Every run in Slay the Spire 2tells a different story. You beat a boss without taking a single hit, or you somehow forgot to spend your gold for three floors in a row. Now, developer Mega Crit wants to make sure you actually remember those moments. The latest beta patch for Slay the Spire 2 introduces end-of-run badges, a new feature designed to highlight what made each climb through the Spire distinct.
What badges actually do
Badges appear at the end of a run and flag specific things that happened during it. According to Mega Crit, they cover a wide range of moments: defeating a boss without losing HP, completing a run unusually fast, stumbling across specific easter eggs, or even the mildly embarrassing reminder that you left the merchant without spending your gold.
"They're meant as little reminders to let you know what was unique about each adventure," the studio said in the patch notes.
Right now, badges only show up at the run's end screen. Mega Crit has confirmed they plan to surface these in run history and the stats screen down the line. The studio also hinted that badges tie into broader scoring improvements, noting that this patch includes "adjusted and added placeholder assets for score lines in run summary and game over screen." More details on scoring are coming later.
Card reworks that actually change how characters play
Badges are the headline, but the patch goes much deeper. Three significant reworks landed alongside the feature addition.
Silent'sBlade of Ink got a complete overhaul. The old version gave temporary Strength whenever you played an Attack. The new version generates Inky Shivs directly into your hand, each carrying a new Inky enchantment that deals 2 extra damage and applies 1 Weak. Mega Crit framed this as an experiment with mid-combat enchanted card generation, and it gives Silent another reliable way to stack Weak on enemies.
Necrobinder'sBorrowed Time was also rebuilt from scratch. It went from a 0-cost card that applied 3 Doom to yourself in exchange for 1 energy, to a 1-cost card that grants 4 energy (6 when upgraded) while making all cards cost 1 additional energy that turn. The studio specifically called out Reap and Bury as high-cost cards that should benefit from this new version.
The Doormaker enemy also received a significant rework to its Grasp turn. The old version apparently made the fight too easy. The new version attacks for 20 damage (23 on higher difficulty) and adds a power that drains 1 energy every time you play a card, turning the encounter into a genuine resource puzzle rather than a waiting game.
Balance changes, new art, and the review situation
Beyond the reworks, the patch adjusts several other systems. Ascension 6 no longer messes with map generation (Mega Crit acknowledged that was hard for players to even notice). Instead, it now makes card removal at the merchant start at 100 gold and increase by 50 gold per removal instead of 25.
On the art side, four cards received new portrait art (Hotfix, Modded, Synthesis, Sweeping Gaze), the Vantom boss fight got background art and VFX, and six afflictions now have new visuals: Bound, Entangled, Galvanized, Hexed, Ringing, and Smog.
Here's the thing about the community response: the previous beta balance patch triggered nearly 9,800 negative Steam reviews in a single day. Mega Crit co-founder Casey Yano said publicly he understood players were just trying to be heard, but that kind of backlash is hard to ignore. This patch landed differently. As of writing, the Steam page shows roughly 801 negative reviews against 817 positive ones for the day. Still not a clean win, but a completely different atmosphere compared to last time.
With new modes already confirmed to be in development, as detailed in a recent developer interview, the badge system looks like part of a longer push to make each run feel more memorable and distinct before the game leaves early access. The scoring overhaul hinted at in this patch will be worth watching closely. Make sure to check out more:
