Hitter

Special Capabilities

• Mugen-ryu: A state that grants special moves and Heavy infinite chains

• Various Uninterruptible Attacks

• Charged Heavy Attacks

NEW MAP: CANOPY

• Canopy is the source of many legends. One is about a group of Samurai settlers who had fled there and used the landscape to triumph over one thousand enemies. Another tale speaks of a mysterious deity that gave birth to the sacred grove before turning to stone. Besides its mystical aura, this isolated village is protected by natural barriers and has become a coveted refuge for all factions

• This map is available in Tribute, Skirmish, Elimination, Brawl and Duel

FIGHTER IMPROVEMENTS

LAWBRINGER

Developer comments: These are the goals that guided us through the Lawbringer improvements:

1. Improve existing combat Initiation tools

2. Improve ability to sustain offense throughout the 3-hit chain

3. Remove “Shove after Block” because it stopped other characters from accessing their mix-ups

4. Decrease the ganking potential by making Impales interruptible on hit (like Highlander’s “Caber Toss”).

Shove

• Removed “Shove after Block”

Developer comments: We felt that having an option to stop regular offense by simply blocking was not good for the game and chose to remove it.

New Chains

• Added Heavy -> Heavy -> Heavy

• Added Heavy -> Heavy -> Light

Light Attacks

• Side Lights are no longer interrupted on Block

• Side Light Attack Opener Strikes are now 500ms (from 600ms)

• Top Light Attack Opener Strike is now 400ms (from 500ms)

• Top Light Attack Opener Strike range is slightly reduced

• 2nd Top Light Strike is now 400ms (from 500ms)

• Light Attack Finisher Strikes are now 500ms (from 700ms)

Heavy Attacks

• All Heavy Finishers are now Unblockable. (We have done this by standardizing all chains to always end with the Unblockable option)

• Side Heavy Finisher Strikes are now 900ms (they were 800 or 1100ms depending on the chain’s branchings you used to get to the finisher)

• All Heavy Finishers have slightly increased forward movement

Damage

• Increased Top Light Finisher damage to 20 (from 15)

• Increased Side Light Finishers damage to 18 (from 15)

• Increased Top Heavy Finisher damage to 40 (from 35)

• Increased Side Heavy Finishers damage to 38 (from 30)

Out of Lock Attacks

• Changed opener “Out of Lock Light” to be a Right Light

Developer comments: We changed this so ensure there isn’t an Out Of Lock mix-up with “Impaling Charge” and Top Light

Swift Justice Finisher

• “Swift Justice Finisher” is now available after landing any Top Heavy Finisher or “Blind Justice”

Long Arm

• Can now be interrupted by other players

Impaling Charge / Impaling Riposte

• Can now be interrupted by other players

• Decreased “Impaling Charge” damage to 10 (from 15)

• Decreased “Impaling Riposte” damage to 10 (from 20)

Developer comments: We have been changing similar moves such as Shugoki’s “Demon Embrace” as we improve characters. We are finding that these still stay strong as ganking tools, but don’t necessarily guarantee a team-kill. The interruption by an external attacker seems to reduce the frustration that was felt when these moves locked players into taking multiple external hits.

Shove

• “Shove” now causes a normal Light Bump reaction

Developer comments: This means that “Shove”, and “Shove Mix Up” guarantee a free Light Attack.

Shove Mix Up

• “Shove Mix Up” (after a Heavy Attack Hit) can now be done after a Block or a Miss

• “Shove Mix Up” is now 500ms (from 300ms)

• “Shove Mix Up” now has Super Armor during the Strike

Light Riposte

• Now branches to 2nd Light Attack (as well as 2nd Heavy Attack as usual)

Zone Attack

• Zone Attack Strike is now 700ms (from 900ms)

• Zone Attack now has a 200ms parry window (from 400ms)

• Hit Reaction caused is now Medium (was Heavy). This prevents Zone Attack into Guard Break from failing

Make Way

• Is now Unblockable

• Reduced damage to 22 (from 25)

• Has increased Knockback

• Hit Reaction caused is now Medium (was Heavy). This prevents Zone Attack into Guard Break from failing

RAIDER

Developer comments: These are the goals that guided us through the Lawbringer improvements:

1. Improve existing combat Initiation tools

2. Improve ability to sustain offense throughout the 3-hit chain

3. Decrease the ganking potential by making Stampede Charge interruptible on hit (like Highlander’s “Caber Toss”)

Chains

• Added Light -> Light -> Heavy

• Added Light -> Heavy -> Heavy

• Added Heavy -> Light -> Light

Light Attacks

• Light Attack Opener Strikes are now 500ms (from 600ms)

• 2nd Light Attack Strikes are now 500ms (from 600ms)

• Side Light Finisher Strikes are now 500ms (from 600ms)

Heavy Attacks

• 2nd Heavy Attack Strikes now have Uninterruptible Stance

• Heavy Finishers strikes now have Uninterruptible Stance

• All Heavy Attacks can now be soft feinted into Guard Break

Developer comments: Intention with the new Chain options and the Heavies getting Uninterruptible Stance is to give a real choice to the player between “Raider’s Fury” or continuing the chain.

