Patch #23: Balancing, Quest Difficulty, Preparations for Async Multiplayer!
9 Kings Patch Notes — May 8, 2026
Aggregated from Steam, cross-tracked with Battle.net coverage on GamePatchNote.
Hey, everybody. It's been a while since the latest patch, but there's a good reason for that: we've been working VERY hard on the upcoming 9 Kings game mode. That's right, we're talking about our experimental async multiplayer. You can expect more news on this in the coming days!
In the meantime, we want to make sure we're addressing community feedback and wanted to tackle a few issues and also add a few features that will hopefully improve the 9 Kings experience for everyone. This patch will not only address key reports but also set the stage for the upcoming multiplayer later this month.
Patch 0.8.9:
Quest Mode Difficulty:
You can now pick between three difficulty options in Quest Mode! You can set the difficulty by clicking the button in the bottom left corner of the world map.
King difficulty is the intended quest experience.
Knight difficulty will be more forgiving to encourage experimentation
Chaos difficulty gives enemies a stat boost for a ruthless experience for those who have already completed all 81 quests.
This patch also addresses issues that were making a few quests unintentionally unbalanced.
Restructuring quest: plot stats were fixed, making the quest a lot more manageable.
Rubble Kingdom quest: plot stats were fixed and increased, making the quest a lot more manageable.
Blood Money quest: increased initial gold, enemy was mildly nerfed.
Landfill quest: Mothership stats were mildly increased.
Gameplay:
Library can now trigger its effect again after 3 successful rolls.
Mangler now gains +2 extra damage per unit killed per level, drastically improving scalability (this means it gets +2 on level 1, +4 twice on level 2, +6 thrice on level 3, and so on)
Mangler now gains an extra damage boost when leveling up.
A leveled up Quarry with Monopoly decree now gives tower a 10% + 10% boost instead of 12%.
Patronage now works beyond your base's max level cap.
Mob now gains troops when it's placed next to a Warlord that got the Khanate decree.
Balance stats are now applied properly when used in a boss year.
Midas Touch now works properly with units riding Raptors.
Amplifier now also amplifies level ups.
Fracture decree is no longer repeatable.
Wormhole decree can only be used three times.
Fixes:
Paladin's HP stat no longer breaks with extremely high numbers.
Demon's Altar no longer gets an unintended extra boost when Echoformed.
When you Randomfy a level 3 building into a Portal, it now properly triggers a time travel event.
Fixed a glitch where your cards disappeared when you opened a chest on endless mode.
Blessing calendar icon now disappears after event as intended.
Cards no longer occasionally remain stuck in the hover animation.
Drop-downs interface is now automatically navigable when using a gamepad.
Fixed some gamepad dead zones.
"Pick your loot" eye button now works properly with gamepads.
End-game screen now has proper gamepad iconography.
"Reset data" button now works properly with a gamepad.
QoL:
Quest world map will now display each quest name upon hovering.
Volume sliders responsiveness was improved.
Volume options are now properly saved between sessions.
Vsync options are now properly saved between sessions.
Hotfixes (0.8.9.1)
Fixed the enemy king re-roll mouseover area.
Balance now works properly with Converters.
Particles causing unintended occasional FPS drops were removed.
As always, this is a work in progress and we'll keep paying close attention to feedback! We're working very hard on the upcoming multiplayer patch but we'll keep finessing everything else around 9 Kings.
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].
Multiplayer is coming!
Epic async battles, ruthless ladders, customizable kings, daily missions. It's you versus 8 kings from all over the world to find out whose kingdom lasts longer. But only one can climb the ranks and become the king of kings.
Multiplayer mode will be public soon. There's an open beta starting as we speak, and you can be part of it by joining us on our Discord server! We can't wait to share the new game mode with you :)
Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters
We've been reading through all your Steam reviews, and we appreciate the feedback we've been receiving. Please continue sharing your thoughts, so we can know to focus on for each upcoming patch and make 9 Kings the best game it can be. It's really important to us!
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