Sharpen thy Shovels and Welcome to the Shovel Knight Crossover Event! This week we are celebrating our first Epic Crossover Skins from our friends at Yacht Club – Welcome Shovel Knight and his Crew!  We also have a new Shovel Knight themed map and have added +250 Gold this week to your daily log-in bonus! We have permanently increased our free-to-play rotation from 6 to 8 Legends! On top of all that, we improved our matchmaking algorithm, improved PS4 rendering performance, made some balance changes, and fixed a handful of bugs.

Shovel Knight has arrived – Let’s Get Shoveling!

Shovel Knight & his crew are here – For Shovelry!  For the first time ever, we are introducing Epic Crossover Skins to Brawlhalla! Each of these Skins includes Signature FX Swaps, Custom Lock-in Animations, Legend Name Swaps, Icon Swaps, and two new Weapon Skins. These Skins will be an alternate costume for a Legend in Brawlhalla and will be staying in Mallhalla after the event ends.

Introducing:

• Shovel Knight as a Gnash Epic Crossover Skin – “By the creed of Shovelry: Slash Mercilessly and Dig Tirelessly!”
• Black Knight as an Orion Epic Crossover Skin – “The Yin to Shovel Knight’s Yang.”
• King Knight as a Sir Roland Epic Crossover Skin – “Always dressed to the nines and ready for a brutal coronation!”
• Plague Knight as a Caspian Epic Crossover Skin – “The bomb is mightier than the sword.”
• Specter Knight as a Nix Epic Crossover Skin – “Into the darkness, the reaper cometh.”

This Shovel Knight event also includes:

• Daily login bonus of 250 Gold to celebrate Shovel Knight’s crossover!
• Brand new Map – Plains of Passage
• A Shovel Knight UI Takeover!

Mallhalla

• Check out Shovel Knight & his crew!
• Check out the new Sales items!

New Map – Plains of Passage

• Strike the earth with a new, Shovel Knight themed map – dig in!

Brawl of the Week – Strikeout Mania!

Pick your best 5 Legends and face off against your opponent’s best 5 Legends in this intense 300% damage battle! When you lose a stock, the next Legend in your list spawns in, ready to fight. KO your opponent 5 times to win!

• 1v1 Strikeout
• 5 Stocks
• 300% Damage
• Legend changes after each stock!

Matchmaking

• (PC & PS4) Matchmaking will now put greater emphasis on trying to find closer matches. The algorithm has been changed to put a higher priority on finding matches closer to a player’s Elo. This sometimes may result in slightly longer wait times between matches but will balance the overall match-making experience. We’ll be monitoring these results, so please let us know how the changes affect your progress.

PS4

• Improved client performance in-game and in store via multithreaded rendering. This enhanced rendering will create better performance in heavy areas, like large in-game battles, the store, and character select. This will help consoles be at a smooth, consistent 60 FPS.

Game Improvements

• KO effects will now rotate diagonally if a KO occurs in the corner of a map.
• Custom controller bindings will now be displayed with the controller graphic shown for default bindings, but with the custom controls updated in its place.

Game Loading

• Improved file loading time estimations.
• Loading screen will now show up earlier during the loading process, so it’s easier to track progress.

Bugs

• Adjusted Sidra’s character select animation to prevent her neck from sticking out too far with certain skins equipped.
• Fixed a bug where the dropdown menu for the room could still show up while you were in an offline game.
• The Unlock Skin / Unlock Legend prompt in the “Meet The Legends” screen will no longer erroneously show, if you already own that Skin or Legend.
• Fixed a bug where the Room # privacy option for online lobbies would only work if someone tried to join via room number through the Ranked screen, but would not work when someone tried to join via room number from the Custom Online screen.
• In the Legend Select screen for online lobbies, the room number now appears above the room header so that it can no longer be obscured by certain Legend portraits (I’m looking at you, Queen Nai).
• Fixed a few bugs on PC where the volume options would not reflect the active volume setting.
• Fixed a Map Striking bug where the “Strike Others” prompt would appear during Snake and Turns Striking modes, even though that option does not exist in those modes. That prompt will now be hidden when appropriate.
• Fixed a Map Striking bug where the “Strike Others” prompt wouldn’t appear during the final striker’s turn in Tournament Striking.
• Steam: Fixed a bug when a player was not in multikeyboard mode, keyboard inputs wouldn’t always be accepted while in the pause menu, particularly when trying to change keyboard bindings from the pause menu. (credit: Dobrein)
• Fixed a rare case where the client could get stuck on a blank screen after the scoreboard screen appeared in an online game.
• Update Jiro DSword clone impact sound on PS4 to match PC.
• Update Thatch Blaster sounds for PS4 to sound like they do on PC.
• Sidra’s Cannon nSig cannon ball explosion now plays proper sound on PS4.
• Fixed a memory leak on the PS4 client.

