9 Kings News

[p]This patch might be the most meaningful one we've ever dropped. We listened closely to your feedback, banged our heads on the wall for a month to come up with the right solutions, and the result is a total revamp of the game's meta-progression system. With 52 new perks for a total of over 80, and a huge design improvement. [/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Dynamic perks[/h3][p]We're no longer locking you into pre-determined upgrades per king. You now have 9 slots. And you can use them in whichever way you want. The idea is to bring the 9 Kings core design to the meta-progression system. It's a minimalistic dynamic version of the game loop you're here for. The new system can be approached casually if you just want to chill, but that can have a whole new level of depth if that's what you're into.

[/p][h3]80+ upgrades[/h3][p]You will now have a limitless pool of perks to choose from, and they will be unlocked as you play the game. Some perks are universal, some are unique to your king, some are Rainbow perks. Think tactically and choose the best 9-combo for your strategy. We're starting with a total of 80+ unlockable perks and we'll keep adding more, and tweaking those that might not quite work yet.[/p][p][/p][h3]Rainbow perks![/h3][p]Rainbow perks will twist the game in interesting ways - including your own perk board (like Expander in the screenshot). Once unlocked, a Rainbow perk can be used across all kings, like Universal perks. We'll start with 3 experimental Rainbow perks and we plan on expanding the pool very quickly. [/p][p][/p][h3]Unique Nothing perks[/h3][p]By the way, old "Nothing" perks are now called Universal perks. This means that our dear King of Nothing now has his own unique perk pool like all the other kings.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Level cap is gone[/h3][p]The 9-level cap is now gone. The community asked for it, and you can now level up forever. Every time you level up, you'll unlock a new perk as long as there are perks available. After that, you can still brag about being level 999 to your friends. The required XP to level up was also reduced by 25%. [/p][p][/p][h3]A new perk every time you level up[/h3][p]If you're new to the game: you'll unlock a new perk, randomly, every time a king levels up. The unlock system will alternate between Universal and King perks. Every time you hit a level threshold for the first time (level 3, 6, 9, and so on), you will also unlock a Rainbow perk.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Early supporters in mind[/h3][p]If you're a veteran: those who've already played the game will start with one perk per level unlocked. All the perks you know are still available to be unlocked. You'll also likely have more perks than you did before. With the Universal pool of perks, the idea is to make the game less grindy while still keeping things fresh with the king-specific perks.[/p][p][/p][h3]Difficulty Rebalancing[/h3][p]The game's core difficulties were rebalanced based on your feedback. On lower difficulties, first years got a little harder (Peasant difficulty is now equivalent to Squire, and so on). On the other hand, Endless Mode difficulty progression curve is now 10% less steep on all difficulties. King difficulty, the pure game experience, remains with a similar scaling, although you can now come up with more ways to beat it thanks to the new perk thresholds. It also means you can perceive the curve between difficulty levels with a bit more clarity (the gap between Prince and King being is now slightly smaller, for example)
[/p][p]The best thing about this rebalancing is that we're aiming to address two things we've been hearing from you: on one hand, it can be a little too easy to beat the core game on lower difficulties. On the other hand, some people feel Endless Mode gets way too hard too fast. By making the first years subtly more challenging on lower difficulties, we came up with a new progression curve that makes Endless years a little less abrupt. Don't be mistaken though: we're talking about 10%. It's still exponential ruthlessness. We'll keep tweaking everything according to the community's experiences. We are listening![/p][p][/p][h3]An important disclaimer[/h3][p]It took us a while, but we feel we finally cracked a balance between abundance and limitation. We truly believe that what makes 9 Kings special is that it forces you to be creative with a finite amount of resources (the magic number 9). But the 9 on its own wouldn't be any fun if it didn't enable hundreds of creative outcomes. We also really dislike the idea of mindless meta-progression. We want to value your time and make you feel stimulated, while giving you more agency. With this new system, we hope you'll see the 9-grid as a fun challenge, something that encourages you to explore, be strategic, and find the most meaningful perk strategy for your style.
[/p][p]As usual, here are the remaining updates of patch 0.7.91: [/p]