Damage

• Increased 2nd Side Heavy Attack damage to 35 (from 30)

• Increased 2nd Top Heavy Attack damage to 40 (from 35)

• Increased Side Light Finishers damage to 18 (from 15)

• Increased Top Light Finisher damage to 22 (from 15)

• Increased Side Heavy Finishers damage to 40 (from 30)

• Increased Top Heavy Finisher damage to 48 (from 30)

• Increased “Reaping Charge” damage to 35 (from 25)

Stunning Tap

• “Stunning Tap” strike is now 500ms (from 600ms)

• “Stunning Tap” now have variable timing on Zone Attack (just like in Heavy Attacks)

Zone Attack

• Zone Attack is now on the Left stance (to differentiate it from “Raider’s Fury”)

• Decreased Stamina Cost to 50 (from 60)

• Can now soft feint to Guard Break

Raider's Fury

• Raider's Fury no longer has an extra stamina cost on Miss/Parry

• Increased Stamina Cost to 35 (from 30)

• Can now soft feint to Guard Break

Stampede Charge/Forward Throw

• Can now be interrupted by Allies and Enemies

Developer comments: This change is in line with the change that was made to Impaling Charge and Impaling Riposte.

PROGRESSION

Dynamic Rewards

• Dynamic rewards were activated for all game modes except Ranked Duels. So on top of the player performance (Kills, Executions, etc.), game mode, game type (PVP or PvAI) and the match result (Win, Lose, Tie), we are also taking in consideration the Time Spent in the match.

Developer comments: As we validated the dynamic reward system with Breach and Arcade Mode, we are expanding which game modes have this system. The goal is to have a more balanced experience in terms of rewards through all game modes, taking more in account the time that you spend in a match. That change includes XP, Steel and Gears. We want to give more flexibility for players to decide the mode that they want to play based on their preference, not the best outcome for rewards, as all the modes are now using Dynamic Rewards.

New Arcade Mode Rewards

• Weekly unique Arcade: Tessellated Aura Effect.

• Regular unique Arcade: Tesselated Wraith Battle Outfit / Tessellated Relic Ornament / Luminous Beast Ornament

Developer comments: New rewards were added to the pool of Arcade rewards. They follow the same rules as before. If you already looted all the previous Effects, you will start getting the new Effects. If not, they will be mixed in the pool of available Arcade Mode rewards.

Reputation 70 Rewards

• Added a Free Roam Emote, “Proudly Seventy”, as a reward for reaching Reputation 70

MAP

Temple Garden

• The Tomb at interior of Capture Zone A has been removed from playing area for Dominion match, this also applies to Duel

• The ladder to access Capture Zone A has been shortened to offer better balancing timings

• Moved the Brawl location for the Giant tree to the Defender Courtyard

ARCADE

General

• The Recommended Gear Score for the Weekly Quest is decreased to 108 (from 162)

Developer comments: This decision was made with two factors in mind; First of all, we want more players to have access to the Weekly Quest. Secondly, by lowering the recommended gear score, players receive lower penalties on their Damage Output and Input than before.

• The Hitokiri has been added as a potential enemy in Random Quests.

• Canopy has been added as a potential map in Random Quests.

Balancing

• Rebalanced the impact of the Player's Gear Score with respect to rarity level when playing Arcade Quests (including Weekly Quest)

Developer comments: With this balancing update, we wanted to make Arcade as a whole more accessible for all players. We want players to clearly understand what effect their gear score has on the quests they are playing (i.e. if over recommended gear score, players expect to not be penalized). With this update, players can expect the following when playing Arcade:

• If Under the Recommended Gear Score, the penalties applied to the Damage Output and Input have been toned down by a big margin. Starting now, players can more easily try a quest of a rarity above their gear score

• If On Par with the Recommended Gear Score, players receive no penalties.

• If Above the Recommended Gear Score, players will receive slight buffs to their Damage Output and Input

• As part of this balancing, players can expect to see the following properties applied to the enemy Bots depending on the rarity of the quest;

  • Slightly more health.

  • Deal slightly more damage with their attacks

   

• Decreased the success rate of Bots' defensive moves (Block, Dodge, Parry and Deflect).

Developer comments: A recurring feedback about Arcade is that Bots are impenetrable, especially Level 3. We agree with this feeling and we decided to drastically reduce their success rate of defensive tactics to be more enjoyable, especially in a PvE context.

