Meat Lab 5 Playtest Now Open! | Patch Notes 2025-05-15.a

Hope you're hungry! The SWAPMEAT playtest is now live until May 22, so get in there and gorge yourself on all the new upgrades and updates we've implemented since Meat Lab 4.

Once you've gotten a few runs in, we'd love to hear what you think! Head over to the MeatLab section of the Discord server and leave your feedback, report bugs, or just trade notes with fellow playtesters.

Don't have access yet? Hit playswapmeat.com for your ticket to the Meat Lab.

Now for the fun part: Patch notes!

Meat Lab 5 2025-05-15.a

Summary

• Welcome to Solar System 2
  • Take on an all-new Mutant Boss for the Mutant Space Wrestlers in Space Federation Championship Edition Belt
  • One new biome and three new planets

• A fancy new-and-improved HUD

• Spicy new combat changes
  • Weapon Switching
  • In-Run Weapon Upgrades
  • Updated Active Reload system
  • Elemental Damage & Status Effect revamp
  • Improvements to many Abilities' overall feel
  • Lots of Ability, Weapon, Mutation, and Artifact balance

• Gathering – You’ll now encounter Fish Rifts, Mineral Veins, and Ancient Technology that can be harvested to unlock and upgrade things on your ship. Careful, though, you will need to successfully extract from the planet if you intend to keep your haul

• Materials Trader – Trader Mike will join you on your ship early on in Solar System 1 to offer you deals, purchase your extra goods, buy your fish, and ASK ABOUT YOUR EXPENSES

• Employee Rank - Show your dedication to Rangus by climbing the corporate ladder

Gameplay

• Killing an enemy with Melee grants a +100% Meat Drop Chance
• Players will now be able to double-jump regardless of what Meat they have equipped. Consequently, all meat that granted additional jumps now has one less
• Projectiles now inherit falling velocity, so when falling from a jump pad and shooting rockets it should feel more correct
• Performance Review will no longer multiply currency rewards
• The Cave Ambush event will now scale with player count
• Reduced cost to acquire Franken Felled from 3 to 1
• Increased base movement speed of Hover Alien Legs +15% → +30%
• Scaling Difficulty has been modified to create a "cliff increase" on each new stage, favoring players who spent their time on the previous stage increasing their power level to be ready for the increased static power level of the following stage
  • Remove Challenge Level Increase over time
  • Increase Challenge Level impact per Stage
  • Increase Challenge Level based on Solar System difficulty

• Reduced the overall XP requirement to reach level 30
  
• Players will now spawn with your Rangus Meat when transitioning to a new stage
  
• When respawning the player is granted a “Fresh Meat” buff which grants +50% Meat Drop Chance and +15% Movement Speed. This is not granted in Boss Arenas.
  
• Renamed Power Cores to Data Points
  
• Renamed Genetic Samples to Carl Coins
  
• Reduced Meat Loss Invulnerability Window on Meat Loss from 4s -> 2s
  
• Reduced Stun Lock Timer on Meat Loss from 1s -> 0.75s
  
• Increase Health Recovery on Prime Directives 3x

Active Reload

• Weapons now only gain 1 stack of reload bonus
• Weapon reload bonuses have changed
  • Pistol - Increased Magazine Size
  • Rifle - Increased Attack Damage
  • Plasma - Increased Explosion Radius
  • Grenade Launcher - Increased Direct Hit Damage
  • Magnum - Fire 2 Shots
  • Railgun - Weak Point hits boost damage dealt
  • Rocket Launcher - Increased Critical Hit Chance
  • SMG - Increased Weak Point Damage
  • Shotgun - Adds Stagger Chance

The reload bar will now have a smaller “sweet spot” within the normal success zone. Hitting this sweet spot grants the player the reload bonus. Hitting the normal reload zone reloads faster as it does now, but loses the reload bonus.

Difficulty Scaling

• The second chapter starts at a higher Challenge Level, and it increases more per stage.
• The first chapter has reduced difficulty compared to Meat Lab 4.

Since we do not increase the amount of structures that spawn at events, we’ve instead done the following:

• Increase Health and Health Regen of Event Structures, Bosses, Hunters and Mini Bosses based on Challenge Level.

