Update: Bloons TD 6 v44.0 - Update Notes!

Available now please restart your storefront or be patient if it does not appear for you, these updates can take some time to be rolled out to every region due to how the storefronts are set up.

Update Video: https://youtu.be/cb22AG0JIVw

• New Tower, fresh out of ***MONKLANTIS***, the Mermonkey!
  • Smash them with abyssal tentacly creatures, freeze and wash them away with enchanted waves, and lead them astray with mystical melodies! The Bloons will tremble at the might of the Sea, even on land!
  • Players have been asking about new towers and the community has suggested the existence of a Mermonkey since BTD5, so yes we’ve done it! We are committed to adding new towers to the game when we see genuine spaces for unique tower design and gaps in existing tower synergies, especially in different game modes and Events. Mermonkey adds a valuable water tower outside of the Military category, and the designs relating to range from target, buffs, and ice synergy are intended to spark new placement strategies, fun combos, and interesting tier list discussions
  • Mermonkey starts as a low range amphibious tower with a large vision increase when placed in water. They throw a single trident that pierces twice and can damage up to 3 Bloons each time it does, making it effective during earlier dense rounds where this can overlap. Crosspathing choices include Attack & Projectile Speed, AoE & Freezing, or Seeking & Vision
  • Top path Mermonkey fights side by side with a mysterious sea creature that attacks in all directions, slows Bloons down with inky tridents, and enhances all towers within a radius with a percentage pierce increase
  • Middle path attacks with freezing waves that grow larger and more powerful the further they travel, with the wave eventually crashing to form a unique T-shaped attack! They deal increased damage to any Frozen targets, and with the Ice Jet ability, fire a quick barrage of bouncing ice projectiles
  • Bottom Path lures Bloons off track with an irresistible melody to dance around the Mermonkey for a short time while also detonating any damage-over-time effects on those Bloons to deal all the remaining DoT immediately
  • Final note for PC players; We plan to continue working on new towers after Mermonkey, and as we grow closer to maxing out standard keyboard space for reasonable hotkeys we realize it’s not going to be viable to start shuffling these around every time to maintain anymore. So we have decided not to assign any default hotkey for new towers going forward, however we have added the space for a hotkey to be assigned manually within the hotkeys menu.

• New Hero Skin, Dreamstate Psi
  • Drift off into pleasant Bloon-popping dreams with the adorable new Dreamstate Psi skin. Cozy gameplay guaranteed!
• New Intermediate Map, Luminous Cove
  • A mysterious cove with deep connections to Mermonkey kind. Help defend this ancient refuge against a two-path Bloon assault to uncover the secrets of these mystical, melodious Monkeys.
• New Trial Quests! Both of these quests will allow players use of the towers even before unlocking them
  • Mermonkeys, Not Mere Monkeys - Learn about and trial the Mermonkey tower
  • Super Dartling Bros - Learn about and trial the Dartling Gunner tower
• New Trophy Store Items
  • Monkeys: Safety Mole mortar pet, with a tip of the helmet to our new friends and colleagues from Legion TD 2
  • Bloons: Clown Wigs Bloons
  • Co-op: I’m The Problem text emote
  • Game & UI: Rosalia avatar
• New CT Team Store items
  • Water Props: Adventure Whale

• The Alternate Bloon Rounds round set has increased from 100 to 140 preset rounds, putting more All in Alternate
• Tower Unlock System
  • We recognize that we have been inconsistent with how “new” Monkey Towers become available and want to streamline this going forward. Dartling Gunner’s more passive unlock giftbox has been reworked into a proper Tower unlock system, where all “new” Towers can be accessed in each player’s preferred order via pop count thresholds.
  • So that we can stop putting air quotes around “new”, we mean all Monkey Towers added after the Engineer: Dartling Gunner, Beast Handler, and Mermonkey…
  • All unlocked towers through older methods will stay unlocked, so there is no need to worry about having to unlock towers again.
  • Any Trial quests for Monkey Towers will now be optional tutorials and will allow you to play with the Tower before accessing it, but they will not permanently access the tower for you
  • Each of the 3 new Monkey Towers also comes with their own optional IAP available for players who want to start using the new Towers straight away or who like custom items. Each IAP immediately accesses the Tower, unlocks all upgrades through tier 5, and also comes with valuable exclusive items: a tier 5 insta for each path (5xx, x5x, and xx5), a custom profile banner, and a custom avatar themed around the related Tower
• Map Unlock System
  • Our launch map unlock system became a constraint on design and players with requirements trickling down from the number of Beginner maps, so this system has been replaced with a much simpler ‘Full Category Unlocks’ system.
  • Each category (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert) of maps will now require a total number of map wins from any other category in order to be permanently unlocked for all current and future maps within that category.
  • Intermediate: Unlocked after 5 unique map wins
  • Advanced: Unlocked after 12 unique map wins
  • Expert: Unlocked after 20 unique map wins
• Unfortunately, we were not able to implement Retry Last Round for Co-op CHIMPS for this update. We have been trying to get this in for 44 but have run into unexpected problems that cannot be resolved in time, so we hope to have this ready for update 45.

