Illuvium: Arena, a free-to-play auto-battler available in public beta on the Epic Games Store, has been updated to patch 0.3.6 on March 25th, introducing a new Ascension system that alters the core of the Ascendant game mode.

What’s New In the Ascendant Mode?

There are now new Ascendant features included that significantly affect the mode’s core gameplay. Specifically, Illuvials can now be Ascended to the next Stages, meaning players must first play Stage 1 of an Illuvial on the board before being able to upgrade it to the next Stage using Ascension Tokens.

Ascension Tokens are a new resource that is awarded from round 2 and onwards, with players getting 2 Tokens per round. Each Ascension requires the use of 1 Token, and if you finish a round with 1 or more Tokens remaining, only 1 will carry over into the next round. If you choose to recall a Stage 3 Illuvial, you will be given 1 Token back.

Players will now be using a new and simplified Team Builder through which it is necessary to add all the Stages that they’d like to play. Previous teams have been reset as a result of the latest changes that make them incompatible. Team creation is now simpler than ever, as you now only pick one aspect for each Illuvial instead of picking dominant traits, making team building more intuitive for both current and new players.

A very early version of bots has also been introduced to the mode, allowing players to warm up against them when queueing in the Casual Queue. The model used for bots will get better over time as it gains more experience the more games it plays, with updates to the model also planned for the future.

With this new system now in place, the developers hope it provides “a sense of progression and accomplishment as you develop your board.”

Reworked Augments

Augments are now no longer available in the Team Builder. Players now have 25 seconds to pick 1 out of 3 Normal Augments every round, except in the “Legendary Augments” rounds. The time limit is said to be part of the Placement Phase duration, so you can have more time to set up your board if you pick your Augment quickly. With this change, the team hopes it brings a new layer of gameplay depth as each match will now have different Augments for players to choose from.

The Normal Augments you’ve been familiar with have actually been replaced with 52 new Augments that have only one variant and are simple to understand.

More details on this huge patch can be found on Illuvium’s official website.