Closed Alpha Test #2 has officially come to an end, and we’ve been blown away by the incredible number of players eager to experience Badassgard! Throughout the test, we received a tremendous amount of feedback, giving us valuable insights into what you enjoyed and what we could improve.
After reviewing your feedback and seeing how many Vikings wanted to keep playing, we’ve decided to bring back the demo with an updated build! This new version will feature a brand-new stage, alongside numerous gameplay improvements, balance adjustments, and quality-of-life updates inspired by your feedback.
The new demo will be available on October 1st!
In these Dev Notes, we’ll take you through some of the biggest changes coming to Badassgard, including new content and improvements shaped by your feedback. For those who want to dive into every detail, we’ll also be publishing a separate announcement featuring the full patch notes.
For now, let’s take a closer look at what’s coming in The Brass Factory Demo!
Our upcoming demo will introduce a brand-new stage: Svartalfheim, The Brass Factory!
We've seen many Vikings enjoying the newly introduced dungeon looping system. However, with only two stages available, there was only so much variety each loop could offer. To make every run feel fresh and exciting, we're expanding the dungeon with an entirely new stage: The Brass Factory
If the previous stages felt like a cakewalk and left you craving a real challenge, The Brass Factory might be exactly what you're looking for!
Deep within Svartalfheim lies a factory filled with relentless workers and mechanical foes, armed with technology that will put even the toughest Vikings to the test.
But the enemies aren't the only threats you'll face. The factory itself is just as dangerous, with moving platforms, deadly traps, pneumatic presses, and wall-mounted turrets waiting to catch you off guard. Every step you take could be your last, so watch your footing!
And at the end of it all, a brand-new boss awaits—one that might just shake even the bravest Vikings to their core
We don't want to spoil the surprise just yet, but if you're eager to learn more about what's waiting inside The Brass Factory, keep an eye on our Discord server! We'll be sharing more details as we get closer to the demo's release.
Prepare your shotguns, Vikings. The Brass Factory awaits! ⚔️
We’ve received a lot of feedback that bosses feel too tanky while their attack patterns pose too little threat. We agree that bosses should feel menacing and dangerous, not like damage sponges that slow down the pace of combat. For the upcoming demo, we’ve made bosses significantly more threatening while reducing their durability, creating faster-paced and more engaging battles. To add, we’ve heard that bosses being stunned was hard to identify so we added clearer visual feedback on them.
Victorious Loser: Summoned Totems now grant increased movement speed and attack damage instead of invulnerability. The number of targets they can buff has also increased from 3 to 20.
Magnusson the Blasphemer: Increased the frequency and speed of his jump attacks.
Bosses: Stuns now have clearer visual feedback.
To make Wretched Rest more interesting while addressing some overtuned elite enemies—particularly the Giant Wisp Mass—we’ve expanded the enemy lineup and distributed parts of the Giant Wisp Mass’ arsenal among these new enemies. With more enemy variety and better-balanced encounters, Wretched Rest should now feel like a much more engaging first stage!
Giant Wisp Mass: Replaced its skull projectile attack with a close-range AoE attack. Its buff effects the same as totems from Victorious Loser (Attack damage and movement speed)
New Enemy Types in Wretched Rest:
Added a new enemy that uses the skull projectile attack previously used by the Giant Wisp Mass.
Added a new enemy that charges directly at players.
We’ve received feedback that after the first loop, difficulty doesn’t increase enough as players progress through each stage. While we plan to rework how difficulty scaling functions in the future, for now, we’ve increased how much the difficulty ramps up with each stage.
We realized that increasing the Barrels stat gave your Viking an incredible boost with barely any drawbacks. So, we’ve brought back the system from the original demo: the more Barrels you have, the more ammo each shot consumes. (5 barrels = 5 ammo consumed per shot)
We’ve received plenty of feedback about OPart balance, and while we’re reviewing OParts as a whole, the 8-Pounder stood out as significantly weaker than most. So, we’ve prioritized buffing it for this build. Instead of limiting you to a single round, the 8-Pounder now unloads everything in the chamber at once, delivering the massive impact it deserves.
Removed: Maximum ammo is limited to 1.
New: Firing consumes all ammo currently loaded in the shotgun.
