Patch 8.0

Ready to dive into High Society Heist? Get informed before your mission begins: read this hefty lineup of patch notes to prepare for Season 8’s launch today. With this mission brief, you’re sure to succeed!

New Features and Improvements

Season 8: High Society Heist

• It’s time to join the Red Hand Crew and Police Commissioner Chase in an epic cat-and-mouse game of noir-themed dodgebrawl adventures! 
• The heinous henchmen of the Foot Clan are here! Bebop and Rocksteady are ready to rumble in Knockout City, and the TMNT Villains Bundle will set you up with Poses and Outfits to become the baddest mutants this side of the ooze!
• New 100-Level Brawl Pass with new Weekly Brawl Pass Contracts and premium rewards at every level including Outfits, Gliders, Poses, Holobux, and other Heist-themed cosmetics to get your dirty mitts on.
• New Deep Space Dispatches introduces a brand new cast of characters, the Red Hand Crew, in a dramatic new story you can follow in the Free Edition of the Brawl Pass! Trail Chase as she tails the criminal Crew all over Knockout City in the pursuit of justice.
• New League Play Season featuring Team KO and a new set of cosmetic rewards for the most skilled and competitive brawlers in the city.
• New Weekly Crew Contracts with heist-themed Crew Cosmetics all Season long for you and your Crew to earn together.
• The World Athletics Store is still open in the Brawl Shop! You’ll have until Tuesday, December 20th to pick up a sporty Legendary Outfit adorned with a country flag.
• And as usual, Chonky is going into hiding to avoid all of the hullabaloo! Keep your eyes peeled for all his new hiding spots in each map.

New Special Ball: Poison Ball

• Here’s a tricky new Special Ball that’s tailor-made to cause chaos and mischief. The Poison Ball deals normal damage on impact, and also produces a green cloud of harmful knockout gas when it hits any surface or player, causing damage over time to any brawlers inside! 
• The knockout gas is a more powerful version of the damage-over-time effect from the Danger Zone and other sources. Partial damage will heal itself slowly over time if you exit the gas cloud before a full heart of damage is dealt.
• The knockout gas cloud’s size increases if fully charged before throwing, and expands into even bigger clouds at higher levels of Overcharge, and clouds shrink and disappear after a few seconds.
• The Poison Ball doesn’t disappear after impact, so brawlers can use a single Poison Ball to unleash multiple gas clouds!
• This new Special Ball has been added to all relevant playlists supporting Special Balls in Street Play, League Play, and Private Match.

New Customization: Brags

• We’ve added the “Brags” option to the Customization Menu, the first new Customization since Crew Horns, and the first one added to individual brawlers since launch!
• Brags are special nameplates that add either a title or player stats to their names during the Match Intro or Victory/Defeat sequence.
• All brawlers will start with several Common Brags, and can earn more through Events, the Brawl Shop, the Brawl Pass, and elsewhere. 
• Multiple Brags can be equipped by “favoriting” each Brag; a random Brag will be selected from the pool of favorites during Intros and Victory/Defeat sequences.
• Like Player Icons, this customization is tied to your account instead of your selected brawler, and doesn’t need to be set per brawler slot.

New Customization: Jukebox Tracks

• “Jukebox” option added to Customization Menu.
• Brawlers can select multiple Jukebox tracks from their collection to create a playlist of music to play when the Hideout Jukebox is activated. 
• If no Jukebox Tracks are "favorited" on the list, the track selection will be random across a brawler’s entire collection.
• Like the Hideout Ball, Jukebox Tracks play based on the list set up in the group leader’s Hideout.
• All brawlers will have 18 Common Jukebox Tracks unlocked by default (the full original soundtrack from launch!) and can earn more Jukebox Tracks through the Brawl Shop, Events, and other methods.

New Hideout Feature: Interactive Objects

• Crew Vehicle: Added a new feature to instantly jump to the Street Play Menu by pressing the on-screen button prompt when near the vehicle.
• Special Ball Spawners in the Target Dummy area of the Hideout have been replaced by new Ball Dispensers. Follow the on-screen prompts to select and spawn any Special Ball you’d like to practice with!
• Added a new Energy Drink Cooler near the grill in the Hideout. Follow the prompts to quickly open your Energy Drink menu, and note the amount of active time left on your current Energy Drink at a glance.
• Jukebox Enhanced UI: Approach the Jukebox and follow the prompts to bring you to the Jukebox Customization Menu, and see album art for every music track as it plays!

