Boss Rush is here: new guardians and Steam leaderboards

The Boss Rush Update is here, free for everyone who owns Blockshock.

The guardians have new tricks, each temple has a new challenger, and six Boss Rush challenges are ready for your best time.

Meet the junior guardians

The third room of every environment now introduces a junior boss: the Grove Sprout, the Reef Acolyte and the Ember Heir. Learn to break their seals, follow the active targets and expose the core before meeting their larger counterparts at the end of each temple.

All guardians now have detailed carved bodies, animated hands and clearer weak points. Hit a locked core or the wrong target and a guardian can grab your ball. Watch the marked return lane and get your paddle into position. Break the core and the guardian fractures, falls and crashes into the floor before your congratulations appear.

Six challenges. Your fastest complete time.

Choose Boss Rush from the title screen to enter any of these challenges:

• Verdant Duel, Tidal Duel and Ember Duel: each temple's junior and full guardian, back to back.
• Junior Circuit: all three junior guardians.
• Guardian Gauntlet: all three full guardians.
• The Sixfold Trial: every junior and guardian in one run.

Every challenge uses the same base paddle, Sun Orb and standard difficulty. Campaign upgrades do not carry in, and your remaining lives carry between fights. Complete the whole challenge to set a time, compare encounter splits and chase a faster personal best.

Steam leaderboards include worldwide, friends and nearby-rank views. Your best complete time also stays available locally when offline. Pauses, boss collapses and between-boss breaks do not count against the clock. Once each fight has started, recall aiming and replacement-ball setup do count.

More control. More satisfying finishes.

• Shock shots: charge up through returns and broken stones, then arm a guided piercing shot.
• Precision finishers: a free finisher becomes available for the last three ordinary bricks.
• Improved aiming: the launch guide shows side-wall bounces, with mouse-wheel aiming before launch.
• Clearer feedback: stronger ball contrast, readable guardian targets, separate Standard and Assist records, and clearer medal results.
• Controller improvements: fixed A/B menu navigation and added the A-to-launch prompt when using a controller.

The campaign still spans 24 rooms across three temples, with permanent upgrades, enchanted orbs, 12 collectible relics and an original instrumental soundtrack.

Returning to the ruins

Let Steam finish updating, then launch Blockshock from your library. Completed campaign progress and upgrades are preserved. If you had an older room suspended, that room restarts with the updated layout. Boss Rush uses separate runs and leaves your campaign checkpoint intact; unfinished rush attempts cannot be resumed.

Thanks for playing and sharing feedback. Try a duel, post your best time in the Steam discussions, and tell us which guardian gave you the most trouble.

Jack / Vox Studios