Weapon Families

Weapon Families have been reworked to be represented by a single “Rangus” weapon that players can unlock and equip at load out selection before starting a run. All Elemental Weapons will now appear as an in-run upgrade through leveling up.

Weapon Switching

• Players can now equip two ranged weapons and a melee weapon, and switch between them using V (keyboard), mouse wheel, or Y (face button top) controller
• All “Secondary Weapons” have been removed
• Added a Melee Weapon slot
• All Melee Weapons are now unlocked by default

Abilities

• Ninja Torso has a new ability that does multiple rising AOE slashes.
• Ninja Legs ability has been updated, it now buffs melee damage and applies elemental status effects based on the mutation element.
• Ninja Head has a new ability, throw shurikens out in an arc, each one that deals damage grants an attack speed and ability recharge speed buff up to 5 times.
• MuscleMan Torso’s Whirlwind has more polished animation and camera for a better feel. It pulls enemies closer if they are inside the damage radius.
  • It’s also been updated to allow for other abilities to fire during it, players just can’t shoot during it.

• SquatDaddy Legs' Giant Leap now can be held as a charge indefinitely until released to leap. It also has a more vertical leap than horizontal for better setups on the butt slam. Butt slam has a better camera shake on it.
  
• Meat Zord Torso’s Zord Beam ability now has animation, camera and vfx polish. It should be feeling better, but we’re stilling working on things to push on it more.
  
• Wasp Torso’s Aerial Dash now has animation and camera polish and has some passive abilities for some wild fun:
  • x1.25 jump height
  • x2 air move speed

• Meat Zord and Duckstone Torso abilities now disallow weapon input during them, but still allow movement and other abilities to be fired.
  
• Rangus Legs' Slide ability has some small camera polish to make it feel a little better
  
• Many of the grenade-like head abilities were updated for a better feel and more natural aiming, by adjusting speed and arc of the projectiles, adjusting animation and timing of release, and adding some fx on some here and there:
  • Grenadier Head, Moleman Head, Butcher Head, Fireman Head, Gobble Gazer Head, Monolithic Head, Muscle Man Head, Wasp Head

• Some abilities will now reduce the player’s used jump count by 3, allowing them to stay in the air and travel greater distances
  • Jump Count Reduction granted to Stellar Chef, Spider, Unit-G88, and Ninja Legs
  • Jump Count Reduction granted to Wasp and Duckstone Torso

Artifacts

• Artifact charge has been increased 4x on damage dealt to encourage more aggressive play. All Artifacts have had their recharge timers adjusted to compensate for this change
• All Artifacts have had their overall effectiveness increased
• Armor of Slime is now Armor of Chill
• Enemies caught in Gravity Well will now be stunned periodically and held in place more reliably
• Added Big Bee Boy – Summons a Large Minion that follows you for 90s and damages enemies

Controller

We’ve rebound the inputs of the controller and updated the behavior of movement abilities to ensure that the player can aim abilities while engaging with their activation buttons. Simply, this means that torso and head abilities are now located on the bumpers while the movement ability and lesser-used artifact are on the face buttons. Here’s the new layout:

And here’s the latest layout for Keyboard & Mouse if that’s your kind of party:

Enemies

Hunters

• Hunters now arrive after a much shorter time, but can be repelled by completing a Primary Directive which will add more time to the clock.
  • Hunters coordinate their behaviors again. When Ringo has a player in her tongue trap, Starr sprints toward them and has a more aggressive melee attack that’s harder to dodge.
  • Hunters will now become more powerful every 10 seconds after they have spawned
  • Increase Hunter Movement Speed by 6% every 10s after spawn
  • Increase Hunter Attack Speed by 6% every 10s after spawn

Other Enemies

• Wheelies now stay on the ground for 10 secs when they are either staggered or they miss the player in their charge attack.
• Dirtbag’s shockwave attack now damages enemies as well; want to see if this adds an interesting expert maneuver to kite Dirtbag around and hit the hordes (but don’t get hit yourself!)
  • It also has Player Knockback now when hit by it

• “Mini-bosses” can no longer be staggered
  • Broadside can no longer be staggered
  • Meat Zord can no longer be staggered

• Alien enemies have more projectiles overall and may be more like a “bullet hell”, but it’s still very much In-progress
  
