Community Update - August 2025

[Majora]

Greetings Skylords!

A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!

• A very special milestone

Before we start this month's update, we'd like to take a moment to reflect on a major milestone:

As of July 26, 2025, Skylords Reborn has been online longer than the original BattleForge was!

Considering our team runs entirely on volunteers and has gone through multiple changes in project administrators, designers, and developers over the years, we are incredibly grateful to still be here, working on new content and updates for the dedicated BattleForge community. "By the players, for the players" may be a cliché, but our love for the original IP as fans has kept this project going for so long.

We are extremely proud of what we’ve accomplished and want to thank everyone who has spent their free time contributing to the project over the years. And of course, a huge thank-you to our dedicated player base, who keep checking in for our new patches, events, and updates. Without you, we wouldn’t be here, approaching our 5th-year anniversary later this year!

Thank you everyone. We’ll continue doing our best to be worthy successors to BattleForge's legacy.
Use code 2009-2013-2020-2025 in the in-game store for a mini booster as a little celebration of this milestone! 

• New Campaign Map - Heart of Trouble

And on that note, we have a very exciting announcement to share today!

Back in September last year, we introduced our first new campaign maps to the game: Unexpected Visitors and Into the Jungle. Ever since, we have continued our work on more maps, and today we are ready to talk about a brand-new 1-player campaign map: Heart of Trouble!
 

Story Introduction

With the death of Shane Blight, the most serious threat to the fire tribes was extinguished. Yet the former pirate lord left behind him a reconstituted Raven corps terrorizing a stretch of land equal in size to the Lyrish kingdom. In the time since the pirate lord's death, a group of ambitious Raven lieutenants have torn apart the Southern Wastes in an ever escalating civil war as they attempted to become Blight’s successor. With Mo and the best warriors of the fire tribes having traveled north and the Ravens no longer distracted from their hunt for plunder by Blight’s mad quest, the remnants of the fire tribes were left defenseless, leaving the Skylords in a desperate search for some way to end the destruction. Gaeron wondered if perhaps they could put their thumb on the scale and anoint Blight’s successor themselves. 

Bren Morhold surveyed his surroundings and bit down his rage as he cursed his luck. First, he had lost the last of his walkers in an ambush against Blight’s former lieutenant Boggart, and now he was caught like a rodent in a trap, the noose slowly tightening around his neck as his rival warlord’s troops moved ever closer. Lesser men would have fallen to despair, but the self-proclaimed Ragged King was not a lesser man. His mind worked as untiringly as a kobold clock, weighing troop counts, ammo stocks, and potential terrain maneuvers. If he was to die, he would die a blustering bloodhorn, not some dawdling dryad. 

As he raged against his impending doom, Morhold felt the unnerving presence of an otherworldly force. He spun around in an attempt to gain sight of it, suddenly stopping when he heard a voice he nearly confused with his own thoughts.

“Do you wish to live?” Yes. The words did not even need to be spoken. What will it cost me?

 

About the Map

The Ragged King is a character who briefly appears in Empire. We always felt his introduction was abrupt and thought he would make for an interesting backstory. In Heart of Trouble, Skylords team up with Bren Morhold, the self-proclaimed Ragged King, in a unique 1-player map that feels like a co-op scenario. You'll need to attack alongside him to defeat various Bandit Warlords, including Boggart, Blight's former lieutenant. This uneasy alliance can be played on Standard, Advanced, and Expert difficulty.

The map is fully voice-acted in English, with voice actors Dreamlord and Vox delivering excellent performances as Gaeron, Boggart, the Ragged King, and the Loading Screen/Storybook narrations. Thank you so much for your help!

We would also like to give a special thank-you to our map testers, who ensured the map will be an enjoyable experience for all skill levels.

 

Release

And now for the great news! You won't have to wait long to play Heart of Trouble, as it will be included in our next patch, releasing this Sunday, the 3rd of August! Have a look at the following trailer for a first sneak peek at the map.

 

Design Notes

Heart of Trouble is now our 3rd official campaign map after Unexpected Visitors and Into the Jungle. While we are proud of what we created in our first two maps, they were both subjected to a chaotic design process as we attempted to understand what went into creating a good campaign map. The fruits of this chaotic laboring can be found pinned in the Map section of the forum. Heart of Trouble, on the other hand, was able to be designed from the ground up with our new design principles in mind. Harnessing these principles and the lessons we learned from Unexpected Visitors and Into the Jungle, we think we were able to make Heart of Trouble our best map yet.

