The Stormgate Community Update is live, and Frost Giant is candid about how it got here: after an early-access launch that was “not a commercial success,” a group of studio volunteers and community designers spent four months building the biggest update Versus has ever received. The result is a patch that touches almost every unit, adds a ranked 2v2 ladder, and unlocks the full editor suite — much of it implemented by the community itself.

New units and the factionfaction. An in-game group or nation players can align with or fight against, with its own goals and reputation system. shape

Four units fill out the Infernal and Celestial rosters:

  • Dominari — an Infernal Tier 3 spellcaster built around a Pandemonium debuff glyph that ramps in power and returns lifesteal to allies attacking the marked target, plus Death March (a buff that costs max HP) and a soul-sacrifice energy tool.
  • Incarnate — a massive Infernal Tier 3 melee fighter with a stunning Rampaging Stomp, an anti-air Spore Blast, and a Devour mechanic that consumes units for armor and health.
  • Carnivex — a Celestial Tier 2 front-line tank with a stealth-on-disengage upgrade and a stacking poison (Shikari Venom) that slows and chips max-HP percent damage.
  • Navi — a Celestial Tier 3 spellcaster with damage mitigation (Radiant Mantle) and an area damage-reduction field (Hallowed Ground).

The design intent is to round out each faction’s tech tree rather than add raw power at the top — Celestial gets a T2 bruiser and a T3 support, Infernal gets two T3 threats that give it late-game casters and a siegesiege. A timed, large-scale attack on a settlement — attackers try to destroy it, defenders try to hold it. body.

2v2, maps, and the editor

  • Ranked 2v2 matchmaking is now live, the ladder’s first team mode.
  • 40-plus new and updated maps — designed by community map makers — enter the 1v1 and 2v2 pools, with more available in custom games.
  • Full Map, Data, and Trigger editors are unlocked for everyone by default — no cheat-code Easter egg. The team explicitly frames this as enabling “maps, modes, weird experiments, full-on new games.”

The systems rework underneath

Beyond the headline additions, the update standardizes unit selection volumes and radii into seven size categories (improving pathfinding and readability), reworks the Therium economy to make optimal worker counts legible, and re-tunes the audio concurrency model so large battles sound fuller without becoming grating. Announcer lines now prioritize by importance so “base under attack” can interrupt lower-priority alerts. Weather presets (snow, rain, infernal ash) and wetness/wind effects expand the visual vocabulary.

Several units get substantial reworks rather than tweaks — the Archangel gains an Avatar form that turns it ranged and armored, the Graven’s Sticky Bomb becomes a skillshot that disables structures, and the Weaver gets a Shrouded Assault that cloaks nearby allies on shroud. These are the kind of changes that reshape how a faction plays, not just its numbers.

Why the process matters

The studio credits a community implementation team that “didn’t just give feedback — they helped directly implement many of the design and balance changes,” using the editor and custom-map rapid iteration, with over 100 playtesters across four months. Frost Giant staff handled engineering, UI, audio/visual polish, and backend. The patch notes are exhaustive; the broader signal is that a studio with an uncertain future kept its competitive game moving by treating its community as co-developers rather than customers.

The full balance breakdown is in the official patch notes; the blog post covers the collaboration and what’s next (ongoing balance, offline play support, exploring Co-op and Team Mayhem parity). For the competitive scene, the immediate takeaway is that 1v1 and 2v2 now have a meaningfully deeper unit pool and a team ladder to populate.