Other Hideout Changes

• A storm is rolling in over the Hideout, creating a dreary noir setting with dark clouds, muted lighting, and a slight drizzle.
• A new energy fence surrounds the Soccer Field in the Hideout to help keep the Hideout Ball in play. This special energy field will only block dodgeballs from passing through, while players can move through it freely.
• A new Hideout Ball, the Hockey Puck, is available in the Brawl Shop, and as part of the S8 Fundle Bundle. Turn the nearby rooftop into an air hocky showdown!

Map Changes

• Sludge Works: Added an additional Ball Spawner in the Sludge Pipe area between the Boba Cola and Trash areas, bringing the total ball spawners up to six.

New Energy Drink: Heist Tea

• The Heist Tea Energy Drink has been added to the pool of Energy Drink Rewards in Street Rank, Brawl Pass, Brawl Shop, and elsewhere… a favorite beverage of the Red Hand Crew!
• Effect: Stealing neutral balls within 3 seconds of hitting opponents earns +25 Bonus XP for 1 hour.

New Playlists

Bank Ball: Hold the Bank Ball to earn points for your team! 

• A neutral Bank Ball with a value of 40 points will spawn at the center of the map.
• Holding the Bank Ball earns points for your team, and decreases the number of points contained in the Bank Ball over time.
• Brawlers carrying the Bank Ball have a slight movement speed reduction.
• The Bank Ball will always take priority over any other held ball when passed or picked up.
• Hits with the Bank Ball will instantly extract 5 points for your team from the Bank Ball’s value.
• When the point value reaches zero, or after sitting idle for a fixed period of time, the Bank Ball will disappear and a fresh Bank Ball will spawn at a Ball Spawner.
• If the Bank Ball falls out of bounds, it will respawn in a new location; if the Bank Ball is thrown or dropped out of bounds by a brawler, their team will incur a 10-point penalty.
• Overtime rules: if the winning team is not holding the Bank Ball when time reaches zero, the winning team must gain possession of the Bank Ball to end the round.
• First team to 100 points wins the round. Win two rounds to win the match!

Poison Punchup: Play Team KO matches with a variety of Poison Ball loadouts!

• Possible loadouts include Poison Ball, Party Poison Ball, Any Ball and Party Any Ball.
• Poison Punchup will be available on day 1 and day 4 of High Society Heist in the Street Play Daily Playlist slot, and all season long in Private Match, allowing players to get familiar with the new Special Ball.

New Seasonal Event Playlists will appear throughout the Season, so look sharp!

Energy Drink XP Callouts

• When an Energy Drink is active, you will now see pop-up numbers and hear a subtle sound effect each time you perform the correct action to earn bonus XP.

KO Assist Calculation Changes

More KO Assists means more KOs, which means more XP and also impacts who gets MVP. Previously, you would get KO Assist credit for either dealing the first hit on an opponent that a teammate KO Finished, or if you helped a teammate get the KO Finish by doing things like pass them a ball, tackle the opponent, or several other actions. Now, we also award you KO Assist credit if you help with the first hit on the opponent as well. The goals of this change were to better represent and award all the players that contributed to a KO, and also to further encourage teamwork by making it a more important factor in the MVP calculation.

• KO Assists are now granted for contributing to a teammate's first hit on an opponent, in addition to the existing conditions.

Cage Ball Changes

• The “Cage Ball Invulnerability” time has been reduced by half, meaning brawlers can now be trapped again sooner after breaking free from a Cage Ball, breaking free after being caught as a Player Ball, or after being thrown by an enemy brawler with Super Strength.

Bot Updates

• Bots have been enabled in more Playlist types, including Elimination, Royale, Face-Off, and other types of Playlists.
• Bots can be added to Private Matches for these Playlists, and can also backfill for empty brawler slots in Street Play matches.

New Feature Testing

• A new and improved training sequence is being tested on a small percentage of brawlers. Only brand new players have a chance of encountering this training sequence. Completing this brief introduction should only take a few minutes, so please be patient if you have recruited a new friend to the game so they can complete the training before grouping up in the Hideout!
• A small percentage of brawlers may see a new interactive News Screen during the initial loading period after the title screen.
• A small percentage of brawlers may see a new Daily Login Bonus screen on their first daily visit to the Hideout.
• These features may later be rolled out to the larger player base after further testing.