Mod Users

Many players forget to remove mods when swapping back to their main account or otherwise intentionally use mods on their main accounts. This often leaves behind invisible data traces that can build up and cause conflicts and/or even brick accounts.

• Previously, we attempted to prevent this account damage by turning off account saving whenever mods were detected, but as the mods themselves disable this feature anyway we’ve changed this to a warning prompt with the options: Close Game, Continue (at your own risk), or Logout.
• Please create an alternate account if you wish to try out any mods. If you come across this warning when you are not intending to use any, then immediately close the game and confirm that you have disabled them.

• Track arrows now get destroyed immediately when the round starts
• Resolved a crash that could occur when loading into a co-op game
• Cleaned up the hitbox size of the ‘Named Monkeys’ section of player profiles
• Resolved a crash that could occur when attempting to load remote data
• Resolved a number of aspect ratio related UI issues
• Added a scrolling indicator to the Heroes menu
• Team Banner sizes adjusted to remove stretching
• Resolved a number of edge case crashes
• Development fixes, just for us, nothing behind the curtain

• Improved visuals of Dreadbloon’s ‘dash’ in Boss Rush
• Resolved an issue where immediately entering the Social menu after launching the game could fail to load the CT Event and Co-op Daily Challenge
• Odysseys should no longer break when the same map is set multiple islands in a row
• Time Attack tiles in CT no longer reward Monkey Money unless the tile is captured
• Resolved a number of visual issues with Boss Shields/Damage states in Boss Rush
• Resolved an issue where CT could display some relics as available for teams that don’t actually have access to them
• Bosses should no longer display bugged visuals when spawning the same tier again after being destroyed
• Resolved Boss Rush sometimes showing incorrect error messages when failing to load
• Boss Events may now have different scoring types set for normal compared to elite
• Teams menu should now only show a boss in the background if Boss Rush is active
• Lych’s healing should no longer be able to overflow
• Improved art in Dreadblon & Lych’s 3D boss menus
• Improved water ripple visuals in the Teams menu

• Fixed some incorrect blocking on Glacial Trail
• Resolved an issue where Ravine's Sword could be refreshed
• Castle Revenge default music track changed to 'Jazz Theme'
• Sulfur Springs default music track changed to 'Tribes and Tribulations'
• Changes made to tower height level on Flooded Valley after flooding the valley

Tack Shooter

• 5xx meteor explosion no longer hits camo without detection

Ice Monkey

• Bloons Frozen by Snowstorm or Absolute Zero should now function correctly when distracted or knocked back

Sniper Monkey

• 5xx Cripple Moab explosion no longer hits camo without detection

Monkey Sub

• 5xx Energizer should now correctly display a buff icon on x4x Beast Handlers

Monkey Buccaneer

• 5xx Carrier Flagship planes should no longer occasionally pause attacks for no reason
• xx4 Favoured Trades now has a buff icon for its Sellback Rate discount

Heli Pilot

• 013 MOAB Shove should again correctly increase pushback amount

Druid

• 4xx Ball Lightning can no longer freeze White Bloons

Spike Factory

• 042 Spike Storm should now react to the current track on Workshop, rather than the one that was active when its last upgrade was purchased

Engineer

• Placing a Master Builder turret at the very bottom of the screen should no longer crash

Adora

• Adora can no longer Blood Sacrifice an Arctic Wind that is supporting her on water

Sauda

• Lv3 Leaping Sword should no longer fail to target when intended target is popped early

Geraldo

• Changing ownership in co-op after a player has left the game should no longer prevent Geraldo from placing Rabbits
• Resolved a number of issues with buffs not being correctly removed when upgrading Dart Monkeys with a Worn Hero’s Cape