User Interface

• Added the objective of the chapter during the loading screen

• Added a pop-up at the beginning of the chapter to specify the objective of the encounter

Developer comments: With the addition of the Survive and Kill Target objectives in the Weekly Quests, we wanted to add some feedback to make it easier for players to immediately know what they need to do to win the chapter.

USER INTERFACE

In-Game User Interface Updates

• HUD has been updated in a number of ways to improve fight visibility and reduce situations where the HUD gets in the way of gameplay

• Most messages have been moved from the center to the left of the screen

• Art updates to gameplay and player widgets to improve readability

• "Breaking" messages take up less space on the screen

• Removed all occurrences of "X left alive" messages when breaking

• Victory and Defeat banners take up less space on the screen

• Team kill messages have been removed in all game modes (Skirmish still has a similar message that will be removed later)

Reward Screen

• Players are now able to skip the “Level up” and “Orders” completed celebration pop up at the end of matches.

Activity Meter

• On the world map, the activity meter now displays the activity based only on the region in which you are playing

Developer comments: We wanted to improve the precision of the Activity meter by making in region-based instead of worldwide. Now, players from Europe, North America, South America, Asia and Oceania each see the activity meter based on their own geographic population.

Skill Widget

• We fixed and reintroduced the widget comparing players Skills in the face-off screen. Before being removed, it used to display only "On Par" in any situation. It will now display the accurate comparison of skill against your allies and enemies

CUSTOMIZATION

New Gear

• Weapon

  • 25 Weapon sets for Hitokiri

  • New Rare weapon for all heroes

  • New Epic weapon for Wu Lin heroes and Black Prior

   

• Armor

  • 3 Armor sets for Hitokiri with 4 variations each

   

Legacy Outfits

• The Legacy Outfit is now available for Black Prior and Hitokiri

Developer comments: Due to popular community request, we adapted the Legacy Outfit for Black Prior and Hitokiri. As these heroes are not part of the Year 1 Heroes Bundle, the outfit is available for purchase.

• On the other hand, we are making the Attacker and Defender color swatches available for free for the respective heroes of the Year 3 as a thank you for the community being so active at spotting these issues. These color swatches remain exclusive for the characters that are part of the Year 1 Heroes Bundle

Retrofit Rewards for Year 3 Heroes

• Campaign Rewards and other retrofit rewards (such as Uplay, Twitch symbols, Community Outfits and Ornaments, Influencer Pack) are now available for Black Prior and Hitokiri. Players that have already completed the requirements should get the rewards automatically

Developer comments: Another popular request, we made rewards from the campaign available for the Year 3 heroes for the factions that are part of the campaign (Knight, Samurai, Viking).

Color Swatches

• Characters team are revising his rules and regulations for switch the type palette of Color swatch. We are allowing 12 Neutral colors to be also, either Attacker or Defender

Developer comments: This is just the beginning, more color swatches will be made available for either Attacker or Defender in future updates.

Executions Preview

• When previewing an execution in Hero Overview, you can now choose to see the execution like the victim will see it

Developer comments: We thought that it would be a nice addition to let players be able to view Executions from the point of view of the victims.

IMPROVEMENTS

GENERAL

Revenge Gain

• 1v2 Revenge multiplier decreased to 0.6 (from 0.7)

• 1v3 Revenge multiplier decreased to 0.8 (from 0.9)

• 1v4 Revenge multiplier decreased to 0.9 (from 1.0)

Developer comments: Strong players are gaining revenge too quickly, this should reduce it slightly.

Stance Change to Attack at 100ms

• All heroes now can launch attacks 100ms after starting a Stance Change (instead of 300ms for non-reflex guard heroes)

Developer comments: The intention of this change is to allow all Non-Reflex Guard Heroes to have quicker access to their opening Light and Heavy Attacks in all 3 stances. Heroes have already been able to perform a stance change and able to block at 100ms – but previously, non-Reflex Guard Heroes who wanted to launch an attack from a different stance had to spend a total of 300ms changing stance before the Attack would start. Now, all Heroes can switch stance and be able to attack immediately at 100ms. For reference, Reflex Guard Heroes already worked this way – now we allow the entire roster to be able to switch stance and attack at the same timings.

Shield

• Maximum Shield amount is now limited to current Hero maximum health

Developer comments: We've decided to clamp a hero's shield to its maximum health to improve general consistency and to clarify shield information in the User Interface. Now, players can visually tell the amount of shield an opponent actually has.

BREACH

• Updated the behavior of the Guardian and the Commander when they are pushed outside of their zone. They will now:

  • Gain full revenge the moment they are pushed out

  • Use the Grenade feat with a cool down of 10 seconds

  • The Commander also gets Super Armor the moment he is pushed outside of his defensive zone

   

Developer comments: In some occasions, players were able to exploit the Guardian and the Commander by pushing them out of their zone. This would lead these NPCs to be unresponsive until they came back to their zone. These changes makes it easier for them to come back by giving them tools to defend themselves.

