V0.800 is here!
This is one of the largest updates to Gladiator Command so far.
V0.800 introduces the brand new Carnifex two-handed class, a complete overhaul of rival schools and the league system, 6 new boss encounters, new arena fight types, a major attribute and skill expansion, visually represented Ludus staff, extensive UI improvements and much more.
A major focus of this update has been making the world outside of your own Ludus feel more alive.
New game will be required.
Let's jump straight into it.
After the Retiarius, one of the most requested additions has been a proper two-handed class.
Well... "Your will, my hands."
Introducing the Carnifex.
The Carnifex is a slow but devastating damage dealer built around Strength and enormous two-handed weapons.
While other classes may rely on speed, defence or controlling their opponent, the Carnifex has a somewhat simpler philosophy.
Hit them very, very hard.
The class launches with:
8 new two-handed weapons
8 new combat animations
A completely new two-handed combat style
Two unique combat abilities
Requires 15 Strength.
The Carnifex delivers a devastating swing that cannot be blocked or dodged and deals an additional 10% damage.
Requires 25 Strength.
The Carnifex destroys the opponent's shield, removing it for the remainder of the fight.
The shield is restored after combat.
The Carnifex is powerful, but that power comes at the cost of speed. Picking the right opponent and surviving long enough to land those enormous attacks will be crucial.
The original Strength attribute was responsible for both health and damage.
As the number of classes and builds has expanded, I felt those two roles needed to be separated.
Health is now governed by the new Vitality attribute, while Strength remains responsible for damage.
This also gives the two attributes much clearer identities.
The Murmillo is now primarily a Vitality class, reinforcing its role as the game's defensive tank.
The new Carnifex becomes the primary Strength class, focusing on raw damage.
This should allow for significantly more interesting builds as the game continues to expand.
The new Vitality attribute arrives with its own progression path.
Iron Constitution - 10 VIT: +15% maximum health
Thick Hide - 20 VIT: 8% incoming damage reduction
Field Medic's Blood - 30 VIT: +25% healing received
Last Stand - 40 VIT: Below 30% HP, incoming damage is reduced by 20%
Unbroken - 50 VIT: +15% maximum health and 5% incoming damage reduction
New high-level skills have also been added across the other attributes.
Sundering Blow - 50 STR: +10% damage, +3% critical chance and +20% critical damage
Iron Lungs - 50 AGI: +15% starting energy and +20% energy regeneration
War Scholar - 50 INT: +15% overall XP, +3% critical chance and +20% critical damage
Idol of Rome - 50 CHA: +15% victory rewards, +15% prestige and enemies deal 8% less damage
Juggernaut - 50 STR + 40 VIT: +10% maximum health and +10% damage
These additions are part of my continued work towards making late-game builds increasingly specialised rather than simply having every gladiator become good at everything.
This is probably the most important systemic change in V0.800.
Previously, rival schools existed primarily to provide opponents.
That is no longer the case.
Every league now contains 8 persistent gladiator schools, and each one operates within the same world as the player.
Every school now has:
Its own economy
Its own roster of gladiators
Its own staff
Persistent gladiator health
Training progression
Combat XP and levelling
Recruitment and roster management
The ability to buy and sell gladiators
Rival gladiators are no longer simply generated when the game needs somebody for you to fight.
They exist.
They train.
They level up.
They get injured.
They can die.
They can change schools.
They can be purchased by you, and rival schools can purchase gladiators from one another.
A weak young gladiator you see early in the campaign may eventually become one of the strongest fighters in the league.
A gladiator you sell may eventually find himself standing across the arena from you.
The goal is to make the league increasingly feel like a living simulation rather than a collection of isolated matches.
This is an area I intend to expand considerably with every future update.
The new school simulation also means existing events can interact with actual rival schools.
Events such as Lanista Offers and Rival School Challenges now use real schools and real gladiators from the league.
If another school offers to purchase one of your gladiators, that gladiator actually joins their roster.
The world should increasingly remember what happens inside it.
The league structure itself has received a major redesign.
Each league contains 8 schools, with seasons now lasting 100 days.
The top two schools are promoted at the end of the season.
League battles take place on Day 10, with every school competing simultaneously.
League matches begin as 2v2 team fights and increase in size as you progress into stronger leagues.
This means your entire roster becomes increasingly important as you climb towards the top.
The Battle Royale has moved to Day 15.
Tournament Day remains on Day 5.
Battle Royales no longer award league points. Instead, they exist as a dangerous opportunity to gain significant XP between league matches.
There is another potential benefit.
Injuries persist.
Which means badly injuring a rival school's best gladiator during the Battle Royale might leave them in a rather unfortunate condition for their next league match.
Terrible tragedy.
I'm sure you'll all behave honourably.
The old sponsor system allowing multiple arena fights per day dates all the way back to the itch.io versions of Gladiator Command.
At the time, the game had significantly less content and multiple fights helped fill that gap.
The game has now outgrown that system.
Repeatedly fighting several standard battles in a single day created unnecessary repetition, and with larger team battles now possible, having as many as five fights in one day simply no longer made sense.
Arena combat is therefore moving to one fight per day.
To compensate, XP and morale rewards per fight have been increased.
More importantly, arena days now have far more variety.
Alongside standard 1v1 and team battles, the arena can now roll special fight types.
1v1.
The fight ends only in death.
No yielding.
No mercy.
1v1.
Armor, helmets and greaves are removed from both gladiators.
Gold and prestige rewards are doubled.
A team fight ranging from 2v2 through 5v5 as larger team sizes become available.
Instead of entering together, gladiators enter the arena one at a time.
Your roster order suddenly matters a great deal.
One of your gladiators faces 2–5 opponents, scaling alongside your roster progression.