Rosalia

• Lv3 Scatter Missile should no longer target the workshop base if the intended target is completely destroyed at the same time as the ability is fired
• Price buff icons should no longer disappear without enough cash to buy an upgrade
• Lv7 Ace/Heli Flight Speed buff now correctly expires
• Lv10 Kinetic Charge should no longer sometimes immediately explode when activated

Platform Specific fixes

• [PC] The ‘Reset Cooldowns’ sandbox button should now correctly restore Geraldo’s item stock when activated from the hotkey
• [MacOS] Fixes to a softlock that could occur for some on players launching the game
• [Arcade] Resolved issues with displaying correct Game Center player name
• [Netflix] Resolved a blank screen appearing before the Netflix splash screen on launch
• [Netflix] Game title should no longer fail to localize when device language changes to a non-English supported language

Balance Changes

This update we have kept to a sweep of only simpler balance changes in order to focus more directly on the development of other big features including Mermonkey and content coming in future updates, and although simple we still have quite a lot to go through. We are slowly dialing back some of the more excessive power creep while keeping a mix of mostly positive feeling changes as well, in order to pull back the top end of power while raising up the lower end as well over time.
Dart Monkey

Spike-o-pult’s piercing power in the extreme conditions is too cost effective compared to the Juggernaut so we’re tweaking these slightly to keep Juggernaut as a proper upgrade in Races. Crossbow Master is shuffling around to a higher damage point that should work more effectively with top path’s pierce

• 3xx Spike-o-pult pierce decreased from 22 > 18
• 4xx Juggernaut pierce increased from 50 > 60
• xx5 Crossbow Master attack cooldown increased from 0.16 > 0.24
• xx5 Crossbow Master damage increased from 6 > 8
• xx5 Crossbow Master crit damage increased from 50 > 80
• 105 Crossbow Master pierce increased from 14 > 16
• 205 Crossbow Master pierce increased from 21 > 24

Boomerang Monkey

The MOAB Press top crosspath is the ‘better’ crosspath for most cases due to having more than double the pierce as well as a stronger knockback amount on a tower that most effectively uses high pierce, as this is one of the better support towers in the game we are reducing that superior crosspath without nerfing the lesser one to even this more.

• 104 MOAB Press crosspath pierce benefit reduced from 100 > 60
• 204 MOAB Press crosspath pierce benefit reduced from 220 > 120
• Carries up to higher tiers

Bomb Shooter

Base bomb price is now also lowering to allow more starting combinations to utilize it, this reduced price is moving up only into MOAB Assassin. MOAB Eliminator has solidified itself quite a strong position so price is increasing here, however as it still appears lacking Bomb Blitz which still is swapping with that cheaper price point. For a crosspathing trial we’re removing the limits on Frags buffability & also giving more of a range boost to Extra Range.

• Bomb Shooter price reduced from $525 > 375
• 1xx Bigger Bombs price reduced from $350 > 250
• 3xx Really Big Bombs pierce increased from 60 > 80
• x4x MOAB Assassin price increased from $3100 > 3350
• x5x MOAB Eliminator price increased from $25,500 > $28,000
• xx1 Extra Range bonus range increased from 7 > 12
• xx2 Frag Bombs damage is now uncapped
• xx2 Frag Bombs pierce is now uncapped
• xx5 Bomb Blitz price reduced from $28,000 > $25,500

Tack Shooter

For a tower that functions best close-up anyway increasing range has questionable viability, Tack Shooter’s middle crosspath has always struggled due to this so we’ve decided to try out a more considerable pierce increase.

• x2x Super Range Tacks now increases pierce by 1 > 3
• x3x Blade Shooter pierce unchanged
• 420 Ring of Fire pierce unchanged

Ice Monkey

Adding a lesser MOAB-Benefit to Icicles, leading into the stronger T5 Anti-MOAB capability

• xx4 Icicles deals bonus damage to MOABs +8

Glue Gunner

Majority of Glue Gunner projectile eject points have been moved around to improve accuracy of their attacks. As the 20s active window for Glue Storm was a very important breakpoint for it to hit in the higher rounds; we've restored this duration but instead increased the ability cooldown by a larger amount as more gameplay strategy and synergies can be used to counter long durations. Small price increase for Relentless Glue as it’s just actually good now lol.