• [p]X-Ray now works with base cards[/p]
• [p]Slime performance improvement[/p]
• [p]Duplicated units are no longer (wrongly) affected by Populate.[/p]
• [p]Echoform/Slime will now properly duplicate extremely high stats (PENDING: HOTFIX INCOMING)[/p]
• [p]The game will now properly load extremely high stats (PENDING: HOTFIX INCOMING)[/p]
• [p]Ruthless can no longer insta-kill bosses.[/p]
• [p]Optimized Rainbow army shader[/p]
• [p]Dispenser projectiles are no longer underneath buildings (this dev wants to slap himself every time he sees a gameplay video of Dispensers in the last patch)[/p]
• [p]Perk art was updated[/p]
• [p]There's more coming very soon![/p][p][/p]

[h3]Don't forget to leave a Steam review[/h3][p]Anyway, we're very excited about this system and very eager to hear your thoughts. One of the biggest feedbacks we've got for 9 Kings was the lack of depth for the meta-progression system. And we agree! The game is in early access and hopefully we can keep building it together. We can't wait![/p][p][/p][p]Please join us on Discord and Reddit. You can also find the 9 Kings wiki page here for information on the game! Love, Sad Socket team Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters We've been reading through all your Steam reviews, and we appreciate the feedback we've been receiving. We'd love to continue seeing more of your thoughts! It helps us know what to focus on for each upcoming patch.

Love,
Sad Socket team[/p]

In case you missed it, here's a look at what's new and what’s on the horizon for 9 Kings!

Patch 10 introduces a new event, fresh cards, and adjustments to the underlying randomness. The team also outlined some major changes coming next, including system reworks and a new king. Full roundup below.

9 Kings is also part of the Steam Summer Sale at 35% off. Check it and other games out in the Hooded Horse Summer Sale.

Hooded Horse Summer Publisher Sale 2025

[h2]📰 9 Kings – Patch 10 and Roadmap Highlights[/h2][hr][/hr]Patch 10 adds a new event, three Rainbow cards, and a full pass on how randomness functions in combat and deckbuilding. The team also previewed upcoming systems revamps, including a full rework of perks and the design of a new king.

Patch 10 – Rainbow Event, Card Drops, and Combat Logic
Patch 10 (v0.7.87) introduces a combat scenario centered on the Rainbow Army.

Winning the event rewards Rainbow loot and expands the deck with three new cards:

• Slime – a new unit card
  
• Patronage – focused on economic synergy
  
• X-Ray – enabling deeper battlefield visibility
  

Core mechanics have been adjusted across multiple systems:

• Defeat Loot – losing a battle now yields spoils tied to your king
  
• RNG Fix – re-rolls no longer repeat previous outcomes
  
• Endless Scaling – enemy strength scales more gradually
  
• Mothership Interaction – now correctly benefits from Haste
  
• Preview Improvements – enemy units now preview on hover
  

A toggle was added to disable the Endless Mode’s red filter, and visual polish was applied to Rainbow units, which now display a multicolored glow. Several card interactions were corrected, including Temple logic and post-level-up behavior for Echoform. Localization updates were also included.

Players are advised to start a new run after installing the patch to avoid corrupted data states.

The Roadmap RNG Design Philosophy
Player feedback around randomness prompted a direct response. Every card in a shared pool has the same chance of appearing; there is no internal weighting system in place. The team’s long-term goal is to eliminate the concept of “must-draw” cards entirely, especially as the pool expands.

What’s Next – Perks, Progression, and a New King
The next major update will overhaul the perk system and introduce a new king. These changes aim to reframe build identity and long-term progression. More details are outlined in the new roadmap.

That's all for now! We'll have more news to share soon.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2784470/9_Kings/

[p]The first month of early access has been so freaking cool. But we're only getting started. 9 Kings is in Early Access, which means it's continually improving with daily updates. We're working hard, and we can't wait to share everything we've got in the oven with you.[/p][p][/p][p]Today, let's talk about what you can expect![/p][p][/p][h2]0. Where We Are[/h2][p]Over the month, we've tried to address your key feedback points and improve the core design of 9 Kings. Bug fixing, performance improvements, balancing, and QoL have all been central to our roadmap and will continue to be. There's much to be done, but as we move forward, we really want to expand 9 Kings with more content that will help it reach its full potential. So far, we've introduced you to a new deck of Rainbow cards, a new achievement pool, new decrees, and several QoL features. But let's talk about what's coming next.[/p][p][/p][h2]1. Perk/meta revamp[/h2][p]9 Kings' meta-progression design has been one of the main feedback points we've been getting from you. And it's not going unnoticed: we've always wanted to add more depth to the game's progression and we will share the first part of this evolution soon. We're currently revamping the perk system to balance longevity with strategic decision making. In other words, we want you to have more reasons to keep playing 9 Kings without making the game too grindy. more unbalanced, or compromising our minimalistic design. Spoiler: you'll be able to level up beyond level 9.

