(BETA) Mox Nox Update: Arena Changes, Gauntlet Mode, Training, and Difficulty

(BETA) Mox Nox Update: Arena Changes, Gauntlet Mode, Training, and easier difficulty.

Hello everyone,

A new Mox Nox update is available to try through Steam’s public beta.

(BETA) This update changes how Arena fights progress, adds an endless Gauntlet mode, introduces a much easier difficulty option, and gives new players more practical training before their first encounter. It also includes improvements to movement, graphics settings, enemy spawning and the interface. (BETA)

This is a work-in-progress beta, not the update to the regular version yet. It will receive multiple updates throughout the testing period as we fix issues, adjust balance and respond to your feedback. Once it is ready, we’ll bring it to the regular game.

HOW TO DOWNLOAD AND PLAY THE BETA

Anyone who owns Mox Nox on Steam can join. No password is required.

1. Close Mox Nox if it is running.
2. Open your Steam Library.
3. Right-click Mox Nox and select Properties.
4. Open Betas.
5. Under Beta Participation, select public-beta .
6. Wait for Steam to finish downloading the update.
7. Launch Mox Nox normally from your Library.
8. If you don't see it available, restart Steam and repeat steps 1-7.

You must select public-beta to play these changes. Launching the regular version without opting in will not give you this update.

To return to the regular version, follow the same steps and select None under Beta Participation, then let Steam finish updating. Steam’s beta-branch instructions

While you remain opted in, further beta updates will download through Steam. Expect several updates during this testing period.

What should you try first?

If you are new to Mox Nox, start a new game to enter guided training. You’ll learn the controls by using them, then practice against a summoned training opponent. Existing players can return to training through Enrichment.

Before entering a game mode, choose how you want combat to feel:

• Original: The more demanding combat experience, where defensive timing matters.
• Reaper’s Dominion: A much easier power-fantasy option with stronger attacks, reduced incoming damage and more forgiving defenses.

Then choose your mode:

• Arena — “Exterminate the Pests”: Fight groups of enemies, take on a major boss, and keep developing your character through permanent progression.
• Reaper’s Gauntlet: Start a separate open world Gauntlet run, defeat waves, choose upgrades and keep going until you die (or not). Upgrades earned here last only for that run.

You may see the names Vermin and Nuisances in the game. Vermin are the regular enemies. Nuisances are stronger elite enemies, such as the Blood Knight, greatsword champions and axe warriors.

Arena: regular enemies and elite enemies now fight together

Arena no longer separates regular enemies and elite enemies into two different phases.

The new sequence is: fight a mixed group of enemies → face a randomly selected major boss → repeat.

• Elite enemies join the regular enemies during the encounter.
• Their arrival frequency responds to how quickly enemies are being defeated.
• The separate elite-enemy phase has been removed from new Arena cycles.
• Completing the mixed encounter leads to a guaranteed major boss.
• The boss is selected from Crackhorn, Ogre Sovereign, Harbinger of Kain, Great Paladin and Icedeath.
• The previous progression delay and chance of receiving a boss encounter have been removed from this sequence.
• Older saves already partway through an encounter can finish it without losing that progress.

The aim is to get players to the major fights more consistently and make the fighting before them more varied.

Existing Arena progression and purchased abilities are preserved.

Boss health and difficulty

Boss health now depends on your selected difficulty:

Dominion greatly increases the damage you deal. Its bosses have more health so they have a chance to show their attacks instead of disappearing within seconds.

Bosses keep their attacks, phases, defensive moves and special abilities.

Regular enemies and elite enemies also become slightly stronger after each completed Arena loop:

• Health increases by 2% of their base health.
• Damage increases by 1% of their base damage.
• Attack speed increases by 0.25% of their base attack speed.

These are small additions to their starting values, rather than increases that multiply on top of one another. The first loop keeps their existing starting strength.

Ability unlock requirements and purchase costs have not changed in this update.

More space before a boss fight starts

Before a boss appears in the regular Arena, your character is moved to the opposite side and turned toward them. This also applies to retries.

This gives you room to see the entrance and avoids situations where your character is standing inside or directly beside the boss.