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

• [Bug Fix] Improved ability for Heroes to hit an Out of Stamina opponent after Guard Break into Throw:

  • Warden - reduced forward throw distance by 0.5m

  • Raider - reduced left throw distance by 0.5m

  • Raider - reduced right throw distance by 0.5m

  • Warlord - reduced forward throw distance by 0.25m

  • Warlord - reduced left throw distance by 0.75m

  • Warlord - reduced right throw distance by 0.25m

   

Developer comments: these characters would whiff their Heavy after these throws. We wanted to remove the occasions where you could throw someone but be unable to hit them when the fall OOS - mostly because it feels bad for new players to miss out on what should be easy damage.

Note that we intentionally did not change throws such as Orochi Forward Throw, or Peacekeeper Throws - as they appear meant to launch the opponent away from the character.

• [Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that allowed Heroes to pass through opponent during bashes and dash attacks

FIGHTERS

Conqueror

• [Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that was causing Conqueror's Out of Lock trajectories to end sooner than intended. These should now properly complete the swing before chaining to the next attack

• [Bug Fix] Fixed an issue on Out of Stamina Light attack (Left and Right) that was causing them to snap to their target at the wrong time

• [Bug Fix] Fixed a bug that caused Conqueror to play the exit animation of Charge Heavy twice in a row when cancelling the charge

Warlord

• [Bug Fix] Added the missing superior block on Out of Lock light attacks

Valkyrie

• [Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that was allowing the Valkyrie to switch target during her Superior Block Light and slide to another target in lock range

• [Bug Fix] Fix an issue that was preventing the Valkyrie to properly throw forward-diagonally

Shugoki

• [Bug Fix] Removed the ability for “Charge of the Oni” to unbalance targets that are Out of Stamina

Developer Comment: This was an unintended relic from early prototyping of the Shugoki rework that slipped through the cracks, we did however leave the quick Stamina regeneration after using the move.

Nobushi

• [Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that was preventing Nobushi's “Way of the Shark” to properly work on every bleeding target.

Highlander

• [Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that was preventing the Highlander and his target to be executed while performing “Caber Toss”

Tiandi

• [Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the male Tiandi to have 125 Health, he now has 130 Health like the female Tiandi

Nuxia

• [Bug Fix] Fixed a bug that prevented the damage of “Glass Waltz” to be applied if you caught someone dodging early

Black Prior

• [Adjustment] Increased “Tenebris Rising” Recovery to 500ms (from 300ms)

• [Adjustment] Increased “Bulwark Stance” Exit animation to 400ms (was 200ms)

FEATS

Bear Trap

• [Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that prevented the Stamina Damage to be applied if the victim didn't play the "Trapped" animation

• [Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that prevented the victim to play the "Trapped" animation when in a bump reaction

Igneus Ember

• [Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that prevented the cool down to be seen after using all the bomb charges

Thick Blood

• [Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that allowed Thick Blood to cleanse Fire Damage

ARCADE

• [Bug Fix] Fixed an issue where XP Fest, Loot Fest, Steel Fest bonuses were not applied for Arcade Mode

• [Bug Fix] Fixed an issue where the Level 2 and Level 3 of Light Attack ++/-- and Heavy Attack ++/-- were of the same values. They now have completely new values.

USER INTERFACE

• [Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the Heroes to become blurred while invoking the Hero menu from Social.

• [Bug Fix] improved the progress bar for Live Patch downloading. will now show the average of the progress for Live Patch & Store Patch (we used to show the minimum of the two)

• [Bug Fix] Fix an issue that caused the wrong end result of a match displayed in the Scoreboard when winning or losing Duels and Brawls 3-2

TRIBUTE

• [Bug Fix] Revenge damage boost is no longer ignored while under the influence of the Vindicator's blessing .Having certain damage boosting perks along with the Vindicator's blessing from Tribute while in revenge would give the player a smaller bonus than if he only had the perk and the boost active

CUSTOM MATCH

• [Bug Fix] We fixed an issue where the Elimination default time when playing Custom Match was different than when playing on a Front (3 minutes per round compared to 4 minutes when playing on a Front)

CUSTOMIZATION

• [Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the Lawbringer's "Chokehold" Execution to become offset at the end of the execution.

PC

• [Bug Fix] Voice Chat specific audio control is now visible and controllable in the Volume Mixer on Windows PC. You can quickly mute all voice chat audio or control volume levels even when voice chat is outputting to a different device than the game's audio

• [Bug Fix] Microphones on Windows platform now have automatic gain control which will adjust output volume based on the background noise captured. Players will have less sound clipping, background noise, and higher quality speech when using voice chat on Windows

• [Bug Fix] Voice Quality on PC has improved due to the addition of our own compression algorithm, which normalizes team mate voice loudness and adapts volume levels to the current output level