Legend Rotation

The new Legend rotation for this week includes: Orion, Gnash, Caspian, Nix, Sir Roland, Yumiko, Sidra and Jhala.

• Orion – A revered warrior and champion, the mysterious armored knight uses Rocket Lance and Spear to battle his foes in the halls of Valhalla!
• Gnash – In the darkness, before the dawn of history, this Legend was raised by the harsh jungle itself. This Super Hunter uses Grappling Hammer and Spear in battle.
• Caspian – Led by his showmanship and thirst for danger, he has come to Valhalla armed with Katars and Gauntlets to put on a show!
• Nix – Led by a thousand year hunt, this reaper, armed with both Blasters and Scythe, has found herself new bounty in Valhalla.  
• Sir Roland – No one in Valhalla feels a greater thirst for victory in the tournament than Sir Roland, as he strikes down his opponents with Rocket Lance and Sword.
• Yumiko – Holding the appearance of a blind seamstress, this centuries old fox spirit has been brought into battle wielding her Magical Hammer and Bow!
• Sidra – The Corsair Queen, known for her legendary and fearless raids, is prepared to fight with her Sword and Cannon!
• Jhala – Given the title “Exalted Lion” by Apollo himself, Jhala “The Unbroken” takes the glamor of Valhalla in stride while having fun slaying her foes with Axe and Sword.

Balance

We have another round of balance updates this week, primarily focused on bringing undertuned Signatures up to par with their peers. Players will find a number of damage and force increases for higher Strength Legends, whose attacks provided too little reward. We have adjusted the Blasters and Spear kits to bring their rewards in line with other similar options from other weapon kits, and we have enhanced the general utility and rate of play for the Hammer kit to better compete on the battlefield.

Blasters

With its use as both a potential combo ender and a close range option, the Blasters Recovery has received a reduction in force to better match its utility.

• Blasters Recovery: Decreased Force from 52 Fixed/51 Variable to 52 Fixed/49 Variable.

Spear

The Spear trades its Down Light into Recovery combo for a more responsive Neutral Air, bringing its knockout potential closer in line with other similar options. We have also opened a more reliable approach against the Spear, as the Down Light leans further into its role as an anti-air, with a wider opening between the attack and the ground.

• Spear Down Light: Slightly reduced coverage near the bottom of the attack.
• Spear Neutral Air: Decreased Time to Hit from 15 to 14.
• Spear Recovery: Increased Time to Hit from 15 to 16.

Hammer

While the Hammer is a slower, hard-hitting weapon, the slow rate of attack on its primary aerial threat and lower range on its grounded threat made a few weapon matchups too uneven. This greater horizontal presence will help Hammer players compete more evenly across the board.

• Hammer Side Light: Increased bonus speed gained from a dash.
• Hammer Side Air: Decreased Recover Time on miss from 5 Fixed/21 Variable to 4 Fixed/21 Variable.

Signatures

This week’s updates are focused on aligning the damage and force of more Legends’ Signatures with their Strength stat. There are also improvements to the speed and utility of several underperforming Signatures, such as Jiro’s Neutral Scythe and Isaiah’s Down Blasters.

• Isaiah Neutral Blasters: Decreased Recover Time from 22 to 20.
• Isaiah Down Blasters: Decreased Recover Time from 17 to 16.
• Isaiah Down Cannon: Increased Force of the grounded explosion from 60 Fixed/55 Variable to 60 Fixed/57 Variable.
• Artemis Down Scythe: Decreased Recover Time on Miss from 16 to 13; Artemis hovers in the air slightly longer on miss before gravity takes over.
• Artemis Neutral Scythe: Increased Force from 60 Fixed/52 Variable to 60 Fixed/54 Variable.
• Jiro Neutral Scythe: Decreased Recover Time on miss from 25 to 22; Slightly Increased coverage on the inside of the slash towards the end of the attack.
• Lucien Neutral Blasters: Decreased Force from 72 Fixed/55 Variable to 70 Fixed/52 Variable.
• Lucien Down Katar: Decreased Force from 71 Fixed/60 Variable to 70 Fixed/55 Variable.
• Hattori Side Spear: Decreased Damage from 29 to 25.
• Hattori Down Sword: Decreased Damage from 25 to 23.
• Barraza Down Blasters: Decreased Minimum Charge time from 10 to 9; Increased Damage from 21 to 24.
• Barraza Down Axe: Increased Damage from 24 to 26.
• Barraza Neutral Axe: Increased Damage from 22 to 25.
• Queen Nai Side Katar: Increased Damage from 20 to 24.
• Ember Down Katar: Increased Damage from 24 to 25; Moved some of the leap’s Damage into the final slash.
• Ember Down Bow: Increased Force of the ground shot from 65 Fixed/51 Variable to 65 Fixed/54 Variable; Increased Force of the aerial shot from a range of 60~50 Fixed/47~40 Variable to a range of 60~50 Fixed/50~45 Variable.