• Glue Gunner projectile eject points moved for most upgrades
• x5x Glue Storm ability duration increased from 15 > 20s
• x5x Glue Storm ability cooldown increased from 30 > 40s
• xx4 Relentless Glue price increased from $3400 > $4000

Sniper Monkey

Geraldo was the main power carry for Bouncing Bullet so performance has continued to drop with Geraldo synergies being less powerful now, but the save-up window from shrapnel into bouncing bullet has always been an annoying one so we’re happy to lower the price further to make this easier. Supply Drop’s crate value is staying matched to the total cost of the upgrade so it benefits from this small price buff as well.

• x3x Bouncing Bullet price reduced from $2400 > $2100
• x4x Supply Drop cash per crate reduced from $1200 > $1100

Monkey Sub

Given the long cooldown we want it to feel impactful in freeplay for longer, so all of the Nautic Siege Core’s ability boss damage is being converted to basic damage & bonuses to MOAB.

• Sub Paragon ability explosion damage increased 50,000 > 60,000
• Sub Paragon ability explosion boss damage reduced 10,000 > 0
• Sub Paragon ability aftershock damage increased 10,000 > 15,000
• Sub Paragon ability aftershock boss damage reduced 5000 > 0
• Sub Paragon ability fallout damage to MOABs increased 60 > 90
• Sub Paragon ability fallout boss damage reduced 30 > 0

Monkey Buccaneer

Aircraft Carrier has been performing well above its price point so this is being increased, though it is also worth noting due to a bug fix in Flagship’s AI also in this update we expect it may overall still be improved. Middle Buccaneer has had mixed feedback with much disappointment that the focus of its balance changes haven’t been improvements for the ability, given this path has again lost considerable power we want to look more on both of those aspects this time.

• 4xx Aircraft carrier price increased from $6900 > $8000
• x3x Cannonship grape damage increased from 2 > 3
• x3x Cannonship cannonball damage increased from 1 > 2
• x4x Monkey Pirates grape damage increased from 3 > 5
• x4x Monkey Pirates ability cooldown reduced from 50 > 45s
• x5x Pirate Lord ability number of hooks increased from 3 > 6
• x5x Pirate Lord ability hooks required for ZOMG increased from 2 > 3

Monkey Ace

Even with the higher cost Goliath Doomship continues to pull too far ahead of other paragons, given that this is mostly an ability based paragon we’ve decided to nerf this ability greatly but also somewhat counterbalance this change for standard freeplay by converting all of the boss bonus on the ability into basic damage similar to our changes for the Sub Paragon.

• Carpet Bomb cooldown increased from 50 > 60s
• Carpet Bomb regular damage increased from 20,000 > 30,000
• Carpet Bomb bonus damage to bosses reduced from 20,000 > 0

Heli Pilot

Players have noticed the life crate has more collection radius than the cash crate, and that this causes problems for some strategies / challenges as you don’t always want to increase lives, so these radius have been matched. Special Poperations struggles to fit into competitive strategies due to it serving a different purpose than the T4, so the cooldown of the Support Chinook ability at T5 is now being greatly reduced in order to continue building on what is good about the T4 even for strategies that may not need the Marine specifically.

• x4x Support Chinook lives crate collection radius from 100 > 50
• x5x Special Poperations, Redeploy ability cooldown reduced from 45 > 15s

Mortar Monkey

We’ve been happily taking our time on this since it's about time Mortar gets some spotlight, but the middle path has been overperforming far too much for a while now so it is about time to start pushing it up to a more reasonable price range for the power it brings.

• x4x Artillery Battery price increased from $5,900 > $6500
• x5x Pop and Awe price increased from $32,000 > 38,000

Dartling Gunner

402’s pierce increase is extremely hard to justify over fire rate which increases single target & grouped damage at the same time, so we’re giving it more pierce than it knows what to do with. Faster Swivel while a nice quality of life doesn’t add any power so also ends up difficult to justify on its own, we don’t expect this will change that too much but even faster swiveling should be much nicer for when you do desperately need that accuracy.

• 402 Plasma Accelerator pierce increased from 75 > 150
• xx1 Faster Swivel turn rate increased from 360 > 440

Super Monkey

Robo monkey still holds its own for too long, easily working into its also very powerful Tech Terror upgrade.

• x3x Robo Monkey pierce reduced from 6 > 5
• Carries up to higher tiers

Alchemist

Permabrew itself granting a range increase was annoying to prepare for and also somewhat hurt what was a very strong synergy for Chinook, so we’re taking away this bonus range but giving enough of a cash difference so that it can pair up with synergies like the Support Chinook more easily.