New: Damage increases based on the amount of ammo consumed.
Previously, attacking an enemy affected by Discharge would continuously trigger additional AoE damage. However, as combat became more chaotic, these frequent triggers were difficult to distinguish visually while also resulting in unusually high DPS compared to other builds. The fixed AoE size also made Discharge less effective against larger enemies.
We’ve reworked Discharge into a stack-based status, making it take longer to trigger while delivering a stronger and much clearer AoE effect when it does.
Old: Attacking a Discharged enemy deals additional AoE lightning damage.
New: Discharge now applies to stacks. At 20 stacks, it triggers a stronger AoE lightning attack.
New: AoE size now scales proportionally with the enemy’s size.
Tyr is meant to offer a high-risk, high-reward playstyle built around high speed and DPS. We felt that reducing movement speed worked against this identity, so we’ve changed Sacred Bargain’s downside to increased damage taken instead—preserving Tyr’s speed while making the risk of taking a hit much greater.
Set effects are intended to activate by collecting the different OParts required for that set. However, the previous build allowed duplicate copies of the same OPart to count toward the requirement, making set effects particularly easy to exploit during higher loops. Duplicates will no longer contribute toward activating a Set Effect.
During the previous demo, we made Divine OParts easier to obtain from chests and the store due to the limited amount of content available. With the addition of The Brass Factory and the loop system providing more opportunities to collect OParts, we’ve reduced the chance of Divine OParts appearing in chests and the store.
Your long-awaited true pause button is finally here! We didn’t expect just how long some of our most dedicated Vikings would keep their runs going, only to realize that opening the menu didn’t actually pause the game. So, this build finally adds a true pause for some much-needed convenience!
We’ve received plenty of feedback about runs becoming repetitive when starting with a limited variety of sets. To give each run a different flair from the beginning, we’ve added the Word Modulator, allowing you to shuffle your starting Ammo Set using Stardust.
Ammo Swap was originally designed to encourage switching to your other Ammo Set in desperate situations. However, many players preferred sticking to one powerful set and manually reloading instead. To encourage Vikings to constantly switch things up and fire different shells, your inactive Ammo Set will now automatically reload much faster while not in use.
Vikings wanted a way to see just how powerful their builds had become during a run. So, we’ve added a DPS test dummy after boss fights so you can do exactly that!
Bell of the Moment originally rewarded Vikings for completing stages quickly, with the amount of coin rewarded scaling based on how much coin they already held. However, with the loop system encouraging longer runs and more time spent finding the Bell or backtracking to the store, we decided to switch its reward to Tokens. This also helps Vikings progress faster outside of runs—two birds with one stone!
During CAT#2, many Vikings expressed frustration with spending their hard-earned Tokens on food without knowing what buffs they would receive. While we understand this concern, we also wanted to preserve the excitement of discovering what each dish does for the first time. To strike a balance between discovery and convenience, once you've tried a dish, its buff details will be revealed for all future purchases! Now you can enjoy the thrill of trying something new without having to guess what you're paying for every time.
Vikings have asked for a database where they can freely browse information on OParts, Ammo, Food, Stats, Enemies, and eventually tutorials and lore. For this demo, all currently available entries will be unlocked for you to explore. In the full release, however, entries will only be revealed as Vikings discover them throughout the game.
We received quite a number of bug reports during Closed Alpha Test #2. While we managed to address many of them during the hotfix period, there were still plenty more to tackle—and a few that remain. Rather than listing every fix here, you can find the full list in our separate changelog.
For this build, we’ve fixed numerous issues involving:
Stats
Ammo
Systems
UI
And much more!
That’s the gist of the biggest changes coming to the new demo! As mentioned, the updated demo launches on October 1st, so get ready to jump back in with even more content to explore!
And there’s still plenty more we haven’t covered here. With so many changes packed into this build, we’ll also be sharing a separate changelog with the full list of updates, fixes, and adjustments—so keep an eye out for that!
Thank you again to every Viking who played, shared feedback, reported bugs, and helped us shape this next version of Badassgard. We hope you enjoy what we’ve been working on, and we’ll see you back in Badassgard on October 1st!
Until then, Vikings—keep your shotguns ready. ⚔️