Since NEXUS debuted as the #1 trending game in its opening week on the Epic Games Store, the player base and improvements have skyrocketed.  The big 1.6 Patch brings in many gameplay improvements and quality of life (QOL) upgrades that the community have been begging for.  

PLAYA3ULL GAMES is committed to giving its players the most fun and engaging crypto gaming experience, and with these new upgrades, the community is already buzzing!

Let’s dive in.

What is NEXUS?

In 2046, the discovery of Flow and Flux, capable of healing and reshaping matter, led to the creation of artificial NEXUSES. The NEXUSES unleash catastrophic mutations and spark the NEXUS Wars.  In this war-torn world, you must navigate the chaos, wielding these volatile powers to fuel the conflict or restore balance.  Victory is your only hope. 

NEXUS is a third-person Free-to-Play (F2P) Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) shooter video game inspired by multiplayer tyrants: League of Legends, Dota 2, and Overwatch 2.  Defend your NEXUS at all costs, push towers, and ruthlessly destroy your enemies in this fast-paced 5-player vs 5-player (5v5) MOBA action built within Unreal Engine.

Ready to jump into the brand-spanking new updates?

Gameplay

In-game levels and new upgrades

• Defeating enemies, minions, and neutrals now grants experience points. When passing set thresholds, you will level up to Level 13.

• Levelling up grants additional maximum health, mana and a slight boost to material and quantum damage.

• Players gain an ability point when they level up.

• Abilities are no longer purchased from the shop. Instead, you can open the ability store at any time and purchase or upgrade them with an ability point.

• Abilities can no longer be sold.

• Basic abilities now have five levels, and ultimate abilities have three levels.

• Ultimate abilities purchase and upgrade are only available at player levels 5, 9, and 13.

• Shortcut: to upgrade an ability without opening the store, press Left-ALT + Ability Key (Q, E, or T).

• Updated bounty system to also track death streaks, reducing the amount a player awards on death the more they die.

• Introduced wards that grant vision for a set duration around them on the mini-map.

• Each player can place one ward with a cooldown after placement. Placing another ward before the last one has expired destroys the older ward.

• Added new animations for ally buffs, support abilities, and thrown abilities.

Weapon/Items

• LMG is now called Avalanche.

• Shotgun is now called Pursuer.

• Handcannon is now called Adjudicator.

• Pump Shotgun is now called Ambush.

• Sniper Rifle is now called Sentinel.

• SMG is now called Skirmish.

• Pulse Rifle is now called Illuminate.

• Laser is now called Nemesis.

• Healing Gun is now called Conduit.

• Grenade Launcher is now called Vandal.

Abilities

New Abilities

• Fissure: Channels a significant energy surge at a designated point, causing flames to burst from the ground. This eruption inflicts quantum damage and applies stacks of "Ablaze" to enemies within a 5-meter radius. Generates a burning area that lasts for 4 seconds, initially covering the same radius. This area applies an additional stack of "Ablaze" to all enemies each second and doubles its size over its duration.

• Smash: Unleashes a devastating ground smash, sending out a shockwave that ripples up to 15 meters in a 7.5-meter-wide cone. Enemies in its path take heavy material damage plus an extra 5% of the player’s max health. Foes caught in the blast are stunned for 0.5 seconds, then crippled by a 20% slow for 1 second.

• Hoarfrost (Ultimate): Hurl an ice ball projectile that travels 15 meters before detonating or upon impact with any object. The blast unleashes quantum damage across a 9-meter radius, rooting enemies in place and layering on stacks of Frostbite.

• Deploy Lurker (Ultimate): Deploys a stealthy mine that burrows into the ground, cloaking itself near-invisible and immune to the area of effect damage. Triggers an explosion that deals quantum damage instantly within a 10m radius, plus additional quantum damage over 5 seconds. Affected enemies are also slowed by 20% for the duration.

• Short Circuit (Ultimate): Shock all enemies within a 10-meter radius, inflicting quantum damage while stunning them. For each enemy player hit, the user receives boosts of 5% fire rate, 5% movement speed, 4 HP regeneration, and 2 energy regeneration. Hitting enemy players also results in a 10% reduction in the user's cooldowns, including Short Circuit.

• Lifebinders Respite (Ultimate): Generate an immediate aura of healing energy, instantly restoring 20 HP to the caster and all allies within a 9-meter radius. Further, maintain a sustained healing aura lasting for 7 seconds, providing HP regeneration per second to all allies in the area. Allies within the healing aura, including the caster, receive 50 extra maximum HP, a 15% increase in movement speed, and a 20% enhancement in healing received from all sources.