• 5xx Permanent Brew price reduced from $60000 > $48000
• 5xx Permanent Brew range reduced from 65 > 45

Druid

Druid of the Storm’s base pierce is being reduced to put it more in line with other group Bloon stalling supports, however at T5 MOAB-Class pierce penalties are being reduced and damage increased to reduce how much it slows down the game when purchased. Druid of the Jungle’s vine attack rate has always been possible to be influenced by buffs though the time taken to destroy any larger Bloons is simply longer than the base cooldown so this hasn’t been relevant to it, we’ve now given it a normal attack cooldown to the point where the 031 crosspath should make some difference when grabbing larger Bloons.

• 3xx Druid of the Storm pierce reduced from 30 > 24
• 5xx Superstorm ‘Super Storm’ BFB pierce penalty reduced from 19 > 14
• 5xx Superstorm ‘Super Storm’ ZOMG pierce penalty reduced from 49 > 44
• 5xx Superstorm ‘Super Storm’ damage increased from 12 > 120
• x3x Druid of the Jungle vine attack now has a rate of 2.6s

Spike Factory

Spike Factory is currently overperforming on every path, and as it also happens to have one very dominant crosspath choice we’ve opted to nerf that crosspath as an overall nerf to every path. As Spike Storm stands out even moreso than the other paths it is the only one seeing an additional price increase ontop of this.

• x2x Even Faster Production rate bonus reduced from 30% > 25%
• x4x Spike Storm price increased from $5000 > $6000

Beast Handler

Now that the many T1-3 upgrade price changes are settling we’re looking at the next tier up. It does feel deserving of a fairly high level of power compared to other dps towers however the T-rex currently offers too much for the cost so its damage is decreasing. Condor’s value spiked quite high after being hit by buffs at the same time as big buffs to Golden Eagle so its price is being appropriately adjusted upwards, however the total pierce cost for grabbing DDTs is also being halved as previously the pierce penalty it had against DDTs was being shared with the ZOMG cost and was unintentionally nerfed along with that change.

• x4x Tyrannosaurus Rex damage reduced from 30 > 26
• x4x Tyrannosaurus Rex damage range reduced from 60 > 52
• xx4 Giant Condor price increased from $7800 > $9000
• xx4 Giant Condor Ceramic pierce penalty increased from 0 > 1
• xx4 Giant Condor DDT pierce penalty reduced from 59 > 29

Obyn Greenfoot

As Druid of the Storm’s own unbuffed power has jumped up so much now we don’t feel that Obyn needs to grant quite so high a buff to it anymore so this is being reduced.

• Lv9 Tornado attack cooldown buff reduced from 30% > 25%

Captain Churchill

Churchill has propped another pillow ontop of their booster seat and is ready to do some serious damage. We felt the speed of the main cannon attack didn’t fit well for ‘a literal tank’, so main cannon damage is going up at all levels at the cost of attack speed. However even though the dps mostly averages out to something similar, this does make him more effective at utilizing his pierce and with the slower main attack the machine gun more properly performs its job of catching the faster Bloons in that downtime, so its damage is being buffed at all levels to be more helpful at this.

• Lv1 Cannon damage increased from 1 > 3
• Lv7 Cannon damage increased from 2 > 6
• Lv12 Cannon damage increased from 3 > 9
• Lv14 Cannon damage increased from 4 > 12
• Lv15 Cannon fortified damage bonus increased from 1 > 3
• Lv18 Cannon damage increased from 5 > 15
• Lv1 Cannon attack delay increased from 0.7 > 1.8
• Lv8 Cannon attack delay increased from 0.5 > 1.5
• Lv16 Cannon attack delay increased from 0.3 > 0.9
• Lv3 Armour Piercing Shells ability bonus to MOAB and Ceramic increased from 3 > 9
• Lv13 Armour Piercing Shells bonus to MOAB and Ceramic increased from 7 > 21
• Lv17 Armour Piercing Shells bonus to MOAB and Ceramic increased from 11 > 33
• Lv13 Armour Piercing Shells flat bonus damage increased from 1 > 3
• Lv17 Armour Piercing Shells flat bonus damage increased from 2 > 6
• Lv7 machine-gun damage increased from 1 > 2
• Lv12 machine-gun damage increased from 1 > 3
• Lv14 machine-gun damage increased from 2 > 4
• Lv18 machine-gun damage increased from 2 > 5

Adora

With hero power creeping up for a while now, Adora has been sitting ahead of most all other heroes due to her high level 20 potential so this max level power is being cut back

• Lv20 Ball of Light duration reduced from 20 > 15s

Sauda

Yea we see what everybody has been doing… Sauda having such a huge MOAB-Class bonus right from lv3 was silly, and this has been lowered

• Lv3 Leaping Sword bonus damage to MOAB reduced 80 > 60
• Carries up through higher tiers

Psi

To give Psi’s Lv10 more breathing room we’ve moved some of the max blowback distance down into the minimum so it stays the same on average, but now with more time before the first Bloons start to get back to the track and reach your defense again.

