Join our first BETA Phase 2 playtest weekend from 3pm GMT Friday March 27th. With new features and content to test don’t miss out, get in game and continue to give us your feedback. Check what we've added and changed in our patch notes below.
New Heroes
We have three new heroes who are being introduced in this update. Read more for details
New Features
BlockBuster
- The Blockbuster is designed to help avoid stalemates in matches.
- Every 15 minutes after the build phase ends a Blockbuster will arrive.
- Once the Blockbuster is present in the map it must be damaged and destroyed before it drops the boost. This can then be picked up by either team.
- The Blockbuster boost provides a shielded effect for the team that picks it up and increases that team’s damage to Blocks and Devices.
- The first drop is the “Blockbuster Light”, the second drop is the “Blockbuster Classic”, and all drops after that will be the “Blockbuster Extreme”. The power of the shielded effect and the added of damage to blocks increases with each version of the Blockbuster drop.
- The boost provided by Blockbuster only lasts until you die, or until 10 minutes have passed, whichever comes first.
Player Score
- We’ve added another form of progression – a player score which will be viewable to everyone. Player score is a crude number with no upper limit that tracks your Block N Load career and is awarded for your performance in matches. In time, it will be used for certain unlocks and achievements.
New Menu Design
- The main menus of the game have received a substantial re-design to make them easier to use. This includes some alterations to the Play menu which should make it clearer how to invite friends to form a squad and enter in to a game together.
- The tutorial video will no longer automatically play on launching Block N Load or clicking on the "Play" button. This can now only be accessed from the "How to Play" section of the "Learn" tab on the menu.
- A new checkbox for "Join shorthanded games" has been added to the "Play Now" menus. More on this below!
AFK Detection
- Players who remain in a match but do not take action for a significant amount of time will now be kicked from the match. This will also result in the player’s merits being reduced.
Quit Match
- On the mid-match menu (accessed by pressing the "Esc" key during a match) there is now a "Quit Match" option if you are playing in the Friendly mode. This will allow you to leave a match voluntarily, however, you will lose some merits for doing so.
Shorthanded Games
- With both the AFK Detection and the Quit Match button a new feature has been added which allows players to choose to join games in progress. If you leave this option checked when you queue, you may be placed into an in-progress game with vacant team spaces. Joining games that are in progress provides a boost to XP earned.
Device Drop Mechanic
- Destroying the block under a device (such as a Bomb, Lil' Buddy Turret, or Mortar) will no longer cause the device to be destroyed. Instead the device will drop down until it settles on a block under it. However, if the device hits the bottom of the arena it will still be destroyed.
Balancing
- Juan’s Katana alt-fire, the teleporting smoke bomb, has been changed and now has to be reloaded between each use; consequently you can no longer chain together smoke bomb use.
- Tony's Rivet Gun has received an overhaul and now fires far more projectiles. However, each one does less damage individually and these are fired in a wider spread. This should make hitting foes that are up close much easier.
- Sarge's level 2 progression unlock has been changed to a 10% increase in reload speed.
- Sarge’s active ability has been changed so that when at level 4 and 10 he no longer throws 2 or 3 grenades together. Instead these can now be thrown individually, with each individual grenade having a 15 second cooldown timer once thrown.
- OP’s Katana critical hit damage has been slightly increased.
- OP’s Ninja Star alt-fire damage has been slightly decreased.
- The hit-points of Cubes and Bases have been reduced.
- Respawn timers now work slightly differently. At the start of the match the respawn timer is 15 seconds, this then increases by 15 seconds every 15 minutes with a maximum cap of 60 seconds.
- The value of salvaging a Radar device has been increased.
Fixes & Improvements
Gameplay
- An issue where Sarge could be made to crawl at high speed whilst aiming down the sights has now been fixed. Sarge no-longer crawls faster when aiming down the sights of his M60.
- Hero switching will be enabled for all accounts with a player level less than 10.
- You can now correctly climb over a 1 high block when sprinting up a slope towards that block.
- Tony's Lil' Buddy turrets should no-longer attempt to fire through the Cubes and Bases at foes on the other side of them.
- Switching weapons to one which has an empty clip should automatically start it reloading (if you have any ammunition left for the weapon!)
- The mechanism for calculating falling damage after OP uses the Katana's smoke-bomb teleport alternate-fire has been improved. This should mean that OP takes less falling damage if his teleport hits terrain, or is close to the ground. (If you fire it up in to the sky still expect to get hurt).
- Improvements to the way that players and devices health and names are displayed to avoid these showing through terrain when they should not.
- A rare situation where exceptionally long Friendly games were awarding too little XP has been corrected.
- Attempting to shoot up out of mud should now result in hitting the mud first and only once the mud block is destroyed shooting up and out of it.
Key Bindings
- The options for crouch toggle and sprint toggle have been added back in to the key bindings menu.
Visual
- The hallucinatory effect of Nigel’s Tiki Heads has been changed and taken up a notch.
- The Supply Drop is no longer parachuted in from a plane. Instead it now descends on a beam of light, making it much easier to spot where its arrival point will be.
- Supply Drops no longer look like a wooden crate. Instead they are now a cube of translucent blue boxes which spin and rotate.
- Sarge's head no longer rotates through his body when jumping.
- The puff of smoke seen when a projectile hits a block has been made slightly more visible.
- The minimap has had some improvement. The general clarity has been improved and the map now indicates a larger variety of terrain height. Additionally, you are now represented by a clear arrow rather than hero picture.
Text
- Multiple minor changes and corrections to pop-up messages, buttons, and text on menus.
- The name of Cogwheel's Special Block has been changed to "Mortar".
- The description of several blocks (including the Mortar and Crate) have been improved on both the Hero Selection and Learn screens.
- The time taken to build a block visible on the Hero Selection screen when hovering over a block should now be correctly displayed.
Click for miscellaneous notes
As usual, you can let us know your thoughts below or on our Discussion Boards here on Steam. See you in game at the weekend!