This will likely be the last major patch before I cut the demo, so I wanted to get bosses in a more complete state for the purpose of capturing footage. Here's the full list of visible changes, if you wanna read it all:
THE HERALD
Horizontal Sweep and Dive Bomb are cut. Sweep laid beams that cleared a standing player's head; dive bomb was barely interactive.
Spear Ring (new, P2+): 24 golden spears form a ring around him, then fire. 1.6 s telegraph, then 27 u/s travel (3× the first pass). Fired spears keep their spear art via a new view-only IsSpear tag.
Pillar Sweep bulked up: 6/8/10 → 10/12/14 pillars, and they now run off the top of the screen instead of stopping short.
Mark for Death cut. P3 is now a standing spear wall, plus P3 condemns the ledges so it can't be waited out from a platform.
Herald → Emissary handoff: victory banner dropped, the unannounced slam restored, grace 5.0 s → 0.8 s.
THE EMISSARY
New attacks: drift barrage + crossfire lattice (tuned so P2 is the denser phase, telegraph halved).
Interference roster, split by phase — P1 gets the theatrical stuff, P2 the invasive:
crosshair drift (drawn reticle lies; shots never actually move)
fake pause card — clones the real one, not an imitation
fake disconnect
settings tamper — the mini SYS CONFIG panel opens and ducks master volume while you watch
health-bar swap for all of P2
aspect squeeze with real pillarbox bars
ultimate denial — replaced the HUD freeze, which was built then cut
cosmetic fake damage-resistance curve on the P2 bar
Datamoshed sprite + corrupted backdrop blinks through the fight, and his death moshes.
Transmute beat + a motion × style-sheet matrix with three new slop motions.
THE BLOOM
She comes out of the pod. Two stances: sealed (Calling — kill her nests) ↔ vulnerable (flying a figure-eight, full damage). Predator stance cut entirely.
Adds now come from two destructible platform nests; clearing both is what opens her.
Fire is the answer to her: 1.5× → 3.0× fire, and she actually burns now. Enough fire damage while sealed smokes her out early.
IMD Frenzy retriggered off the second forced launch
Sealed resistance retuned 0.80–0.95 → 0.50/0.55/0.60/0.70 by tier; vulnerable window now a flat 10 s; nests back to stock HP; eight slowed 3 s → 5 s.
Her brood withers when she dies — nests, crawlers, pods, all of it, paying nothing.
Arena darkness in tiers, centered on the pod, following her.
SPORE PODS
SwarmSpawner throws pods; they land and hatch Crawlers up out of the floor.
Pods are shootable — 40 HP, health bars, killable in the air, worth exactly what the Crawler inside would've been.
THE COLONEL (still in progress, but won't be in the demo, so no biggie)
He drives a big ass tank now. Three forms: tank + turret (100→55%) → turret blown off, chassis rams (55→25%) → on foot (25→0%).
New explosive weakness axis: 3.0× on the tank forms only
Phase 3 rushdown rework: the old mirror-match brawler walked slower than the player and could just be backed away from. Now always closing at 8.2 u/s with dash / jab→cross / divekick.
Everything else
Grunt and Doc: the dodge roll stows the weapon (v483). Neither has aim-bucketed roll frames, so the roll locks their stock weapon — paid for with i-frames extended from 0.18 s to the full 0.75 s. The DSCO keeps firing. Tank and Wraith untouched.