Illuvium Arena Dev Blog - Mastering the Gauntlet

Mastering the Gauntlet

Welcome, Rangers! Many of you have already run the Gauntlet, experiencing the excitement of its unfinished form. Your feedback has been invaluable, helping us refine the game’s pacing and strategic depth. From your requests, we’ve been listening closely, and we’re excited to share the results of those efforts. Today, we’re taking you behind the scenes to dive into the proposed overall match flow of Gauntlet and explore the features we’ve been refining. Let’s talk about how these updates, that we are rolling out over the next few months, transform the experience into a fully realised battlefield of tactics and skill.

As always, remember these features and mechanics are subject to change based on feedback and playtesting both internally and externally.

Region Selection

The match starts with players voting on a region. All eight of our biomes are present in Gauntlet, including Sanctum Mesa, introducing variability from the get-go. Rangers choose their favourite region in the loadout, and when the match begins, one is picked at random. This quickly gets you into the match while still allowing player agency. The Region chosen isn’t going to completely change everything about your plans, but it will impact your strategy. Some regions make it easier to hit Tier 5 units, while others will reward players who push the tempo.

From there, morphopod combat in the first few rounds serves as an excellent warm-up. Rangers gather components (we’ll dive into those details later) and units, laying a critical foundation for their builds. And if you need to handle your uh… business, this is the perfect time.

Weapons with Customisation

We’ve heard you loud and clear regarding weapons and suits. It’s too much, all at once, and players find it overwhelming to think about Illuvials, weapons, and suits together. To address this, we’re reworking the experience to make it more intuitive, less intrusive, and ultimately more enjoyable. That sounds like a winning combination.

At level 3, you’ll face your first significant decision: selecting a base weapon for the Ranger. While we will be adjusting some of the current weapons, these will mostly be the ones you know and love. Each weapon sets the stage for the Ranger’s evolution throughout the match. As you progress, you’ll unlock two additional weapon amplifiers. These boost your weapon, enhancing its power and utility. Some focus on upping the Ranger’s carry potential, others improve utility, and some toughen up your Ranger to hold their own on the front lines.

While each weapon has a multitude of options, only a select few will appear in any given match. This variety creates literally hundreds of combinations, ensuring every game feels unique while remaining straightforward and easy to grasp.

Concept art

Bonding

Bonding is back, baby! When we looked at the way matches were playing out, we found a few big issues. It wasn’t just that weapons and suits were overwhelming—they weren’t particularly interesting. The core problem was that weapons and suits effectively turned Rangers into Illuvials. This left no unique identity for the Ranger, making them feel redundant.

We realised that a unit’s defining traits were all locked behind the weapon, leaving the Ranger as rigid and predictable as any Illuvial, without room for meaningful customisation with Augments. Your weapon WAS your Ranger, so to speak. To address this, we’re breaking that system apart.

Weapons still have dominant synergies that determine their hyper interactions, but they no longer have composite synergies. Instead, they inherit the dominant synergy of the Illuvial they are bonded to. This creates their composite synergies, making Rangers the only units in the game capable of easily adopting any synergy combo you choose. You’ll remember this system from previous versions of Ascendant. The core theory was sound, but the execution was lacking. Back then, there were only 5 weapons to choose from. Now we have 15 weapons, each with unique Omegas.

This flexibility turns Rangers into your strategic pivots, enabling quick adjustments to your team in creative and impactful ways. While they won’t completely transform your team composition, they can provide the tactical shifts needed to counter opponents on the fly.

Additionally, the synergy bonuses they acquire directly influence their weapon amplifiers. For instance, a weapon amplifier that boosts energy gain pairs beautifully with the energy refund bonus from Tsunami. With 30 composite synergies to explore and countless weapon amplifier combinations, the possibilities are vast, and we can’t wait to see what ingenious builds you create.

While some combos may naturally stand out as more powerful, success will often hinge on your ability to adapt and strategise mid-match. This ever-evolving decision-making process ensures every game remains engaging and full of potential.

Drone Augments

Drone Augments provide powerful enhancements for your Drone, shaping the way you approach the game. These range from increased Drone health and damage, to economic boosts like better odds for high-tier Illuvials, or even specific uplinks with individual Illuvials that improve their performance or change them entirely.

These choices will arise at regular intervals during the early and middle stages of the game, where you’ll select one of three options presented.

Note: These replace Legendary Augment rounds. Rest assured, Legendary Augments are still a part of the game (and we’ll delve into those soon).

