Game modes

Survival, Expedition, Dungeons, co-op, and team PvP: what changes in each way of playing, in v0.9.16.

Survival

The classic mode: you pick a map and clear its 3 phases. The clock shortens as you advance — 10 minutes for phase 1, 8:30 for phase 2 and 6 for phase 3 — and each map may bring a shorter one of its own (the Corrupted Desert, 8:30 from the first; the Marshland, 6 in all three). The phase boss appears in the last stretch of that clock, and the portal opens once the boss is dead and the clock has run out.

When you cross into phase 3, the game announces it with a banner — you've completed the 3 phases — and the run carries on in overtime with no end: the horde never stops growing, and the run only ends with death or abandonment. That's where high scores get made.

Expedition

Expedition chains its 3 phases across 3 different maps, from lower to higher difficulty: phase 1 on Kharvalen Desert or Meadow Forest (chosen at random), phase 2 on Corrupted Desert, and phase 3 on Swamp Marshland.

The run travels with you through each portal: score, gold, level, full build, equipped set, health and mana, the clock, and the difficulty floor all carry over from map to map. It's the mode for the main leaderboard, and it scores on its own boards inside Stats.

Dungeons

The third mode changes the rules: indoor maps, often with several storeys, whose phases are untimed and driven by objectives (collect, activate, hold out, slay enemies, defeat the boss). The exit is opened by the objectives, not by time, and using it for the first time marks the dungeon as finished and saves your time. The score doesn't count: the record is the fastest time, on its own boards.

There are two: the Frozen Ghost Dungeon, a single phase, and the Dwarven Dungeon, four phases chained across four scenes, with two bosses. Dungeons are not part of Expedition, don't show up in the Survival grid and are never played in PvP; in co-op the lobby lists them separately. All the details in Dungeons.

Co-op (up to 4 players)

From the Multiplayer menu you set up a lobby for up to 4 players, over Steam (inviting friends or sharing the lobby code) or direct LAN/IP. The host picks the map —dungeons in their own section— and how loot is shared — "whoever picks it up" or "split evenly" — and no race can repeat within the lobby. As in solo, nobody can start until they have a character with 2 completed branches in the Forge. One artifact is one-per-game: only one player can own the Stopped Clock (if two get it at the same time, one of them receives its value in gold).

Going down isn't dying: as long as a teammate is still standing they can revive you once per run by holding the interact key over your skull (you come back with half your health and mana), and you spectate until then. Using the portal to a new map in Expedition, or to the next phase of the Dwarven Dungeon, stands downed players up at 30% without spending that revive. In exchange, difficulty rises +60% per extra living player, and if your connection drops the game tries to reconnect you to the run. In a dungeon, each machine marks it as finished when it uses the exit itself: whoever doesn't use it records an abandon.

Team PvP (1v1 and 2v2)

The "PvP (teams)" mode pits Team A against Team B in 1v1 or 2v2 duels. Teams must be full and evenly matched, no race repeats within a team, and the lobby is declared Normal or Ranked before starting.

The duel plays out on a live map: while the map clock runs (10 minutes on the Desert and the Green Forest, 8:30 on the Corrupted Desert, 6 on the Marshland) the horde keeps spawning, letting you level up and gear your build while you hunt your rival. Once that clock runs out the horde stops respawning — whatever's still alive stays, but nothing new comes in — and the hunt begins. There's no boss and no phase advance, dungeons can never be played in PvP, and the Stopped Clock never drops in a duel.

The team that wipes out the other wins: the match ends the instant a team has no living members left (a downed player who isn't revived, or a disconnected one, counts as eliminated; if both teams fall at once, it's a draw). The scoreboard tracks kills and assists, and statuses an enemy player inflicts on you expire on their own, with their timer visible.

In Ranked, each format has its own PvP Rating: you start at 2000 and each duel moves it with an Elo based on team averages (±50 between evenly matched rivals). Draws and Normal matches don't touch it, and ranked isn't available in the demo.

Checked against game v0.9.16.