Other transition improvements include:

• Elite-enemy bodies, severed parts and dropped weapons are included in the absorption effect that clears the Arena before the boss.
• Elite-enemy health bars remain compact, with spacing intended to keep encounter information readable.

Training: learn by doing

New games now begin with training instead of immediately sending you into a boss fight.

Training now covers a much wider array of mechanics foundational to learning how to play.

Training covers:

• Sword attacks.
• Blocking.
• Perfect parries: timing your defense to turn aside an enemy’s attack.
• Counterattacks.
• Perfect dodges: avoiding an attack at the right moment.
• Charging toward an enemy.
• Firing projectiles.
• Summoning a phantom ally and giving it Attack, Keep Distance and Follow commands.
• Using Rewind, the health-restoration ability.
• Deflecting incoming projectiles back toward enemies.

The core drills track successful actions, not just button presses. Several ask you to perform the action successfully three times so you can practice it before moving on.

The final exercise asks you to defeat the training phantom and use the required combat techniques during the fight. Projectile deflection has its own lesson, but it is not an extra requirement in the final assessment.

• Completed lesson progress is retained so you can resume training.
• You can skip a lesson through the menu after a warning.
• Training remains available later through Enrichment.
• Tutorials and sparring now use Shadowy Silence as their music.

The goal is to give players a clear opportunity to learn before facing a boss, while keeping training available whenever they want a refresher.

Reaper’s Dominion: an easier way to enjoy the combat with a big and open map.

Reaper’s Dominion is available in both Arena and Reaper’s Gauntlet.

It is designed for players who want to enjoy the fighting, counters, bloodshed and spectacle with much less pressure.

With Dominion enabled:

• You and your allies deal four times the normal damage.
• You take 80% less health damage.
• Energy recovers faster.
• Blocking costs no energy.
• Defensive dodges cost no energy.
• Tapping guard before an incoming hit gives you a much more forgiving parry opportunity.
• Holding guard continues to block.
• Dodging an incoming attack successfully counts as a perfect dodge without the Original difficulty’s tight timing requirement.
• A perfect dodge automatically attempts a counterattack against the enemy you avoided.
• Projectiles such as arrows are automatically deflected.
• Certain Harbinger projectile attacks trigger an automatic dodge instead.

Offensive abilities still have their own energy costs and unlock requirements. Boss phase transitions remain in place, and enemies keep their existing moves and behavior.

Original difficulty remains available for players who prefer the more demanding option.

Reaper’s Gauntlet: a new endless survival mode

Reaper’s Gauntlet takes place in Purgatory, a larger outdoor environment in a big open map.

Purgatory is the domain of the reapers but these reapers in particular went against natural law and use it for sport and for fun, using their immense powers and abilities paired with the insatiable lust to indulge in endless killing of manifested trap souls just for the fun of it rather than ferrying them to an afterlife.

You begin a fresh run with your starting sword stance, Phantom Kick, Blood Skull and a phantom companion who fights alongside you.

This mode has its own progression:

• Upgrades earned during a run do not change your permanent Arena character.
• Death ends the run.
• Runs are not saved for later continuation.
• Boss summons are not included in the available rewards.

There is no radial ability menu in Gauntlet. Abilities use direct selection and casting instead.

How to play a Gauntlet round

1. Start a wave when you are ready.
2. Defeat enemies to fill the Blood Meter at the top of the screen.
3. Once the meter is full, new enemies stop arriving.
4. Defeat the enemies still alive to finish the round.
5. Your health is fully restored.
6. Press Tab on keyboard or View on controller to open your rewards.
7. Choose an upgrade, practice or adjust your available equipment, then start the next wave when you want.

Preparation breaks have no timer. You can take your time, try an ability, look around or take screenshots.

Pressing Tab / View again closes the reward or preparation menu. Opening and closing it does not change the rewards offered.

Useful Gauntlet controls

Action

Keyboard / mouse

Controller

Open or close rewards and preparation

Tab

View

Cast the selected ability

F

RT

Select an ability

Mouse wheel

D-pad Right

Hide or show the HUD

H

D-pad Down

Hold Shift for unlimited travel sprint on keyboard.