Heart of Trouble takes place shortly after the conclusion of Raven's End. In the map, the Skylord attempts to save an ambitious Bandit Lord called the Ragged King who is being attacked by his rival warlords. Once the player links up with the Ragged King, the player fights alongside a force of allied Bandits who help the player to progress, kind of like an AI teammate.

The map combines both attack and defense elements (make sure to bring some T2+ towers) with a stronger focus on offensive conquest. There are two initial warbands to fight. To the north is a strong anti-ground artillery-based Bandit group, while to the south is a strong anti-air flying-based Bandit group. The player can choose which group to attack first, and once one group dies, the other scales up. In this way, the map has an inherent dynamism and replayability as players decides which half of the map to attack first based on which deck they bring.

Alongside the new Ragged King, players will also face 4 new Bandit enemies, Wasteland Wing, Bloodhorn, Sand Skate, and Bandit Cannoneer; 4 new mini-bosses; and a new final boss named Boggart. Additionally, the new map will release with a new achievement and a seasonal challenge.

Creating Heart of Trouble has been a labor of love from our map designers Hrdina Imperia and R4bitFOOT as well as our many map testers, card implementers, voice actors, audio editors, artists, and translators. We hope you enjoy playing Heart of Trouble as much as we enjoyed making it!

• New PvP Map - Taros

The new patch also includes our first new PvP map! Taros is a 1vs1 map that can be selected in Sparring Matches and will be part of the ranked map pool.

This map features a unique twist, allowing you to quickly reposition your forces using teleporter circles. We’re excited to see how players take advantage of these mechanics in their matches. This is our first official PvP map, so be sure to give it a try and let us know what you think!

 

• Seasonal Challenges Batch #3

August 1st also marks the third month of the Primordial Fire season, and a new batch of additional challenges is now available! This final batch also introduces new Nightmare challenges.

The following challenges are now active:
Please note: 4.5 and 4.6 will come online alongside the new content patch. 
 

10+20 1	4.1 - Win the 4p scenario The Dwarven Riddle on advanced difficulty or higher, with all team members using only Fire cards of Tier 3 or below. Expert difficulty rewards more points.
10+20 1	4.2 - Win the 1p scenario Mo on advanced difficulty or higher, with all team members playing only FIre, Twilight, Bandits or Neutral cards, with your ownly unit card being Brannoc. Expert difficulty rewards more points.
10+5 1	4.3 - Win the 1p featured community map Thirsty Journey Home on advanced difficulty or higher, with you playing only Fire cards and no unit cards. Expert difficulty rewards more points.
10+20 1	4.4 - Win the 2p scenario Nightmare's End and 4p scenario Guns of Lyr on advanced difficulty or higher, with all team members using only cards with Fire orbs (Fire, Twilight, Bandits). Expert difficulty rewards more points.
10+20 1	4.5 - Complete different campaign scenarios or featured community maps on advanced difficulty or higher, with all team members playing only Fire and Neutral cards, and all units being only beast, primordial and artifact units.
10+20 1	4.6 - Win the 1p scenario Heart of Trouble on standard difficulty or higher, with you playing only cards of the Bandits faction, except T1 cards. Higher difficulty rewards more points.

And the following Nightmare challenges are now active: 
 

10+40	6.1 - Be among the 100 fastest times on the 1p scenario Ocean on advanced difficulty using only Fire cards at the end of the season. Players who place higher in the rankings will receive more points.
10+40 0+3	6.2 - Win the 1p scenario Encounters with Twilight on expert difficulty in under 24/21/19/17/16/15/14/13 minutes using only Fire cards. Completing the challenge faster awards progressively more points.
15+25 1+2	6.3 - Win a 4p rPvE scenario that is the Infected Map of the Week on Advanced+ (5) difficulty or higher with all players using only Fire cards of Tier 3 or below. Higher difficulties awards progressively more points.

These are the final challenges for this season. Players will have the entire month of September to complete any remaining challenges before we wrap up this first season.

After the season concludes, players will be able to use the new Relic resource to purchase any missed seasonal cosmetics rewards, including the Promo Sunderer, through the Relic Shop. Relics can be earned by completing seasonal challenges and by beating the weekly map affected by a map modifier. Please note: Fire Boosters and the new cards will not be purchasable with Relics. These new cards will begin dropping from boosters once the season has ended.

Our next season will also feature relics that can be used to purchase rewards from Season #1 – Primordial Fire.
 

• Fire Wormlings Replacement

Last month, we gave an update on the issues surrounding our new card, Fire Wormlings. If you're out of the loop, you can catch up by reading the July Community Update.

