Patch #7 is now live! This update focuses heavily on making arena battles feel more dynamic and impactful, alongside difficulty balancing, Doctore changes, Twitch improvements, and another round of fixes.

• Added weapon clashes during combat. Consecutive clashes become increasingly less likely to keep fights moving.

• Gladiator Temperament now influences how they approach opponents at the beginning of a fight.

• Blocking an attack with a helmet now causes a small pushback.

• Added dramatic camera zoom effects for killing blows and low-health moments.

• Improved arena camera boundaries.

• Improved combat impact effects and screen shake.

• Improved the opening moments of arena fights.

• Added more crowd reactions during combat.

• Improved crowd-thrown items and floating combat text effects.

• Fixed attacks sometimes connecting after the target had already moved out of range.

• Difficulty now also affects Qualifier opponents:

  • Easy: generated opponents have -5 Health.

  • Hard: generated opponents have +10 Health.

• Updated difficulty descriptions to better explain their effects.

• The Doctore's training boost no longer adds extra Fatigue.

• Construction rewards now receive a bonus based on the assigned gladiator's Bodybuilding level.

• Rebalanced Exhibition Match rewards:

  • Base reward increased from 10 to 20 coins.

  • Bonus per Arena victory reduced from 5 to 3 coins.

• Reworked the interaction between critical injuries, low Morale, and suicide risk. Maximum injuries no longer cause an immediate suicide event and instead increase the risk for gladiators already suffering from prolonged low Morale.

• Sending a gladiator to the Mines now also affects the Morale of gladiators occupying rooms, with this reaction taking priority over other Morale events.

• Added new Twitch voice lines and improved viewer messages.

• Added a Twitch instructions screen in Options.

• Improved Twitch connection and disconnection handling.

• Reduced the cooldown between Twitch-triggered crowd interactions in the arena.

• Subscriber message backgrounds now automatically resize to fit their text.

• Fixed several Twitch event and message issues.

• Pressing RT in the Ludus now also unpauses the game.

• Improved controller prompts, selection areas, and menu navigation.

• Recentered gladiator and Dominus portraits.

• Overhead icons and titles now hide while gladiator messages are displayed.

• Improved main-menu button spacing across different languages.

• Improved tutorial instruction positioning.

• Added a new feedback form.

• Fixed Doctore whip effects not being saved correctly after quitting the game.

• Fixed injury visuals sometimes failing to update after receiving an injury or healing in the Infirmary.

• Corrected percentage calculations involving injury damage penalties and Battle Inspiration.

• Fixed skin lookup issues with certain regional settings.

• Fixed several controller inspection and navigation issues.

• Fixed additional camera, localization, text-effect, and menu issues.

Thank you to everyone continuing to play the demo and send us feedback. We're continuing to refine the combat feel and overall experience as we get closer to release.

Dominus Gladiatus can now be played entirely with a gamepad!

The demo now also has native Steam Deck support, so you can play Dominus Gladiatus comfortably on the go.

This is the first public release of our gamepad and Steam Deck implementation, so we would really appreciate your feedback. Let us know how the controls feel and if you run into anything that could be improved before release!

• Added Difficulty Selection when starting a new game.

• Added clearer information and tooltips throughout the demo.

• Added the Ordinator for managing Exhibition Matches.

• Added new gladiator heads.

• Reworked Defense so it now increases the Armor provided by each equipped armor piece.

• Gladiators remaining in the Slave Market for more than 12 days are now automatically replaced.

• Activities such as resting or training with less than 0.1 day remaining will now automatically finish when an Arena Match is pending, preventing nearly completed activities from unnecessarily blocking progression.

• Reworked low-Morale suicide risk and how injuries affect it.

• Suicide risk is now displayed in the gladiator's details.

• Improved Morale indicators so they more accurately reflect a gladiator's current state.

• Moved training progress bars above gladiators for better visibility.

• Added weapon range to equipment tooltips.

• Improved employee screens, titles, descriptions, and other management information.

• Added new main-menu music.

• Added additional sound effects.

• Updated gladiator and slave portraits.

• Improved equipment positioning, skill icons, and selection effects.

• Improved Arena Preparation presentation.

• Improved pause backgrounds and injury presentation.

• Fixed voice lines continuing to play after changing scenes.

• Improved localization, text rendering, and tooltip clarity.

• Fixed several Dodge behavior issues.

• Fixed skill-training progress displaying incorrectly after loading a save.

• Fixed room actions sometimes remaining unavailable after removing a gladiator.

• Fixed Victory and Defeat screen input and navigation issues.

• Fixed several tutorial progression issues.

• Fixed overlapping gladiator selections and slot/death-animation issues.

• Fixed Arena Preparation allowing selection when too few gladiators were available.

• Fixed Game Events incorrectly triggering during loading.

• Fixed various additional arena, interface, combat, and progression issues.

Thank you to everyone continuing to play the demo and send us feedback. We're getting closer to release and continuing to polish Dominus Gladiatus with every update.