New game modes will soon add more depth to the game, but we hope that the revamped perk system will give players more reasons to keep coming back, while still requiring you to be creative with a clear pool of resources. Expect the first version by the end of June/early July! As of June 28th, the system is already fully functional. We're working on a few balancing optimizations with our beta testers and the patch should be public in the first week of July.[/p][p] [/p][h2]2. The 8th King[/h2][p]You might've seen some spoilers of our dear 8th king. But we still want to keep some mystery in the air. For now, we'll tell you this: its 9 cards, perks, and play style will add a new layer to every single build you've ever explored in 9 Kings.

We created a clear canvas for the game so that we could make sure that every new card is meaningful and adds a potential synergy to everything else in the game. We hope we can achieve this here, in patch 0.8![/p][p][/p][h2]3. Content Patches[/h2][p]In between major updates (0.8, 0.9, and 1.0), we'll keep the constant content patches coming. These will not only optimize the game but also bring new content to the table such as new decrees, perks, Rainbow cards, achievements, Endless mode improvements, balancing, and more. We're always listening to the community and figuring out ways we can improve. We take EA very seriously and we want to make sure that when you come back to 9 Kings after a month you really feel the difference.[/p][p][/p][h2]4. The 9th King[/h2][p]As with our 8th king, you probably know who the last one is. And by the name, you might assume it's a pretty ambitious one. And this is what we're aiming for. We can't wait to share our ideas with you and we hope we can build the best version of it together during EA.

The 9th king is coming in Q3 and, with it, the core 9 Kings experience will be concluded, so that we can then focus on the biggest and final landmark before 1.0.[/p][p][/p][h2]5. New game modes[/h2][p]We're hoping this can become something very cool. We'll get into more details soon, but once the foundation of 9 Kings is set, we have plans to expand it and elevate its replayability with pretty interesting new game modes that can work very well with our scope and vision. As we make progress throughout Q3, we'll add more details to the second half of this roadmap.

We can't give you many spoilers yet, but we want you to know we're working hard and thinking about this in our sleep. It's gonna be fun. We just hope you understand that getting the foundation of 9 Kings right before taking that step is gonna be key. We don't want to disappoint you and want to make sure we get all the pieces right!
[/p][p]And this is it for today. We hope this first roadmap helps give you a clearer perspective on where we're at and where we're going. And if not, please don't hesitate to reach out in the forums and on Discord.

Thanks for being a part of this journey with us. We hope you stick around and help us make 9 Kings the best game it can be.
[/p][h3]Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters[/h3][p]We've been reading through all your Steam reviews, and we appreciate the feedback we've been receiving. We'd love to continue seeing more of your thoughts! It helps us know what to focus on for each upcoming patch. [/p][p]
Love,
Sad Socket team[/p]

[p]Patch 10 is bringing a brand-new event to give more protagonism to the Rainbow deck, new cards, RNG improvements, QoL, and more![/p][p][/p][h3]Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters[/h3][p]We've been reading through all your Steam reviews, and we appreciate the feedback we've been receiving. We'd love to continue seeing more of your thoughts! It helps us know what to focus on for each upcoming patch. [/p][p][/p][p]List of changes (0.7.87): [/p]

• [p]New game event: face the Rainbow army! Get Rainbow loot![/p]
• [p]New Rainbow card: Slime[/p]
• [p]New Rainbow card: Patronage[/p]
• [p]New Rainbow card: X-Ray[/p]
• [p]When you lose a battle, you will now always get spoils of your own king (you didn't beat your enemy, after all)[/p]
• [p]RNG improvement: Re-rolls will no longer show you the exact same previous rolls[/p]
• [p]Rainbow troops now have a multicolored glow[/p]
• [p]Added a "disable Endless red filter" option[/p]
• [p]Haste now affects Mothership[/p]
• [p]Endless enemy scaling is a bit milder (as we've mentioned previously, please bear in mind: endless mode is experimental. We'll keep tweaking it every patch with your feedback)[/p]
• [p]An enemy preview is now showed every time you hover on the right side of the battlefield[/p]
• [p]Temple now ignores all buildings that have no stats[/p]
• [p]Beacon now works properly with Orchard[/p]
• [p]Fixed a glitch when using Echoform after leveling up or Unifying the target card in a single year (the Echoformed troop now properly registers the final amount of units)[/p]
• [p]Localization updates[/p][p] [/p]

[p]After downloading the patch, please start a new run, as your previous run won’t have the updates stored and they may cause conflicts. If you experience any issues, please email us at [email protected]. [/p][p][/p][h3]About RNG[/h3][p]This new patch is one of the many structural patches on the way. Thanks to your feedback, we're working hard to finesse the game's RNG, making sure there's a good balance between randomness, agency, and of course... fun. It's a work in progress and your input is very important!

