Friends & Foes Update - Available Now!

This second major update for Monster Train adds new champions, new bosses, new cards, and new artifacts, which combine together to add a significant amount of new strategic options and replayability. We’ve also added a number of frequently requested player features like a personal run records page in the Logbook, an enemy wave counter in battle, and a preview of the ring 3 and ring 6 bosses at the start of a run.

Major new features

Five new “Exiled” Champions, one from each of the monster clans. The new Champions have new mechanics, come with their own new starter card, and add additional layers of strategic depth and replayability.

Two new bosses at the 3rd and 6th ring of Hell, each with three variations. Talos and Archus join the fight as alternative options to Daedalus and Fel. These new bosses have brand new combat mechanics and increase run variety.

A new final boss variant - Seraph the Patient. This version of Seraph uses a new gameplay trigger, Rally, and applies Melee Weakness to your units.

Five new artifacts, one from each of the monster clans. Each adds new ways to gain power and synergize with clan mechanics.

Personal run records are now available for viewing the Logbook. Track your improvement over time and compare with friends!

Launch day stream

Join us for a series of launch day streams on September 3rd, 2020! You can view them right here on Steam or on Twitch.

The schedule is:

Join the community discussion

You can find us on our official Discord, official subreddit, and on Twitch.

Full patch notes

Major New Features:

1. NEW CHAMPION - Shardtail Queen from the Hellhorned clan. Her starter card is the Queen’s Impling.
2. NEW CHAMPION - Wyldenten from the Awoken clan. His starter card is Rootseeds.
3. NEW CHAMPION - Solgard the Martyr from the Stygian Guard clan. His starter card is Forgone Power.
4. NEW CHAMPION - Primordium from the Umbra clan. Its starter card is Plink.
5. NEW CHAMPION - Little Fade from the Melting Remnant clan. Her starter card is Primitive Mold.
6. NEW BOSS - Talos, the Architect at the third ring of Hell. She attacks before the Relentless phase and her strikes give her benefits.
7. NEW BOSS - Archus, Darkness Incarnate at the sixth ring of Hell. He summons Darkshards, a new type of unit that you must counterplay to survive.
8. NEW BOSS - Seraph the Patient. A new Seraph variant that both attacks before the Relentless phase and applies Melee Weakness, a new status effect that increases combat vulnerability.
9. NEW ARTIFACTS - one new artifact per clan: Queen's Tail, Emblem of the Exiles, Kinstone Totem, Shadowbox, Fade's First Blade.
10. PERSONAL RECORDS - in the Logbook you can now view your personal run records.
11. NEW EXPERT CHALLENGES - 5 more Expert Challenges for players who have completed Covenant 25.

General Gameplay Changes:

1. New keyword: Phased. Phased units cannot attack, cannot be targeted, and cannot take damage in any way.
2. New keyword: Attuned. Spell cards with Attuned benefit from Magic Power at 5x the rate as normal. The goal is to increase late-game viability of certain cards.
3. New keyword: Melee Weakness. When applied a unit takes more damage from normal combat.
4. New trigger: Rally. Triggers when you play a unit card on this floor. Morsels do not trigger Rally.
5. Action trigger (previously called “On Turn”) is now used on some new player units. Triggers on the unit's turn, before it attacks.
6. GAMEPLAY - any unit that was Eaten now goes to a new Eaten card pile. Reform deals with dead units in the Consume pile and does not Reform from the Eaten pile. Retch pulls from the Eaten pile.
7. By player request, when playing with a random primary and/or allied clan and you restart your run from the pause menu the clans will now be re-randomized.
8. Shieldstone Damage Shield stacks increased 2 -> 3.
9. Runestone Armor stacks increased 1 -> 2.
10. Removed the keyword "Enhance" everywhere to increase clarity. By default, Status Effects never persist across death in battle. Stat changes always do. No functional changes to any game mechanic were associated with this text change.
11. Stackstone now increases Ember cost by 1 in addition to adding Doublestack.
12. Hope for Peace now only affects Spells to avoid common confusion with Monster Railspike.
13. Redesigned Gnarled Root. Now it gives +1 attack for each stack of Spikes.
14. Added a "leave" option to the “Armageddon Battlefield” Concealed Caverns event.

Hellhorned Gameplay Changes:

1. Imp-pressive is Attuned.
2. Ritual of Battle Rage gain increased 8 -> 10.

Awoken Gameplay Changes:

1. Sting damage increased 5 -> 10.

Stygian Gameplay Changes:

1. Titan's Gratitude damage reduced 30 -> 25. The card is now Attuned.
2. Ice and Pyre is Attuned.
3. Crypt Builder is Attuned.

Umbra Gameplay Changes:

1. Feast now only triggers eating if there is a unit that can feed in the room.
2. New keyword: Buffet. Units with Buffet can be eaten more than once. Currently Primordium is the only unit with Buffet.

Melting Remnant Gameplay Changes:

1. Memento Mori rarity was changed from Rare -> Uncommon.
2. Intent on Death rarity was changed from Uncommon -> Rare. Ember cost increased 0 -> 2.
3. Paraffin Enforcer health increased 15 -> 25.
4. Mortal Entrapment Daze amount increased 2 -> 3. The card is now Attuned.

Other Changes and Bug Fixes:

1. AUDIO - new music tracks for Talos and Archus.
2. TEXT - clarified that Dazed status blocks various triggers from occurring.
3. TEXT - changed the gambling event to make it clearer it is Pyre Health that is on the line.
4. ENGINE - updated to Unity 2019.4.
5. ENGINE - we now support two video playback technologies. The default is still AVProVideo, which has better performance on most systems. We added a new option, Unity, because Unity 2019 supports hardware decoding of video. Using the Unity option allows muting video from Windows Volume Mixer to work correctly and it also works on Linux under Proton/Wine. Select the best option for your circumstances from the settings menu.
6. UI - added ability to switch between Exiled and normal Champions for both primary and allied clans on the clan select and challenge creation screens.
7. UI - by player request, show which ring 3 and ring 6 bosses you will face on the run on the run start screen.
8. UI - by player request, added wave counter to battle. It shows the number of enemy waves until the boss comes out.
9. UI - by player request, added an easier way to cancel mutators and expert challenges with one click.
10. UI - increased the size of card subtype to improve readability.
11. UI - reordered the Logbook tabs to a more logical order with Champion Upgrade right after the Card tab and the Card Mastery Frames next to the Stats section.
12. UI - Don’t highlight any part of the champion upgrades in the Logbook so the whole thing is easier to read.
13. BUG FIX - fixed missing keyword tooltips on a few cards and artifacts.
14. BUG FIX - fixed Pyre VFX disappearing briefly sometimes.
15. BUG FIX - ensure Pyre death audio always plays.
16. BUG FIX - fixed an issue where discard pile card count could be wrong if you were rapidly playing cards.
17. BUG FIX - fixed a rare bug where Train Steward card art didn't display properly in a certain sequence of Concealed Caverns event choices.
18. BUG FIX - fixed a rare softlock related to ensuring determinism.
19. BUG FIX - fixed a determinism bug related to trials that give out an artifact being dependent on which path you chose prior to combat (left or right).
20. BUG FIX - fixed a text issue where an Armor value was displayed incorrectly on a merchant upgrade with Doublestack and Railhammer.
21. BUG FIX - Spell cards that Purge or duplicate on kill now trigger correctly when they kill bosses.
22. BUG FIX - unfocus the hand if you open deck view while dragging out a card to avoid mouse cursor confusion.
23. BUG FIX - a few Spells that didn't work with the Volatile Spells mutator were fixed. For example: Restoration Detonation.