After two months of extensive testing, we unfortunately came to the conclusion that the card is currently unsalvageable due to issues in the movement logic of the worm model. As a result, we prepared two alternative options and asked the community to vote for their preferred model to replace the Wormlings. 
 

When announcing the upcoming model swap, we faced frustration from some players who either didn’t understand or didn’t care about the issues the card was causing. Others disagreed with our alternative model choices or insisted that the replacement behave exactly like the original card. We’d like to once again stress that this is a situation we truly tried to avoid. Our team loved Fire Wormlings, and we even put them front and center in our marketing efforts. Doing a full model and artwork swap also costs us considerable time, valuable time that could have been spent on new content, preparing for Season 2, or even taking a well-deserved break after the crunch period from the last patch.

However, every week that passed meant another week of the season where players couldn’t use the unit. Once testing confirmed that we wouldn’t be able to fix Fire Wormlings using the current model, we knew it was time for drastic measures and a model swap was the best available option. Because of the frustrating experience many players had with the unit over the past two months, we wanted to involve the community in the final decision. While we understand that some players would have preferred more models to choose from, we were limited by technical constraints and a tight timeline. The fact that we were able to create new artwork and a working model in time is a small miracle in itself.

We wouldn’t be taking these steps if we didn’t believe they were absolutely necessary. And while we’ve done our very best to make the replacement behave as closely as possible to the original Wormlings design, the lack of source code and the unfortunate truth that the unique aspect of the Wormlings was also the source of their issues, meant we couldn’t fully replicate the unit in a different form. 

We ask players who are frustrated with this situation for a bit more understanding.

One suggestion was to give players the Fire Wormlings profile picture as a reward. We thought this was a great idea, and everyone who has logged in since the start of the season (June 1st) will receive this cosmetic when the patch is released.

 

• Introducing: Scorchlings

The final vote results were quite close, but 53.13% of you voted for the Void Maw model to replace the Fire Wormlings. Our 3D artist, Titan, quickly went to work finalizing the model, while our 2D artist, Elkondo, began creating the artwork. Normally, a new card takes months to prepare, but we really wanted to get the replacement to players as soon as possible. That way, you can still play them for the second half of the season. 

Here is the replacement for Fire Wormlings: Scorchlings!

 

Arson Spit
Every 2.5 seconds, unit launches spittle at enemies that deal 67 damage to enemies in a 6m radius around its target, up to 100 in total. The affected area around the target will ignite for 8 seconds dealing 12 damage every second to enemy units.
 

Primal Resonance
Within a 30m radius of a Primordial unit, Scorchlings will deal 60% more damage. Does not trigger from other Scorchlings.

 

Swift
Moves at high speed.

 

Steadfast
Cannot be knocked back. 

 

A unique ability of the Wormlings model was their reduced damage while moving. Unfortunately, this was built into the model itself and could not be replicated for the Scorchlings. On the upside, Scorchlings don’t have the awkward stop-turn-shoot animation that the worm model had, allowing them to reposition more smoothly during combat. We might slightly adjust the attack speed/damage output of the model in the coming days leading up to the patch to be as close as possible to the Wormlings.  

Scorchlings will replace Fire Wormlings with our content patch on Sunday, the 3rd of August. Any Fire Wormlings in players' inventories will also be replaced with Scorchlings.

One more thing
While the Void Maw model won the vote, we don't want to ignore the fact that it was a pretty close call with the Snapjaw model. We will explore if we can find a fitting design for that model as well, and might release it in the future as a new card. The original design for Wormlings was a new kind of archers that could be placed on walls after all. Perhaps we can revisit this idea with this alternative model. To be continued!
 

• Team Changes

 

We’re happy to announce that two new members have joined our volunteer team!

Moving forward, Bini Inibitor and Gam3over, both experienced testers on the project, will share the responsibility of Testing Coordination. We’re very grateful that they’re dedicating their time to improving our testing process and working closely with our testers to ensure content is balanced and bug-free. If you're interested in helping them out, please take a look at the Map Tester position.

Thank you both, and welcome to the team!

Meanwhile, aodpi has decided to leave the team. He joined us back in 2022 to work on the Entity Editor and Updater. We’d like to thank him for all the time and effort he contributed to the project during his time with us!

 

• Contribute to Skylords Reborn

Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fueled by the passion and dedication of over 50 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to have a look at our open positions!
 

Don't have time to formally join the staff, but still would like to help out? Please check out this guide on how to support Skylords Reborn as a community member.
 

• Events

In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!

Current events:

• NEW - Dealing with Trouble
To celebrate the release of our new campaign map "Heart of Trouble", you can send in your replay of finishing the map on a difficulty you feel comfortable with, for a chance to win some prizes! Click here for more information. 