*While we're here: we read someone say out there that the game forces card draws to make sure that cards you "need" don't show up as much. That is not true. Every card in the game from the same pool has exactly the same chance of appearing. And we'll always keep it that way. Furthermore: our main design goal is that there's no such thing as the one card you need in 9 Kings. The more cards we add to the game, the more this will hopefully be true to every possible build!
[/p][h3]Coming next[/h3][p]We're now working on some massive updates to the core mechanics of the game. Again, we've been really paying attention to your feedback. Perks will get a total revamp, a new king is being finessed, and that's just the start. Roadmap will be live on Tuesday![/p][p][/p][p]Please join us on Discord and Reddit. You can also find the 9 Kings wiki page here for information on the game! Love, Sad Socket team

Love,
Sad Socket team[/p]

[p]Patch #09... had to be a cool update right? Brace yourselves for some new content, folks.[/p][p][/p][h3]Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters[/h3][p]We've been reading through all your Steam reviews, and we appreciate the feedback we've been receiving. We'd love to continue seeing more of your thoughts! It helps us know what to focus on for each upcoming patch. [/p][p][/p][p]List of changes (0.7.81): [/p][p][/p][p]NEW CONTENT: [/p]

• [p]14 new achievements are now available. [/p]
• [p]A cool achievement screen is now in-game (track your progress, admire your shiny gold medals)[/p]
• [p]New card: Gigantify (Rainbow Tome)[/p]
• [p]New card: Echoform (Rainbow Tome)[/p]
• [p]New card: Haste (Rainbow Tome)[/p]
• [p]New card: Temple (Rainbow Building)[/p]
• [p]New card: Ogre (Rainbow Troop)[/p]
• [p]Added a credits screen (there's a lot of people we needed to thank) [/p]

[p]QoL:[/p]

• [p]Added a quick restart button (you asked, you got it)[/p]
• [p]Added more volume levels for audio customization[/p]
• [p]Navigation issues during Perk selection on computers with peripherals should no longer occur[/p]
• [p]Smoother intro transitions [/p]
• [p]Faster transitions (Prophet screen, Stat screen)[/p]
• [p]Skippable Prophet text[/p]
• [p]UI visual tweaks[/p]
• [p]UI is becoming keyboard/controller friendly (WIP)[/p]

[p]Fixes/Balancing:[/p]

• [p]Fixed a localization issue that caused severe lag in some systems (sorry!)[/p]
• [p]Spores from Mycelium now properly inherit buffs from Blacksmiths and Beacons[/p]
• [p]Flametower is now properly getting movement speed boosts[/p]
• [p]Earthworking a level 3 Concabulator will give you 2 Concabulators and 1 Broken Cabulator again[/p]
• [p]Trappers now gain a bit of attack speed when leveling up[/p]
• [p]Fixed a conflict caused by ending a run during an animation[/p]
• [p]Re-enchant now properly works with all enchantments.[/p]
• [p]Improved Executioner targeting system[/p]
• [p]Fixed visual display of ranged projectiles (they would randomly be invisible)[/p]
• [p]Damage pop ups now always display actual damage output of melee troops[/p]
• [p]Fixed a glitch that charged 30 gold whenever using Explore/Earthworks during Endless Mode [/p]
• [p]HOTFIXED: The Dispenser now processes attack speed properly again[/p][p] [/p]

[p]After downloading the patch, please start a new run, as your previous run won’t have the updates stored and they may cause conflicts. If you experience any issues, please email us at [email protected]. We're looking forward to watching you check out what the new stuff does![/p][p][/p][p]UP NEXT: We are posting a full road map next week, so you know exactly what to expect from us. We're working hard and we can't wait to share all our new ideas with you. We've also been reading all your requests. Know we'll address a lot of them in the next weeks! [/p][p][/p][p]Please join us on Discord and Reddit. You can also find the 9 Kings wiki page here for information on the game! Love, Sad Socket team

Love,
Sad Socket team[/p]