Dear CEOs,

This is Kim Hyun Soo, the Head PD of CounterSide.

During today’s CounterSide Origin 2.5th Anniversary stream, we introduced the upcoming updates for the second half of 2025 from our brand-new broadcasting studio.

We sincerely thank all CEOs for your warm support and anticipation, even with this new broadcasting format. Below is a brief summary and explanation of the updates we shared during today’s stream.

[ New Awakened Employee ]

◆ Alaya Zenith Yeonhwa

The new Awakened employee, Alaya Zenith Yeonhwa, is a member of the former [Trivanguard] under the Old Administration Special Task Unit. She is designed as a Defender-class bruiser-type employee who utilizes skills that grant buffs within a certain range on the battlefield, creating a combat environment advantageous to her allies.

Although she belongs to the Defender class, she possesses a Passive Skill that allows her to retaliate with even stronger enhanced attacks based on the number of hits she receives. Rather than focusing solely on being a pure front-line tank, her design emphasizes enhancing her role as a damage dealer while holding the line.

Alaya Zenith Yeonhwa is scheduled to be released with the Main Stream Episode 14 update on August 19 (UTC-5).

[ New SSR Employee ]

◆ Vesca

The new SSR employee, Vesca, is a 3-cost Ranger-class employee with the concept of creating explosions using powder. She makes her first appearance and plays an active role in Main Stream Episode 14.

Vesca’s skill design centers on using enhanced attacks that are stored as stacks whenever an ally or enemy deploys to the battlefield. Each time she uses an enhanced attack, the cooldown of her Ultimate Skill is reduced, allowing a smooth linkage between her enhanced attacks and her Ultimate.

Her enhanced attacks are especially effective against enemies with high evasion, delivering devastating impact. With this unique skill composition, Vesca is expected to play a decisive role in countering high-evasion employees.

Vesca will be available as a Counter Pass employee after the conclusion of the ongoing Carantisir de Letaria Counter Pass.

◆ Seosaeng

The new SSR employee Seosaeng, scheduled for release in September, is a Ranger-class Counter employee making his debut and playing an active role in Main Stream Episode 14.

Seosaeng’s skill design increases the number of hits in his enhanced attack each time he uses his Special Skill. This allows him to easily take down Defenders who are vulnerable to multi-hit attacks. Therefore, the key to maximizing Seosaeng’s potential lies in using his skills more frequently to make his enhanced attacks even more effective.

Seosaeng will be available through the regular recruitment in September.

◆ Wandering Sword Lee Jisoo (Operator)

The awakened employee Lee Jisoo, known for acquiring many nicknames unintentionally, will be released as an Operator.

This new version, Wandering Sword Lee Jisoo, represents her before joining the Six Wings, offering CEOs a fresh charm distinct from the original awakened Lee Jisoo. She wields a Command Skill that nullifies buffs from enemy Defenders and Strikers while applying a debuff that increases the damage they receive.

Notably, if the affected employee’s cost is above a certain threshold, the debuff’s effect becomes even stronger, making her especially effective against high-cost Defender or Striker employees.

Wandering Sword Lee Jisoo will be released alongside Main Stream Episode 14 on August 19 (UTC-5).

[ New Vacance Skin ] To celebrate the CounterSide Origin 2.5th Anniversary, two new Vacation skins will be released.

Following their release, a limited-time event will also take place, where obtaining these skins during the event period will grant you the corresponding skin skill cut-ins.

◆ Red Witch Felix - Golden Summer 

◆ Anila - Guide of the Clear Blue Coast Brand new vacation skins are planned to be updated on August 19, 2025 (UTC-5).

[ New Gauntlet Skin ] This coming October, the Gauntlet Sincere Season will begin, bringing with it the release of a brand-new Gauntlet skin.

Please note that the skin’s illustration is still in production. Once it is complete, we promise to unveil it first through a dedicated Developer’s Note.

You can obtain this new Gauntlet skin by reaching Diamond League or higher in Ranked Battle during the Sincere Season, so we hope many of you will take part!

[ Main Stream EP. 14 ]

◆ Bara

In Main Stream EP.14 [Bara], the anticipated showdown with the Demon Lord, expected to be the main villain, will not be featured.

Instead, before concluding the story of Main Stream Season 3, we felt it was necessary to first reveal the whereabouts of Joo Shiyoon and introduce several characters whose stories are key to explaining his motives for acting on the Six Wing’s request.

This episode will focus on a narrative involving time, presenting a complete story that spans both the past and present through the [Trivanguard] arc of the former Administration Bureau’s Special Task Unit.

You will discover why Six Wings Lee Jisoo ended up seeing the past instead of the future, why the Antagonist existed in the real world but the Demon Lord did not, and why Yeonhwa had to part with her family at what should have been her happiest moment. 

Before the final confrontation with the main villain, we recommend revisiting previous episodes after experiencing this chapter, as it will make for an even more enjoyable and insightful journey.

[ Gear Storage Expansion ]

The maximum gear capacity in the Storage, something many CEOs have requested, will be expanded by 200 slots.