Draft System with Catchup

Periodically, players will come together to select units with components (we’ll get to those in a second) from a dynamic track that constantly shifts direction. Units move clockwise and counterclockwise through the track, disappearing and reappearing at portals. You have to time your approach to ensure you reach the desired unit before it vanishes.

The lowest-health players are given priority by being released earlier, providing them with the best chance to claim valuable items. Players with equal health are released simultaneously, ensuring fairness and avoiding arbitrary tie breakers.

This draft is the only time all players are in the same room together, making it the perfect moment to showcase your drone skins and admire your opponents’ emotes.

Concept Art

Suit Augments

Your Ranger will eventually have one final pivotal decision: the suit powerup. This upgrade is a significant enhancement, equivalent to the combined power of two Illuvial Augments. These passives not only fine-tune your Ranger but also provide the final polish to their performance. While you’ll initially be presented with a single option, you can spend credits to roll for alternatives. Since these augments come from a shared pool, chasing the ideal suit is possible but comes with a cost.

Economise your resources or prioritise perfecting your customisation, the choice is yours.

Late Game: Leviathan Combat

Without giving away too much about the upcoming MMO, we wanted to ensure that Gauntlet included the most exciting elements from both games. With that said, get ready for PVE battles to reach a whole new level.

By this stage, players have fully customised their Rangers, equipped impactful suit augments, and assembled synergistic teams. Now, enter the Leviathans. These colossal creatures appear periodically, and taking them down is a monumental challenge. Success isn’t expected—not in the traditional sense. Instead, the focus is on endurance. The longer you can hold out against these titanic foes, the greater the rewards. And yes, we’ll talk about that loot in just a second… promise.

Leviathans are as powerful as an entire team, each bringing unique strategies to the battlefield. When facing them, ensure you bond with the right Illuvial and position your team carefully. Adaptability and preparation are the keys to survival.

For those skilled enough to slay these beasts, the rewards are nothing short of spectacular. These encounters add additional layers of depth, pushing players to their limits while delivering unforgettable moments.

Itemisation

I told you we would get to this. I don't know why you were so pushy!

Illuvial augments are currently a little undercooked. They are powerful, but you get very little agency in how you set up your teams. Often your augment choices don’t really fit your team at all. At the same time, we don’t want to get stuck with a system that allows players to reliably get close to ‘best in slot’ selection. That is, we want you to have some customisation, but not so much that you can just look up the correct choice on a website.

Enter: components. These are the basic building blocks of augments. Each has a theme, and they can be combined together to create augment crates. Each time you combine two components you will open a crate which contains themed augments. Combine two attack components, and you’ll get a selection of 4 attack themed augments. This way it’s not completely random, but you’ll still have to use some skill in selecting the best augment for you.

And this is where legendary augments make a return. These are one of many very powerful crates that come from a number of different sources (Region selection, drone augments, Leviathan loot, etc…)

PVE rounds also drop Unit Crates that you can open to find extra units, or stash for later. These crates are tiered, meaning their contents always come from the specified tier. Combining Unit Crates upgrades them to Stage 2 or 3 versions, unlocking even more powerful rewards.

Additional Features

Team Planner

With the press of a button you’ll be able to bring up a team planner where you can select the units you want to find in the match. You’ll be able to see what synergies this will provide, helping you to plan effectively. Then, when you shop, you’ll get a highlight on any unit that matches your team.

We’re adding some quality of life improvements to make it the best in the Autobattler space, such as toggling unit visibility, which allows you to keep the team composition as you want it, but hide notifications for particular units for the rest of the match, cutting down on distractions.

Match Scouting

While it might not seem like we have done many updates to the game over the last couple months, there has been a massive overhaul of the game engine in the background. This will help with bugs, synchronisation, and is the reason we are able to add so many of these features. But in addition to that, it will allow you to scout your opponents by directly watching their boards and fights.

While a simple thing, Arena was originally built for Ascendant mode, and we didn’t have the ability to do this. With this overhaul of the engine we will open up a lot of possibilities and be able to build the game much faster.

Closing Thoughts

Gauntlet is designed to challenge players’ strategic thinking at every stage. From your first Morphopod combat right through until your very last Leviathan battle, every round provides opportunities for mastery, while being super simple to learn. These new features promise to keep every match fresh and engaging. More than ever before, you’ll be able to cook up some truly spectacular teams. We hope to put them in your hands soon so that you can test them out and help us to make Gauntlet even better.

Keep your strategies sharp and your decisions sharper. Glory is yours to seize.