Enemies enter one at a time.
Your gladiator does not reset between opponents.
Survive.
Available from 30 Prestige.
Only one randomly selected formal class may compete that day:
Murmillo
Hoplomachus
Dimachaerus
Retiarius
Carnifex
Gold, prestige and XP rewards are tripled.
1v1.
Handlers surrounding the arena throw nets into the fight, potentially entangling gladiators.
Energy-efficient fighters will have an advantage as both combatants attempt to survive the chaos.
Gold and prestige rewards are doubled.
Available in the Grand Arena from 100 Prestige.
During combat, the Emperor may suddenly issue commands including:
Backflips
No Shields
No Weapons
No Armor
Fight Faster
Charisma gold rewards are multiplied by 5.
The Emperor has spoken.
Apparently sensible combat rules were getting boring.
1v1.
Both gladiators draw different random modifiers before combat.
Possible rewards include:
x5 Gold
x3 XP
Possible... less desirable outcomes include:
Bleeding
Entangled
No Energy
Hurt - begin at 75% HP
Sometimes the gods smile upon you.
Sometimes they apparently want you dead.
The boss progression has received one of its largest expansions yet.
Six new encounters have been added or redesigned:
A brutal 1v3 encounter.
A Hispania Murmillo fought in a No Armour 1v1.
Armor, helmets and greaves are removed from both fighters.
Attilius enters with 60 Strength, Agility and Charisma, alongside Unstoppable and Iron Will.
Two legendary gladiators waiting together.
Oenomaus is now the culmination of a full gauntlet.
You must survive:
Brutus → Tigris → Draco → Varro → Oenomaus
One after another.
Another legendary gladiator has entered the boss progression.
Spartacus has been moved to his rightful place as the final boss.
You may send between 1 and 10 gladiators against him.
They enter one at a time.
Spartacus does not reset between fights.
Neither does your casualty list.
Defeat is death.
The Ludus itself is beginning to feel much more alive.
Your Doctore, Medic and Scout are now physically represented inside the school.
This might sound like a small addition compared to the new league simulation, but it represents something I want to continue doing throughout development.
I don't want the Ludus to feel like a collection of menus.
I want it to increasingly feel like an actual place you are building and managing.
A large visual and usability pass has been completed throughout the game.
Font sizes have been increased across all major scenes, both for readability and in preparation for Steam Deck verification.
Numerous interfaces have also been polished or redesigned, including:
New top bar artwork
New UI icons throughout the game
Improved Save Slot screen
Improved Post Combat screen
Improved League interface
General layout and readability improvements across numerous scenes
There are still areas I want to improve, but the overall interface should now feel considerably more polished and consistent.
Tooltips have received a major overhaul.
One of my goals is to make the increasingly complex simulation understandable without forcing players to guess what is happening behind the scenes.
Wondering why you received a particular amount of gold?
Hover over it.
Want to understand where a modifier came from?
Check the tooltip.
As more systems interact with one another, tooltips will increasingly expose the calculations happening underneath them.
Tooltips are your friend in this game.
Numerous smaller quality of life improvements, balance adjustments and bug fixes have been made throughout the project.
Many scenes have also received smaller visual improvements that aren't individually listed here.
As always, thank you to everyone continuing to report bugs and suggest improvements.
My main development focus now moves towards Steam Deck verification.
The larger font pass was one of the biggest remaining requirements, so there isn't a huge amount left before I can submit the game for review.
However, I don't simply want Gladiator Command to technically receive the green Verified badge.
I want it to actually feel good to play on the Deck.
I've purchased a Steam Deck specifically so I can test the game myself on real hardware and make sure menus, controls, readability and navigation feel natural and smooth.
That work is now underway.
The Doctore, Medic and Scout are only the beginning.
One of the next visual improvements I want to make is replacing the current training progress bars with actual training equipment physically represented inside the Ludus.
The goal is the same as the rival school overhaul.
Make the world feel less like numbers sitting behind menus and more like a place where things are actually happening.
There is still one final class remaining in this current batch.
The next class will be a Brawler, introducing another very different approach to combat.
More details on that soon.
V0.800 is the foundation for a much deeper rival-school simulation.
Future updates will continue expanding how schools recruit, train, trade, compete and interact with both the player and one another.
I also want to continue adding events that take advantage of these systems.
The more persistent the world becomes, the more opportunities there are for unexpected stories to emerge naturally during a campaign.
That is something I want to push much further.
I also want to give everyone 14 days notice that the base price of Gladiator Command will increase to $9.99.
Since the original Early Access release, the amount of content and depth in the game has expanded enormously, and V0.800 is another major step forward.
Naturally, all existing owners keep the game and continue receiving every future update regardless of what they originally paid.
One of the benefits of supporting an Early Access game early should be watching the game grow around your original purchase.
I want the players who supported Gladiator Command when it was smaller to feel like they made a very good investment.
The immediate priority is Steam Deck verification and making sure the game feels genuinely comfortable to play on handheld hardware.
After that, development continues on:
The new Brawler class
Physical training equipment inside the Ludus
Further rival school simulation
More events
More UI improvements
Continued balance, optimisation and bug fixing
Every major update will continue adding another layer to the simulation.
As always, thank you all for your continued feedback, reviews, bug reports and support. Huge thanks to Julio "Jken" for all his work on the art.
V0.800 is a particularly important update for me because a lot of its work isn't simply about adding more content.
It's about making the different parts of Gladiator Command connect together.
There is still a huge amount I want to build, but the world is starting to become the simulation I always wanted Gladiator Command to be.
Let's continue building it together.
If you encounter any issues or have feedback, you can always reach me through the Steam Discussions or Discord.
Thanks, everyone.