With arena brawler Battlerite out of Steam Early Access and officially free-to-play, developer Stunlock Studios announced the game's first competitive season today. Season one will go live today, and its accompanying patch is bringing a medley of additions.
Firstly, there's a new champion: Jamila the Shadowblade Assassin, a stealthy ninja-type fighter who put on a good show in her animated teaser. Adamantly free-to-play players have a better chance of using Jamila than ever thanks to a new 'sponsor' reward system that "expands on the current daily quests by allowing players to follow specific reward paths to unlock Champions, earn in-game currency as well as season-specific rewards," Stunlock says.
"We updated the reward system in order to acknowledge the daily efforts of competitive players, and to make sure casual gamers don’t feel left out," Stunlock says. "That’s why the new system has multiple Sponsor paths, some fitting less frequent play styles and others having a League requirement for higher ranked players."
There will also be six free, rotating champions available every week of each season. Seasons will be scheduled every two to three months and last for around 10 weeks, Stunlock says.
The season one update also introduces leaderboards for the top 200 players in each region, as well as the long-requested option for ranked players to switch champions in a pre-game lobby according to their team's composition and the enemy team's picks. Finally, the new 'CamCrew' kit allows players to watch live matches or match replays using a controllable 3D camera which also supports VR.