The HUD-hide option also hides the version label and frame-rate display.

Waves respond to how quickly you kill

Regular enemies and elite enemies appear together in Gauntlet. Faster kills increase the pressure from incoming enemies.

The Blood Meter’s kill requirement is randomly selected within a range:

Rounds

Kills needed to fill the meter

1–5

5–30

6–10

10–40

11–15

15–50

16–20

20–60

Each later group of five rounds raises the minimum by five and the maximum by ten.

Filling the meter stops reinforcements; it does not instantly end the fight. You still need to defeat the remaining enemies.

Choose upgrades and build a powerful run

After a normal round, you receive two different reward choices and select one.

Each choice has approximately a 70% chance of being a stat upgrade and a 30% chance of being an ability reward.

Stat upgrades include:

• Maximum health.
• Maximum energy.
• Sword damage.
• Attack speed.
• Movement speed.

Ability rewards include existing combat abilities, sword stances and dodge styles. If you choose an ability you already have, it receives an upgrade instead of wasting the reward.

Examples include:

• More damage for attacking abilities and sword stances.
• Longer Time Stop and Incorporeal durations.
• Benefits suited to each dodge style, such as stronger follow-up attacks or energy recovery.

You can switch between unlocked stances and dodge styles during preparation. Unlocking another option does not force you to replace the one you are using.

Reward ranks can keep increasing throughout the run. Some speed-related improvements become smaller at higher levels to keep movement and attacks manageable.

Enemies also gradually strengthen as you choose stat upgrades. Every five attribute selections adds 10% of base enemy health and 5% of base enemy damage.

Phantom companions stay with you

Normal phantoms travel with you and fight as part of your party. When defeated, they return after a delay.

Rewards can improve the normal phantom party’s:

• Health.
• Damage.
• Attack speed.
• Recovery time after defeat.

Additional normal phantom companions can also become available.

Phantom Drain works differently in Gauntlet: it helps a fallen phantom return sooner. Further upgrades increase that benefit.

Companions and their related effects use this mode’s red appearance.

Optional bosses in Gauntlet

Before starting a Gauntlet run, you can choose whether major bosses will appear. This option starts switched off.

When enabled:

• A boss encounter is scheduled after a randomly selected interval of 5–20 completed rounds.
• After completing that encounter, another interval is selected.
• The boss comes from the same five major bosses found in Arena.
• The fight happens in Purgatory.
• Your run upgrades and phantom companions remain active.
• Normal wave reinforcements pause during the encounter.
• Enemies summoned by the boss itself remain part of its attacks.
• A deep horn announces the boss’s arrival.

Defeating a boss lets you claim both displayed rewards instead of choosing only one.

Purgatory’s appearance, sound and interface

Gauntlet has its own blood-red theme, while the regular Arena and hub retain their purple appearance.

Changes include:

• Red armor accents, eyes and character lighting.
• Red weapon trails, ability effects, phantom effects and afterimages.
• Corrections to additional purple effects appearing during recovery and phantom movement.
• Restored grass and environmental ambience.
• Drifting dust and low ground fog.
• Improved fog coverage, softer boundaries and reduced popping during movement.
• Separate music for preparation and combat, with quick fades between them.
• Music transitions that respond to the end of a round and leaving the mode.

The mode also has its own introduction video and welcome screen:

• The video uses its own audio.
• Opening videos can be skipped with mouse or controller input.
• Welcome text appears all at once.
• The welcome screen waits for you to continue instead of automatically entering the map.

Interface improvements include:

• Translucent blood-red panels.
• Better spacing between the meter and messages.
• Removal of the unnecessary regular-enemy and elite-enemy count box.
• A reward heading called “Claim your birthright.”
• A round-complete message explaining how to open rewards.
• Rewards no longer opening automatically and covering the scene.
• A working frame-rate display when enabled in settings.