• Alien enemies have been assigned thematically appropriate names
  • Little Buff Alien → LBA-Nasty
  • Lanky Alien → LIV-Mas
  • Jet Pack Alien → C-Cap
  • Hover Alien → Unit-G88
  • Alien UFO → UA-Peter
  • Alien Sniper → C4M-PR
  • Alien Dropship → Fridgeraider

• LBA-Nasty no longer wander for 5 secs before acquiring a target
  
• LBA-Nasty hitboxes are larger making them easier to hit
  
• LBA-Nasty health has been lowered making them quicker to defeat
  
• LBA-Nasty now explodes quicker when killed
  
• Reduced LBA-Nasty’s attack speed from 0.5s -> 0.15s
  
• Unit-G88 Will no longer steal Meat when it’s attack has completed
  
• Gobble Gazers will abort their scan if players move >7m away from them
  
• Fridgeraiders now spawn into an invulnerable Spawning state while they “warp” in
  
• More work has been done for Enemy Knockback so that things feel a bit more impactful and calibrated across the different enemies and how they respond to weapon and ability impacts and attacks. This is still in progress, but hopefully feels a little more satisfying and easier to control them by knocking them around a bit more
  
• Reduced the difficulty of Broadside
  • Reduce Damage of Broadside's Mines 100/200 -> 30/40
  • Add Fire Damage flag to Broadside's Mines
  • Allow Broadside's Mines to be detonated by and damage enemies
  • Reduce Broadside's health from 5000 -> 4000

• Increased the number of Monolithic Wheelies from 1 → 4 during Franken Beans' elite spawning attack
  
• Moved the spawn locations of the Monolithic Wheelies to around the arena more evenly, they should be easier to see when they spawn regardless of which of Franken’s Stalks players are facing
  
• Remove Critical Chance and Critical Damage from all enemy attacks, these were typically on ranged attacks where the enemy was firing a weapon
  
• Added Melee and Elemental damage flags to all enemy melee attacks
  
• Reduced some enemy damage ranges to bring their base values more inline with the player's starting durability and health values

Items

• All Epic and Legendary Items have had their chance to trigger increased by 2x and stacking count reduced by 2x. This means that it will now be easier for players to specialize their build with Epic & Legendary Items since they will now need to see them less often in their upgrade choices
• All Legendary Items will now only appear a maximum of 1 during a run
• All Epic Items will now only appear a maximum of 2 during a run
• All Rare Items will now only appear a maximum of 4 during a run
• All Uncommon Items will now only appear a maximum of 5 during a run
• Removed Legendary Items from Level 1 - 10 loot table
• Increase Range of Inferno Crown Effect from 6m -> 12m
• Increase amount of Barrier added by Mucus Maw 10 -> 20
• Increase damage from Static Charge from 2 -> 15
• Increase Trigger Effect Chance on Firebrand Talons 25% -> 50%
• Increase Trigger Effect Chance on Inferno Crown 20% -> 40%
• Increase Damage of Jagged Metal Cereal 5% -> 10%
• Increase On Melee Kill effect from Seattle Dog from 20% -> 100%
• Removed the Trigger Chance from most Items; we will now scale their effectiveness instead of their chance to trigger with stacks of the same item
• Reworked Fishing Rod & Fishing Net to add a buff that grants a base damage bonus
  • Always apply Short Range and Long Range Damage flags when the player deals hitscan damage to an enemy at the appropriate range, even if damage is not applied

Mutations

When leveling up, players will always see at least one mutation that matches their equipment (ie, Pyroclasm if you have Fire Pistol), the others are chosen at random.