 

• NEW - The Skylords Reborn Summer Cup 2025 - 17-08-2025
Join us for the 3rd 1vs1 PvP tournament of the year! The tournament will be hosted and live-streamed by Ultralord on Twitch. Please sign-up in advance if you want to join, or join us on Twitch on the day of the tournament!

 

• FINISHED - Crystal Solid Defence - Winner Reveal Stream on August 1st!
Find out who won in this unique PvE event! A livestream revealing the winners will take place on August 1st, at 19:00 CET. Find out more here. 

 

• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizers @Metagross31 or @Ultralord. We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. If you have a cool idea for a PvE event, or want to host a PvP tournament, please don't hesitate to reach out to us; we will gladly assist you.

 

• In Conclusion

That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.

As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
The code will reward you with a Fire booster: FIRE-WORM-LING-SWAP

This code is valid until September 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update.

We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features.

You can also sign-up to our e-mail newsletter here.

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update July 2025

[Bini Inibitor]

After countless of iterations, test matches and me most likely causing permanent damage to @R4bitF00t, Heart of Trouble turned out to be a great map.
And for anyone saying otherwise...

[Draconnor]

Heart of Trouble sounds like map that i tried to make back in 2011 😉 So im quite excited to see it 😉

[MacoWish]

Honestly so grateful for all the people making this game happen. Bringing back some of my best childhood memories and continuing it is truly something I am incredibly grateful for. Thank you very much ❤️

[Bensist]

Oh god, the profile picture was my idea! It means a lot to be heard, really. This is a cool salute for the wormling, so thank you very much! At least this way it won't be forgotten.

[Majora]

1 hour ago, Bensist said:

Oh god, the profile picture was my idea! It means a lot to be heard, really. This is a cool salute for the wormling, so thank you very much! At least this way it won't be forgotten.

We thought it was a great idea! Thanks for suggesting it 😄

[TimmieTuinbroek]

Heart of trouble sounds awesome! I want way more maps with 2 NPC factions interacting. I really like Ravens end for that specifically, as well as Slave master. Can't wait to play!

[Icrine]

Looking forward to 25 more years of Battleforge!

[Grafit86]

Looks awesome! Just started again Playing after 16 years 🙂

[This Is Halloween_2]

Quote

Arson Spit
Every 2.5 seconds, unit launches spittle at enemies that deal 67 damage to enemies in a 6m radius around its target, up to 100 in total. The affected area around the target will ignite for 8 seconds dealing 12 damage every second to enemy units.

Wait wasn't it supposed to be 10m from wormlings ? Is this another nerf ?

Edited August 2, 2025 by This Is Halloween_2

[LEBOVIN]

15 hours ago, This Is Halloween_2 said:

Wait wasn't it supposed to be 10m from wormlings ? Is this another nerf ?

Wormlings are not 10m.

[Behemothx]

T hank you for your  excellent work!

but I feel Scorchlings are much weaker than Wormlings because they don't have Earth dive, which makes Wormlings to handle a few troops easily

[Metagross31]

On 8/1/2025 at 9:41 PM, TimmieTuinbroek said:

Heart of trouble sounds awesome! I want way more maps with 2 NPC factions interacting. I really like Ravens end for that specifically, as well as Slave master. Can't wait to play!

Maybe you want to check out the Community Map "King's Ridge". It also has several NPC factions, which are hostile to each other and is a great map all around. But beware, that it is quite difficult on Expert difficulty!

[This Is Halloween_2]

3 hours ago, LEBOVIN said:

Wormlings are not 10m.

Yea you’re right. Dunno where I picked that.

[The Master]

the Scorchlings are really fun to use and are not prone to wander from each other while on the move like the Fire Wormlings.

I had this idea for two units for the Amii faction, the first one would be using the model of the construct from frost, I don't have any ideas for what abilities it would have, or the model of the thunder wagon from fire, not sure what it would do or how it would work or look like but a thought for an Amii Thunder Wagon, is that is it like the Amii Phantom where it has one mode where it would sprays green fire from the flamethrower at a cost to the damage output of the turret, and the other mode where the turret cannon has a increase of damage at the cost of the flamethrower damage output or turning off all together or something like that. not sure if this could be possible, but it would be cool.

[Devilzwirn]

The new map and the Scorchlings are awesome! Thank you very much for your great work. I appreciate and enjoy it. :-) 

[ItzBlaze]

Amazing work as always guys, always lovely to see more campaign maps coming out! 

Keep it up!