Previously, in developer notes and livestreams, we mentioned that expanding the gear storage limit was difficult due to server load concerns. While Operator slots could be supplemented through content like the Operator Side Skill Tokens, there was no such alternative for gear storage.

As we know how diligently our CEOs play CounterSide and how the gear inventory keeps growing, we have decided to implement this 200-slot expansion in the September update. 

While we understand this increase may still fall short of your expectations, we will continue to explore various ways to address the ever-increasing number of gear items in the future.

[Permanent Currency Drop Bonus for Substream & Main Stream]

Currently, CounterSide offers over 40 Substreams, each with its own currency shop where CEOs can spend the currency earned from clearing that Substream’s Hard difficulty stages.

To utilize multiple Substream currency shops, a large amount of Eternium is required. To help offset this, we have been running weekly rotation events that temporarily increase Substream currency drops.

However, with the release of Exclusive gear for Awakened employees and the addition of currency shops to Main Stream episodes, the demand for Eternium has grown even further.

In particular, unlike Substreams, Main Stream episodes have not had any currency drop events, making it even more difficult to obtain currency and Exclusive gear for Awakened employees.

Considering the increased Eternium cost burden, especially for episodes where farming Exclusive gear is already challenging, we are making a change with the 2.5th Anniversary update. The previous episode-specific currency drop bonus will now be permanently applied to all Substreams and Main Stream episodes that have currency shops.

Additionally, for stages in Substreams and Main Stream episodes where Exclusive gear for Awakened employees can be obtained, the drop rate for Exclusive gear will also be permanently increased.

With this change, we expect that, through consistent play, CEOs will generally be able to collect all four pieces of desired Awakened Exclusive gear within about five days.

While we understand this does not completely resolve the burden of the increased Eternium demand, we hope that the permanent boost to episode currency drops and Awakened Exclusive gear drop rates will make it easier and faster for you to use the shops and acquire the gear you want.

[Raid Reward Upgrade and Revamp]

Raids are a type of content where you defeat powerful bosses appearing on the World Map to obtain items such as Superconductor gears, Polymer gears, Britra, and Inhibitor Relic gears.

Among these, Britra Relic gear, in particular, is considered one of the essential pieces of gear for achieving high performance across various content.

In the second half of 2024, with the update introducing Lv. 190 Raids, the development team also added the new High-grade Raid Tokens to make acquiring such Raid Relic gear easier.

However, we have confirmed that, in practice, many CEOs still face significant difficulty in obtaining their desired Raid Relic gear.

To reduce the difficulty of obtaining Raid Relic gear, we will be revamping the Raid clear rewards and the T5-7 Raid gear Molds starting August 26 (UTC-5) update.

First, for Raid clear rewards, the existing gear rewards will be removed, and the amount of Tokens obtained will be increased.

This applies not only to Superconductor and Polymer Tokens but also to Black Flood Tokens obtained from defeating Kraken. Furthermore, the amount of High-grade Tokens acquired from defeating Raid Bosses Lv. 170 and above will also be increased.

In addition, the crafting list for T5-7 Raid gear Molds, which can be crafted using regular Raid Tokens, will also be revamped. In this update, T5-6 gear will be removed from the crafting list, and it will be changed so that only SR and SSR-grade T7 gear can be crafted with a certain probability.

However, in order to preserve the value difference between SR and SSR gear, the acquisition rate for SSR-grade gear will remain the same as before.

Through this Raid reward upgrade and revamp, we hope CEOs will be able to obtain Raid Relic gear more easily and take on a wider range of challenging content.

[Addition of Higher-Level Module Challenge]

As the amount of gear owned by CEOs has increased, and with the recent addition of exclusive gear for Awakened employees that also includes potential stats, the demand for gear enhancement materials has grown compared to before.

However, the main source of enhancement materials, Enhancement Modules, has not been revamped, resulting in a situation where the supply of materials cannot keep up with the demand for gear enhancement.

To help ease the demand for enhancement materials, a new Higher-Level Module Challenge will be added with the August 19 update.

In the Higher-Level Module Challenge, you can enter by consuming 500 Eternium per attempt. Upon clearing, you will be guaranteed to receive 1 Nano Precision Enhancement Module, and additionally, one of the following will drop at an equal probability (33.3% each): Enhancement Module, Precision Enhancement Module, or Nano Precision Enhancement Module.

When converted to gear enhancement EXP, the rewards from this challenge are expected to be more than 1.5 times greater than those from the Module Challenge 1-3 dungeon.

Furthermore, if we determine that CEOs still face a shortage of enhancement materials even after adding this new Module Challenge, additional measures will be taken to address the shortage and improve the gameplay experience.

[Addition of Partner Main Employee Support Feature]

The previous Partner Main Squad Support feature used in battlefield battles was removed when it was discontinued.

Following many CEO requests, this support function will be reintroduced in the form of a Partner Main Employee.

Unlike the support feature seen in Raids or Dives, the designated Partner Main Employee will appear in your squad slots and can be deployed by consuming your deployment resources.

