Hey everyone! We’re gearing up for this week’s Friday Night Fights with Turbo Mode 2.0, more solo queue leaderboard action, a developer livestream, and Bonfire hosted custom games for North and South America!

New to Friday Night Fights? 

• Play Arkheron Now: We’re currently playable on our Experimental Client! Grab your key here to download, and start practicing in training, bots, and custom games before the Friday queues go live. See queue times for your region here!

• Join the Hub: A lot of the action - including Dev Q&As, custom games, and team finding - takes place on Discord! Join the Arkheron Discord here!

Arkheron’s Friday Night Fights (aka "Fight Club") is how we play, learn, and grow alongside our community before we head into Closed Beta.

During these playtests, you can expect us to experiment with a variety of limited modes and community activations to help us better tailor the experience, and better understand how you all like to play Arkheron. 

Currently, we’re focusing on modes like Turbo and Duos for two reasons:

• Learnings for Custom Games: Custom games are a relatively new feature to Arkheron, and we’re still learning how players will use them. The limited time modes we’re experimenting with help us understand what changes and toggles we need to give you in customs. 

• Healthier Matchmaking: With a limited playtest and a smaller player group, modes with a lower starting player count mean faster queues, less bots, and allow for rudimentary matchmaking that can lightly separate players by skill. We want both groups to be able to have fun. 

That said, here’s the lineup for this week:

Limited Mode: Turbo Ascension 2.0 

Turbo Ascension is a twist on our core mode, where 8 teams of 3 skip the ground floor and drop straight into the Second Floor of the tower.

What’s new? 

We recognized from our last playtest that Floor 2 needed some love across the board. We’re increasing loot density around specific areas of Floor 2 to ensure more viable drop options. These changes affect both Turbo and main Ascension - thanks so much for the feedback! Keep an eye on Discord for more details and specific drop recommendations from the team!

Give it a shot and let us know what you think—Turbo Ascension will be the primary queue for Friday Night Fights this week. 

Solo Queue Leaderboard Returns

We’re bringing back the Solo Queue Leaderboard, with some minor tweaks! 

Last week, we saw a slight uptick in “leaver” behavior from solo players when they weren’t happy with their teammates, which significantly impacts the experience of those left behind.

We’re making a few changes this week to help with that: 

• Leaver Penalty: Solo players who leave matches will earn a score of zero for that match. This penalty score will not be replaced by a higher-scoring game later; it is automatically tracked as one of your "top" scores for the night.

• Lowering Number of Tracked Games: To reduce the pressure of each individual game, we are lowering the number of total matches that make up your score. Last week tracked your top 5 - this week will track your top 3 games.

Our goal is to provide a low-stakes, fun incentive for high-skill players to solo queue. We know the system isn't perfect, so we ask that everyone respect their fellow players, have fun, and play fair! 

Here’s How Scoring Works:

Queue up solo and rack up points based on your top three games. Points are earned by racking up Major Eliminations (awarded to the player who dealt the highest percentage of damage to a downed target). 

Players only get points for the first time they eliminate players on each floor. If you eliminate someone, they get revived, and you eliminate them again on the same floor, you'll be awarded no additional points.

Scoring Breakdown:

• Floor 1 (Drop Floor) Major Eliminations - 1 point each

• Floor 2 Major Eliminations - 2 point each

• Floor 3 (Final Floor) Major Eliminations - 3 point each 

Pro Tip: Your overall score is based on your highest scoring three individual games. If you play a fourth game and out perform your lowest score, it’ll be replaced automatically. Note, leaver penalties scores will not be replaced. 

Join our Discord to keep up with the leaderboard as the night goes. 

Developer Livestream - Come Hang Out with Bonfire

We’re back with another dev livestream during our NA Queues! Jump into chat, ask questions, or roast our gameplay - we’d love to have you.

• Where: Bonfire-Presents Discord Channel & Arkheron’s Twitch 

• When: Friday, from 7PM - 9PM PT 

• Who: This week, our lovely Bonfire hosts are:

  • Jeremy "SunsetLion" (Game Director)

  • Des "Sug3rz" (Game Designer)

  • Elliot "Tetragon” (Character Artist)

Dev-Hosted Customs: South America & North America

Come play with us! The team will be hosting two rounds of custom games outside of normal queue hours for North and South America. Come play with us!

• South America Pre-party: 7PM BRT / 6PM AST

• North America After-party: 9PM PT / 12AM ET

• Where: We’ll start rallying in the #Bonfire-Presents Discord channel.

Looking for a Group? 

Interested in learning from a dev? We’ll have team members across many skill levels playing alongside you during the NA queues again. Drop a request in the #looking-for-group channel and, if someone is available, they’ll buddy up with you.

See you in the Tower!