Auto-Complete Contracts

Missing out on a limited-time reward never feels great, so we’re introducing an option to automatically complete Contracts in exchange for Holobux. Whether you need to finish an important Crew Contract before the weekly reset, or you want to be first at claiming a lucrative reward, you’ve now got a backup option. Of course, we strive to keep Contracts fair and reasonably challenging for all brawlers, and have not increased the difficulty of Contracts. If you identify any Contracts that you feel are too difficult, let us know and help us continue to improve!

• Added the ability to pay Holobux to instantly complete certain types of Contracts.
• Auto-Complete can be used on Daily, Crew, Brawl Pass, Event, and other types of Contracts.
• The cost of Auto-Completing most non-Crew Contracts is 150 Holobux; Auto-Completing a Crew Contract costs 300 Holobux, and will complete the Contract for the entire Crew.
• Certain Contracts such as Career Contracts, Training Contracts, Diamond Contracts, and Contracts that require other Contracts to be completed cannot be Auto-Completed.

Taunt Fixes

Taunts are a fun and often hilarious part of the game, but it can also be frustrating to deal with some players who repeatedly use Taunts in quick succession. Although muting a player in the Social Menu blocks Taunts coming from that specific Brawler, we wanted to add some additional features for Brawlers to more easily control the amount of Taunts in their Matches, and cut down on the more extreme Taunt spam.

• Using Taunts in quick succession will trigger a brief cooldown timer before a Taunt can be used again – this update fixes and improves this existing Taunt cooldown system by adding an on-screen visual to show the system in action.
• Temporary Taunt Mute: Taunts can be temporarily muted for the duration of a Match with the press of a button on respawn, on the pause menu, or on the round results screen.
• Global Taunt Mute: Taunts can now be globally muted from the Settings menu.
• Disabling Taunts will prevent the player from Taunting themselves, equipping Taunts, or advancing any Contracts requiring Taunts.

Hideout Reward Sequence

• Added a “skip” button prompt for the rewards sequence when entering the Hideout.
• The League Play Rewards sequence cannot be skipped.

New Band: The Cover-Ups

The Cover-Ups are doing the crime in 4/4 time! If you’ve got a soft spot for electro swing, this literal cover band has your back.

• Added three new songs that will play during brawls and during matchmaking: Swing Into Action, Laying Down the Law, and Going Gangbusters.
• Each of the above songs will eventually cycle into the Brawl Shop for your Jukebox, and all three songs are available right away in the Season 8 Fundle Bundle.
• Keep an eye out for additional new Jukebox Tracks throughout the Season!

League Play Changes

Unfortunately, even with the changes implemented in Season 7, it seems that Classic Face-Off is significantly less popular than Team KO for League Play. To avoid exceptionally long queues for players, we’re removing Classic Face-Off from League Play until further notice. You’ll still be able to enjoy it as part of Street Play and Private Matches!

• Removed Classic Face-Off as a League Play Playlist. 
• Added a new set of League Play Rewards for Season 8.
• Added Poison Ball to the rotation of Special Balls in the League Play Team KO Playlist.

Multiple Data Center Region Selection

This long-requested feature will allow brawlers to use the “Manual” Data Center selection setting to choose multiple Data Center Regions as “preferred” Regions, allowing brawlers to search for matches in multiple Regions of their choosing simultaneously!

• In the “Data Centers” setting menu, selecting any Data Center Region without an arrow icon adds that Region as a Preferred Region, indicated by an arrow icon. Selecting it again will remove it from the Preferred list.
• Brawlers can set as many Regions as they wish to Preferred.
• Matchmaking in Street Play and League Play with multiple manually-selected Data Centers will only consider Preferred Regions, prioritizing lowest ping when possible.
• With Manual Data Center Selection, matchmaking never allows brawlers to match into non-Preferred Regions. To expand the search, either select more Data Centers, or change the setting to “Automatic.”

Additional Fixes

Maps

• Fixed a rare issue where PC players sometimes got stuck in Holowood Drive-in level geometry. 
• Fixed an issue where brawlers could fall out of bounds on Alien Smash Site in the “house” area.
• Fixed a visual glitch where neon VFX would not appear on Sludge Works during the first round of a Private Match during Midnight Madness.
• Fixed an issue where wall graffiti would cover a targeted opponent from behind a wall in Back Alley Brawl.
• Fixed various collision issues causing Hideout Balls to clip through walls in the Hideout. 
• Fixed a respawn issue on Sludge Works where players would occasionally spawn below the central pipe when the sludge reached a certain height.  
• Fixed a graphical issue on Sludge Works where debug VFX would appear above a submerged Ball Spawner.
• Mutation Rotation: fixed an issue where brawlers during the “Big-Boned” mutation could become stuck in the Cafe area of Jukebox Junction if curve thrown. 