The Partner Main Employee will appear in the 4th slot, and even if your squad already contains the same unit, deployment will still be possible.

You can receive support from the same partner once per day, with the support count resetting at 04:00 server time.

Additionally, if your partner has used your representative employee for support at the time of reset, you will receive Dispatch Points via mail. These points can be accumulated to earn achievement titles.

The Partner Main Employee Support feature is scheduled for release in September, with further details to be shared in the Patch Notes.

[Balance Adjustments for Low-Usage Employees]

With the start of the Sincere Season in October, balance adjustments will be made for employees who have seen low usage in Ranked Battles.

Currently, we anticipate adjustments for around 10 employees, with the confirmed ones being [Maestra Nequitia], [Kostroma Mavka], [Evolved One], and [Harab]. Additional employees will be selected based on the ongoing combat environment.

These adjustments are not intended to drastically change the Gauntlet meta. Instead, we expect to focus on modifying certain skills that the employees possess.

In the case of [Harab], we plan to remove the existing [Confusion] mechanic and instead strengthen her role as a supporter who enhances allies.

The balance adjustment plans, including Harab, are not yet finalized. Full details will be shared through the Patch Notes before the update.

[ New Content - Great Expedition ]

The Great Expedition is a new Dive event featuring a roguelike system, where you are presented with multiple choices and the results change based on your decisions.

Unlike the standard Dive, the Great Expedition will only be available during specific event periods. Instead of using your squads, you will begin the expedition with a designated ship, employees, and an operator. Your goal is to advance through various event-filled stages and ultimately defeat the final boss.

During the expedition, you can recruit employees you encounter and add them to your squad or swap them with existing members. You will also have the chance to upgrade your ship, as well as choose and replace your operator’s support skills to create a more favorable environment.

In addition, playing the Great Expedition will grant you exclusive points that can be accumulated and exchanged for rewards. Unlike other events, there will be no ranking system tied to these points, allowing all CEOs to enjoy the event without competitive pressure.

[ Regarding Season 3 Episodes ]

In 2023, with Main Stream EP.10, Season 2 of CounterSide came to an end, and Season 3 began with the supplement episode [Administration Complete].

During Season 3, through Main Stream and Substream, we have shared the stories of various employees after the Qliphoth Game, as well as stories set in regions that had not been covered before. We are aiming to conclude the Season 3 episodes in early 2026.

Additionally, starting in September, a special type of story that has not been done before will take place.

In Season 3, the Demon Lord [Tagirion] made her first appearance. Now, as she regains his full power, the resulting phenomenon called “Omen” occurs in reality, putting the directly governed cities of the Administration Bureau in a desperate crisis.

The “Omen” episode tells the story of representatives from the six directly governed cities and those who seek to protect them, joining forces in their ways to defend their world from the catastrophe.

“Omen” will run from September for a total of 6 episodes, releasing at 3-week intervals, set in the six directly governed cities of the Administration Bureau.

We ask for your anticipation for the many diverse regional stories that have yet to be told.

[Real-Time Battle Log]

In battles where multiple employees are deployed and several skills are activated at the same time, the screen can be visually impressive, but it can also make it difficult to assess the battle situation.

To address this, a real-time battle log feature will be added, displaying information at the bottom of the screen such as which deployed employee dealt damage to whom, and who defeated whom.

This feature can be toggled ON/OFF at any time through the options menu. Due to additional considerations for various PvE environments like Raids and Co-op Battles, the feature will first be introduced in PvP environments.

We hope the real-time battle log will help you better grasp the battle situation with greater clarity.

[New CEO Attendance Punch-in Revamp]

To help new CEOs who are experiencing CounterSide for the first time settle into the game more smoothly, the punch-in rewards for new CEOs will be revamped.

The development team has determined that the current new CEO attendance rewards, considering the service period, are somewhat lacking and provide items that are not closely aligned with helping CEOs get accustomed to the game.

Therefore, we will be revamping the rewards provided to new CEOs upon their first login to create an environment where they can play CounterSide more comfortably.

The revamped new CEO attendance rewards will be applied starting with the August 19 update. In addition, we have structured the new punch-in rewards so that all CEOs currently playing CounterSide can also claim them.

If you are in the middle of receiving the pre-revamp new CEO attendance rewards at the time of the update, you will be able to claim both the pre- and post-revamp rewards. Meanwhile, new CEOs who first log in to CounterSide after the August 19 update will receive the updated new CEO attendance rewards.

Further details about the updated attendance rewards will be provided in the patch notes.

[Summary of CounterSide Origin 2.5 Anniversary Rewards]

As announced in the stream, the rewards for the Origin 2.5th Anniversary event reward summary are as follows.

This concludes the brief overview of the updates introduced during the CounterSide Origin 2.5th Anniversary stream.

While we acknowledge that the content may still fall short of fully satisfying our CEOs, we will continue striving to make CounterSide a game that communicates closely with all of you.

Thank you.

Sincerely, CounterSide Live PD Kim Hyun Soo