Reworked Abilities

• Self Heal: Renamed to Flowbind and now also reduces damage taken for the duration.

• Shield: Renamed to Fluxcloak. Reduces damage received for 2 seconds, then heals the user for a flat amount plus 50% of damage taken. Removes 3 stacks of elemental debuffs.

• Blink Dash: Renamed to Phase Dash. Now, it applies a stealth effect after dashing, making the user hard to see.

• Life Steal: Renamed to Drain. Launch a tether that locks onto the first enemy hit, binding them for a duration. It pulses quantum damage, siphoning a percentage of the damage dealt to heal the user while activating weapon life steal. If no target is found, the ability does not activate.

• Turret: Renamed to Deploy Guardian and has a new visual redesign. Now, it has a short build time. No longer inherits player stats and instead gains stats per player level. Inflicts quantum damage instead. Now, it has two charges and can have two placed at once.

• Healing Sphere: Renamed to Flowburst. Creates an expanding sphere of energy that heals allies and harms enemies. Reduced healing to self and reduced damage to minions.

• Rally Allies: Renamed to Inspire. Grants increased damage dealt, reduced damage taken and life steal on abilities to you and allies near you for the duration. Allies receive a stronger buff and stacks at 50% effectiveness.

• Rocket Strike: Renamed to Flux Barrage. Now, it deals damage to all enemies in the target area on each strike.

• Haste Support: Renamed to Tailwind. Now, it grants movement speed and increased fire rate to nearby allies for a duration when cast (not an aura).

• Nuke (ultimate): Renamed to Skyfall and reworked visual effects. Damage reduction and now leaves the ground burnt and poisoned.

• Healing Station: Renamed to Deploy Lifebinder and is no longer an ultimate.

• Supercharge: Reloads your weapon on use.

• Grenade: Renamed to Frag Grenade and deals material damage now.

• Healing Grenade: Renamed to Bloom. Provides reduced healing to the caster, minions, and deployables.

• Incendiary Rounds: Renamed to Incinerate.

• Flameburst Grenade: Renamed to Scorch.

• Ice Grenade: Renamed to Rime.

• Toxic Grenade: Renamed to Contaminate.

User Interface, Shop, Headsup Display, and New Animations

There’s also been a complete overhaul of the menus and displays in NEXUS.

UI

• Complete visual overhaul of the UI

• Added a mini-map to the score screen to help with map awareness and offer more targeted pings

• Player elements (map icons, names, heath bars) are now given a unique colour for readability

• NFT Store was renamed to NFT Library as it is no longer a store.

• The main menu now has a ‘Live’ background

• Tweaked damage number colours for readability

• Added tooltips for weapons, items, and abilities
  
  

Shop

• Moved Abilities to its own window, which can be opened any time

• Moved Scavenger (previously Valor Mark) to its own tab in the store

HUD

• Reworked HUD to make elements clearer

• Added a Display for Buffs and Debuffs currently on you

• Health and levels of teammates are now shown on the HUD

Quality of Life Improvements

There have been various overall improvements to the Web3 gaming experience for all players.

These include:

• Improved ability range visualisation to be more accurate and use consistent colours for friendly (blue) vs enemy (red) effects.

• Introduced a ping wheel to communicate with allies more easily in-game.

• Death camera now spectates allies rather than staying on the player's corpse.

• Rebuilt all abilities to be data-driven and rebalanced accordingly.

• Rebuilt minimap to be easier to maintain and update.

• Player stats (kills, assists, deaths, etc.) are restored on rejoin so that no stats are lost between updates to the web backend.

• The chat window will automatically hide if there are no new messages for 30 seconds.

• Leaving a ranked match before it starts will now shut down the server if players are not found within the next 60 seconds.

• Voice chat has been streamlined. Party voice chat now only applies to the lobby, and team voice chat only applies to matches.

Matchmaking Rating Update (MMR)

MMR gains and reductions during 10 calibration games are adjusted below:

• Bronze = +300 win or -75 loss

• Silver = +140 win or -75 loss

• Gold = +100 win or -75 loss

Following your completion of your 10/10 calibration games, the MMR gains + losses will return to:

• Bronze = +75 win or -25 loss

• Silver = +35 win or -25 loss

• Gold = +25 win or -25 loss

• Diamond = +13 win or -25 loss

• Master = +7 win or -25 loss

This was a monumental update for NEXUS and crypto gaming, and the reception has already been positive.  Be sure to join our vibrant Discord to find all the information you need about NEXUS and tips and tricks.

Until next time, gamers - GG Well Played!

Want to experience the thrill of a Web3 game called NEXUS with others?  The third-person MOBA is free to play now on the Epic Games Store. Download it here.