• Reworked all ranks of A Pirates Life for me
  • Gain 50%/100%/150% Ability Recharge Rate for 10s after a successful Active Reload

• Reworked all ranks of Ninja Gaiden
  • Gain 10%/20%/30% Attack Speed for 5s after dealing Weak Point Damage

• Reworked all ranks of Sentience
  • Gain 15%/25%/35% Attack Speed for 10s after a successful Active Reload

• Reworked Rank 1 of Far Out Man
  • On Kill: Increase Accuracy by 30% for 12s

• Rework Rank 2 of Far Out Man
  • On Kill: Increase Accuracy by 30% for 12s
  • On Fast Reload: Increase Long Range Damage by 40% for 12s

• Rework Rank 3 of Far Out Man
  • On Kill: Increase Accuracy by 30% for 12s
  • On Fast Reload: Increase Long Range Damage by 40% for 12s
  • On LongRangeBonus Weapon Kill: Increase Critical Damage by 50% for 12s

• Remove Rank 4 of Far Out Man
  
• Updated Rank 1 of Psychomagnotherem
  • On Weapon Switch: +10% Minion Damage and +10% Minion Health for 12s

• Updated Rank 2 of Psychomagnotherem
  • +10% Slimed Effectiveness
  • On Weapon Switch: +15% Minion Damage and +15% Minion Health for 12s

• Updated Rank 3 of Psychomagnotherem
  • +20% Slimed Effectiveness
  • On Weapon Switch: +20% Minion Damage and +20% Minion Health for 12s

• Scaled Combust Damage on Pyroclasm
  • Increase Damage of Combust from Pyroclasm Rank 1 from 15 to 80
  • Increase Damage of Combust from Pyroclasm Rank 2 from 15 to 120
  • Increase Damage of Combust from Pyroclasm Rank 3 from 15 to 160

• Scaled Chain Lightning Damage on Tempest
  • Increase Damage of Chain Lightning from Tempest Rank 1 from 15 to 20
  • Increase Damage of Chain Lightning from Tempest Rank 2 from 15 to 40
  • Increase Damage of Chain Lightning from Tempest Rank 3 from 15 to 60

• Increase Chilled Duration 6s -> 12s on Glacial Veins

Weapons

All weapons have been sorted into weapon families. Each weapon family has a base Rangus weapon and five variations representing each of the elemental damage types. The player can unlock weapon families at the weapon terminal.

The player will now choose two ranged weapons at the Bolt Burger. During the run, the player will now upgrade their weapon into it’s elemental variation.

• Increased Magnum Effect Trigger Scalar 1 -> 1.75
• Increased Pistol Effect Trigger Scalar 1 -> 2
• Increased Plasma Gun Effect Trigger Scalar 1 -> 1.25
• Increased Rail Gun Effect Trigger Scalar 1 -> 1.5
• Decreased Rifle Effect Trigger Scalar 1 -> 0.75
• Increased Damage of all SMGS 12/22 -> 16/24
• Increased SMG Effect Trigger Scalar 1 -> 1.25
• Increased Shotgun Damage 8/12 -> 12/20
• Increased Shotgun Effect Trigger Scalar 1 -> 1.5
• Increased Sniper Effect Trigger Scalar 1 -> 1.5
• Reduced Gravity Delay of all Rocket Launchers from 2 -> 1. Rockets will now travel about half as far before falling and detonating on the ground
• Increased power of Spinach Spitter
  • Decrease usage delay of Spinach Spitter 0.5s -> 0.25s
  • Increase Spinach Spitter projectiles per shot 3 -> 4
  • Increase damage of Spinach Spitter 10/30 -> 10/15

• Reduced the muzzle climb and recovery of SMGs
  
• Reduced the muzzle climb and recovery of Magnums
  
• All Melee weapons share all of the same properties except for Damage Type
  
• Reworked “My Name Jeff” into the Eletcric Plasma Gun
  
• Added the appropriate VFX and explosion effects to Fire, Ice, Kinetic, and Slime Plasma Guns
  
• The Sniper Rifle weapon family has been removed and merged into the Rail Gun
  
• Increased all Magnum Magazines from 6 -> 8
  
• Increased Burst Delay of Magnums from 0 -> 0.15
  • When firing with the Active Reload Bonus it should now be much more apparent

• Reduced the range of damage on all Kinetic Weapons
  
• Added a light Muzzle Climb & Wobble to all Rail Guns

Animation

• New Hunter Intro and Arrival scenes.
  • The first time you see the hunters now introduces them in a cutscene when they arrive
  • All other times that they arrive, they fly in as meteors, slammig into the ground
  • Presentation has been polished to that it’s more obvious when they are about to arrive, and when they arrive: Lighting change, Meathedral appears in sky, meteors fall with vfx and audio stingers

• Animation & Dynamics pass on Ringo and Starr
  • Tweaked poses for Ringo's attacks in small ways for readability
  • Added a new sprint animation to Starr for when he’s aggressing toward the player while trapped by Ringo
  • Reworked Starr’s melee attacks a bit to clarify the normal vs aggressive
  • Added dynamic bone setups on both for meatiness

• Minor QOL tweaks to Narrative timelines
  • Game Intro & Frank Defeated scenes are both slower and allow the full texts to be read without speedreading

• Little Buff Aliens have a self-destruct animation for when they die
  
• GobbleGazer’s face armor was adjusted upwards to look better.
  