Audio

• Fixed a rare issue where Intro Poses would play the wrong audio for brawlers landing. 
• Fixed an issue preventing SFX from a Basic Ball playing after it bounces from being dropped.
• Fixed an issue where the player’s audio is not subdued during a Player Ball Throw or Ultimate Throw. 
• Removed the “Woohoo” VO line from the Legendary Taunt “Dancing Pizza,” making the Taunt play music only.
• Reduced the SFX volume of the Legendary Glider “When Pigs Fly.” 
• Paired correct VO lines for all voices with the Rare Taunt “My Hat Is Off To You.” 
• Fixed the audio duration for the Legendary “Singing KO” Taunts to play for its full duration during gameplay. 
• In Mutation Rotation, Nostalgia Vision’s music volume is now affected by music volume levels in the Settings Menu. 
• Fixed an issue where ball charging SFX would play when not charging a ball. 
• Fixed an issue where DJ VO for “Mega KO” and “Knockout Frenzy” would play simultaneously.
• Fixed an issue where the DJ’s Hideout VO lines would play during the League Play Rewards sequence.

Visual Effects

• Fixed several Outfits to have correct enemy outlines for each Style when locked on to an opponent.
• Fixed a rare issue where emotes would get “stuck” on screen when a player holding a Ballform teammate is KO’d. 
• Fixed a visual glitch where brawlers would appear to hover above the ground when standing idle.
• Fixed a minor mouth texture issue on Common Head E. 
• Fixed a player name display issue in the Social Menu for PC players on Epic. 
• Fixed a rare issue where the Legendary “Smash Test Dummy” Outfit would keep displaying Face VFX when Body Type B was equipped, even when the Legendary Face was unequipped. 

UI

• Fixed a calculation error on Zone Time statistics in Elimination game modes.
• Fixed various visual bugs in Training levels where incorrect text would appear. 
• Removed duplicate Friends List entries when a player is both a Platform friend and a KO City friend.
• Fixed an issue affecting Crew Contract progression when switching to a new Crew after completing a Contract that is incomplete on the new Crew. 
• Fixed an issue where incorrect Hearts would display if damaged during the “Half Hearted” mutation on Mutation Rotation.
• Fixed a camera issue when pressing the “match stats” button during the team selection phase of a Private Match.
• Fixed an issue where choosing “Return to Hideout” during matchmaking would cancel matchmaking instead of returning to the Hideout directly. 
• Adjusted some erroneous text and UI elements in the World Athletics Store.
• Fixed the DJ’s VO for the Play Menu having incorrect subtitles.
• Fixed a rare issue where a given Crew Contract would appear to complete multiple times during the rewards sequence. 
• Corrected text when attempting to purchase Event Currency items to reference the specific Event Currency instead of Holobux. 
• Fixed an issue where players cannot type in a Crew Name while on Steam Deck when attempting to change the name of an existing Crew. 
• Fixed a rare issue preventing the “Find a Crew” functionality from producing search results.

Gameplay

• Fixed an issue where the player camera snaps to a teammate when using the “Pass to Me” emote.
• Removed an unintended side effect of using the Private Match Settings to determine the Map for the “Practice Match” Training mission. 
• Fixed an issue where the Boomerang Ball would fail to return to the thrower after KOing an opponent with a Curve Shot.
• Fixed an issue where the explosion from Ultimate Throws would cause nearby loose dodgeballs to despawn.
• Fixed several Energy Drink XP bonuses to now count their bonuses correctly. 

Known Issues

It is not possible to buy the TMNT Villains Bundle on the Epic or Origin PC platforms.

• Workaround: the TMNT Villains Bundle is available in the Brawl Shop on the Steam edition of Knockout City, and purchases made on one PC platform carry over to other PC editions. Therefore, the short-term solution is to purchase the TMNT Villains Bundle on the Steam edition of Knockout City, and it will be included in your inventory on Origin and Epic.
• We’ll keep you updated on the availability of this Bundle on Origin and Epic as the Season progresses.

As always, we appreciate those of you who take the time to notify Support when you encounter something strange in the game. These reports help us track down and reproduce the issues you’re seeing, and lead to a better gameplay experience for everyone. You can get help at help.knockoutcity.com and stay up to date on progression of current issues on our public Trello board.