Movement and enemy pursuit fixes

Several changes address movement stopping abruptly or looking inconsistent:

• Charges are less likely to stop on ordinary walkable ground and small steps.
• Charges can continue over short, reachable downward changes in terrain.
• Charges account for enemies moving away, within the existing travel range.
• When the environment does stop a charge, the animation blends out more smoothly.
• Walls and unsafe drops still stop charges.
• Improved Gauntlet running and sprinting, including the reported leg jerk.
• Improved foot placement and reduced sinking into the ground.
• Addressed camera angles exposing the underside of the terrain.
• Fixed gaps between generated terrain sections.

Enemy arrivals and pursuit have also been adjusted:

• Enemies approach from concealed positions farther away instead of appearing directly beside you.
• Enemies left stranded when you travel away can resume their approach.
• Repositioned enemies keep their remaining health.

These changes are intended to make enemies look as though they are already pursuing you through the environment.

Performance, cleanup and graphics settings

Gauntlet now maintains nearby terrain rather than repeatedly loading the entire large source environment. Distant sections can be removed as you travel, while terrain needed for an active boss encounter stays available.

Other changes include:

• Completed-round bodies, severed parts and weapons dissolve into the ground with a red effect.
• Cleanup happens gradually instead of removing everything in one sudden burst.
• Older blood in the environment can fade to reduce buildup during long runs.
• Environmental cleanup preserves blood on your character and weapon.
• Improved navigation across generated terrain.
• Foliage quality now controls Gauntlet grass density.
• Epic foliage quality restores the environment’s authored grass density.
• A combination of different graphics-quality levels is correctly labelled Custom.
• Fixed cases where applying settings, closing menus, cancelling later changes or restarting could restore unintended quality or resolution values.
• Fixed a packaged-build crash related to the new dust effect.
• Corrected missing packaged assets for the dust and boss-arrival horn.

Gauntlet is still experimental and can become demanding during longer runs. These changes do not guarantee the same performance on every system.

Language and text improvements

• Added translations for revised training, difficulty selection, notices and graphics-setting labels across the seven existing language catalogs.
• Simplified training instructions.
• Clarified instructions specific to each mode.
• Added clearer notices explaining that Gauntlet is experimental, run progress is not saved, and heavy late-run activity can affect performance.

Some newer reward descriptions and HUD text still need translation. Further language work will continue during the beta.

Known issues we are still working on

This beta has remaining issues. Please keep these in mind when testing:

• Loading screens: Some Gauntlet HUD elements may appear before loading has fully finished.
• Japanese menu layout: The “Selected” label can wrap awkwardly in a narrow column.
• Parry visuals: A rectangular edge has appeared around a purple parry effect in testing. It has not been confirmed fully resolved.
• Performance: Occasional stutters remain possible. Long Gauntlet runs can become increasingly demanding as enemies, companions and effects build up. Lower-end hardware still needs more testing.
• Translations: Some new Gauntlet reward and HUD text is not fully translated, and translations have not all received native-language proofreading.
• Meteor effects: We are still checking some meteor visuals. That review is not complete.
• Broader testing: The latest boss-health checks passed for all five bosses in both modes and difficulty options, but this does not mean every complete fight, controller interaction, animation transition and sound has been exhaustively tested.

We will release multiple updates to this beta before moving the update into the regular game. Balance, presentation and performance may change during that process.

Please tell us how it plays

We would especially like feedback on:

• Training: Do you understand what each lesson is asking you to do?
• Arena: Does mixing regular and elite enemies make the fights more enjoyable?
• Bosses: Are fights too short, too long or about right?
• Reaper’s Dominion: Does it feel easy and satisfying without ending encounters too quickly?
• Gauntlet: Are the rewards interesting, and do you feel noticeably stronger as the run continues?
• Performance: Does the game run consistently, and does that change during longer runs?

Please post feedback and bug reports in the Mox Nox Steam Discussions.

For a bug, tell us which mode you were playing, whether Dominion was enabled, what happened and what you were doing just before it happened. A short clip or screenshot is helpful.

For performance problems, if possible, please include your CPU, graphics card, RAM, resolution and graphics settings, along with where the slowdown happened.

Thank you to everyone taking the time to try the beta and share their experience. Your feedback will help us decide what needs more work before this update reaches the regular game.

(BETA)

— Nox Fabrica