The Arena
The world has edges now. Every round takes place in a large bounded arena rather than endless open space. There is still plenty of room to kite, but the walls are a real consideration, and materialising into a round makes the containment field flare so you know they are there.
Five distinct looks. The arena changes its palette every five rounds — a cool blue-teal from round 6, amber and rust from 11, deep red from 16, and a corrupted green-and-white from 21 that stutters and tears as though the signal is failing.
Scattered wreckage. Panels, cable runs, cracks, dead terminals, debris and scorch marks litter the floor, getting denser and more damaged as the rounds climb. Purely atmospheric — you walk straight over all of it.
Real cover. Crates, blocks and pillars block movement and gunfire in both directions. You can break line of sight on a shooter by putting a pillar between you, and enemies will slide around obstacles rather than grinding into them. Your orbiting weapons pass through freely, so nothing about hugging cover breaks your build.
Hazards
Destabilising floor tiles, from round 6. Sections of floor flash orange while they charge, then detonate. The warning is your whole window — but they tear through anything standing on them, so a hazard is a weapon as much as a threat. Considerably gentler than the round 5 chaos version: fewer tiles, longer warning, less damage, and your dodge and block actually apply.
Discharge pylons, from round 11. Solid pillars that periodically arc lightning between a pair of themselves. The cover you are hiding behind is also the thing that fires, and standing between two of them is exactly where you do not want to be. The arc cuts through enemies too.
Firewall sweeps, from round 16. A slowly rotating laser arm you have to keep moving away from, joined by a second counter-rotating one from round 18 so the beams cross. There is always a way out: a safe circle around the pivot, and a visible gap partway along the arm.
Round 21 and beyond gets all three at once, at lower density.
The Ship
It turns instead of snapping. The hull now sweeps around to its facing over about a quarter of a second, banking into the turn as it goes, with a gentle hover when you are still. Your aim is unaffected — weapons still fire exactly where they always did, the moment you point at something. Only the ship you are looking at has weight now.
Uber Commanders
They were almost never appearing, and now they do. A cooldown was counting in the wrong unit, which meant a single commander could lock out the next one for anywhere between two and seven whole rounds. Uber enemies now show up regularly instead of once in a blue moon.
Every type gets a proper introduction. The first time an enemy becomes eligible to appear as an Uber, one spawns guaranteed with a full escort. After that, roughly one in twenty of that type comes out Uber, leading a small escort of its own. There is no longer any limit on how many can be alive at once.
Sound
Teleport stings when you materialise into a round and when you dematerialise into the Bazaar — rising on the way in, falling on the way out.
The Vibe Cache now hums while you capture it, rising in pitch and quickening its pulse as the meter fills, so you can hear how close you are without looking.
Fixes & Balance
The Core Architect fight got harder. The final boss has always tried to drop floor hazards in its last phase — they simply never worked. They do now.
Landmines and turrets no longer end up somewhere they shouldn't, and enemies can no longer spawn inside a pillar.
Assorted fixes: the chaos music no longer risks playing forever, the Dev Panel loads the right arena when you jump to a late chaos round, waves no longer appear in plain sight in front of you, and the Balance Editor gained the Uber enemy settings, a Survivors tab, editable checkboxes and several previously-unreachable stat groups.