• Jet Pack Alien has a new shooting animation for it’s attacks
  
• Whirlwind ability animation polish now shows open hands, and is scaled up a bit for clarity. Slap em around!
  
• Updated foot fall sounds on enemies
  
• Mirrored all player firing and idle animations in support of the new weapon swapping, and to make things feel more natural on controller. Some odds and ends are less polished for now, due to the animations not having been crafted for right-handedness, but they are mostly solid and will be polished more as we go along.
  
• Ability polish work for Meat Zord Torso, Grenade-like Head abilities across the board, Muscle Torso and Legs, Wasp Torso
  
• Lots of minor polish bits and spot fixes on the animation side overall. Too many to list, but hoping that things look and feel better

Audio

• Added a celebratory stinger to Frank Defeated scene (borrowed from Spellcraft)
• Lots of Game Mix updates and refinements
• Combat Music stems now working in a new, simpler system; should result in the feel of “I’m fighting so the music has more drums now”
  • Based on having recently shot an enemy OR taken damage

• New dynamic Biome music for Alien and Machine planets has been added
  
• Audio pass on Hunters for mix and also newer elements from the updated animations (ex. Starr’s roar after his aggressive attack)
  
• Some more VFX polish and mix passes have gone in, covering some general ground

Narrative

• More work has gone in to support the Narrative of System 1 and System 2. It’s still a lighter touch, but hopefully clear enough to get the idea. We look forward to your feedback on it.

Environments

• New Space Freighter map in system 01
• Tangus Town has moved to the start of system 02
• New “Tiger Mountain” map added to system 02
• New “Moon of Tangus” map in system 02
• New Wrestling Arena for the boss battle in system 02

Bug Fixes

• Fixed clients being unable to interact with health terminals if the host had previously interacted with it
• The Electric Magnum will now correctly deal Electric Damage
• The Kinetic Magnum will now correctly have a 20% stagger chance on damage
• Goggle Gazers shine their spotlight on the player properly again
• Fixed an issue where some foot fall sounds were missing after we switched to the animation event payload system
• Franken Beans' laser stalks can no longer be jammed by the Franken Stalk Head’s Beam Ability
• Added Hitscan damge flag to all Hitscan weapons
• Added Melee damage flag to all Spatulas
• Added missing VFX to all elemental weapons

Meta Progression

• All non-boss planets now have resource nodes spawned on them.
• Rift Fishing, Mineral Gathering, and Chainsaw Operating Licenses now appear at Carl after extracting a planet for the first time.
• When playing in a group, players should receive credit for all resources gathered by other players as long as they also have the corresponding license unlocked.
• The Currency Trader has a tab where you can sell fish for Glizzies once you’ve unlocked your Rift Fishing License at Carl.
• Upgrades at the weapons terminal now have ranks which utilize gathered resources.
• The employee information terminal now has a tab to display resources, which as a group all require successful planet extraction in order to take back to your ship.
• Rangus employees now receive special employee XP for completing prime directives and for each star earned during a run. This allows players to rank up to higher tiers and eventually promotions within the organization.

UI / UX

• Bottom left hud rejiggered to have 110% more numbers, plus magnified so you can actually read it!
• Increased clarity of ability cooldowns
• Added “Inspect” screen for more details of meat, weapons, abilities, and items during runs.
• “Killing blow” is mentioned on death screen
• Replaced the phrase “Proc Chance” with “Effect Trigger Chance”. Players who have not played Everquest may now hopefully understand what this does? Let us know.
• Added Buff & Debuff Indicators to the bottom left of the HUD
• Added Weapon Switching Indicators to the bottom right of the HUD