• Lv10 Psionic Scream knockback minimum increased from 50 > 100
• Lv10 Psionic Scream knockback maximum decreased from 300 > 250

Geraldo

Geraldo has pushed the heroes up into a whole new level of power, and tales are being sung of his ability to dodge nerfs blindfolded, but we are cracking down on some of his interactions with a little bit of QoL consistency being added back in the case of creepy idol.

• Lv1 Creepy Idol max stock increased from 2 > 4
• Lv1 Creepy Idol rounds duration reduced from 4 > 2
• Lv1 Creepy Idol rounds replenish interval reduced from 4 > 3
• Lv3 Camo Potion Duration reduced from 10 > 5
• Lv14 Camo Potion Duration reduced from 15 > 10
• Lv4 Tube of Amaz-o-glue stock replenish interval increased from 3 > 4
• Lv6 Worn Hero Cape price increased from $1500 > $1750
• Lv13 Shooty Turret damage reduced from 6 > 5
• Level 18 Genie Bottle bonus moab damage reduced from 5 > 0

Corvus

Corvus has taken some time off over the last update and his studies have now paid off! Corvus now has a greatly reduced time taken to reach max level, and his Spiritual Attunement buff has improved to grant much more power when he is not spending mana.

• XP level up requirements lowered to match Ezili’s medium curve
• Lv11 Spiritual Attunement maximum buff increased from 1.8x > 2.5x

Rosalia

We’re not jumping on any immediate changes that are too large for our latest hero, however we did want to include some quality of life tweaks & grenade damage to ceramics is increasing across the board as players noted few reasons to pick it over lasers, Aircraft efficiency’s benefit is increasing, and Scatter Missiles cooldown is being reduced so that it can meet some more common breakpoints.

• Lv2 Grenade now deals bonus to Ceramic +1
• Lv15 main grenade bonus to ceramic increased from 4 > 5
• Lv15 grenade subclusters bonus to ceramic increased from 2 > 3
• Lv3 Scatter Missile cooldown reduced from 60 > 45s
• Lv16 Scatter Missile cooldown reduced from 45 > 30s
• Lv6 Aircraft Efficiency price reduction increased from 5% > 10%
• Lv10 Kinetic Charge deploy time reduced from 2 > 1s
• Lv10 Kinetic Charge flight speed increased from 250 > 350

Event / Boss / Relic / Knowledge

Cross the Streams is a fun mechanic but largely forgotten about, so we want to see how it plays with more of a power bump.

• Cross the Streams MK pierce increased from 5 > 8
• Cross the Streams MK damage increased from 1 > 3

It’s important to us that map specific easter eggs aren’t an optimal primary dps carry, especially before they have become public knowledge as this would feel very unfair for events, since if the best way to win is built into the map that would likely become considered the ‘only’ real way to play that map. But now that these are relatively public knowledge and given the ‘entry cost’ is so high we have decided to improve upon these ones. If you didn’t know these existed, seek ye!

Dark Dungeons

Statue’s Ball

• Price considerably reduced

Encrypted

Spooky aftermath

• Quite a lot more powerful

We often talk about what’s coming next, but we consistently look at what Ninja Kiwi has done in the past. There’s more backstory to Mermonkey than we could share in the topline notes, so for those of you who read to the end, this is for you.

• The ‘Mermonkey’ name has been brought up over and over by different players over the years, and the community had already voted u/Cyliia’s Mermonkey banner into the game, so we knew there was energy around this idea!
• Design-wise, we have no interest in adding a new tower that only borrows or reskins functionality. We always want to try big ideas and push the limits of our systems and strategies. That said, while Beast Handler had a complex design and we are happy with what we managed to ship with, it’s hard to ignore the challenging functionality and ‘out of place’ comments voiced by some players.
• Mermonkey attempts to strike a balance between new and familiar. We’re sticking to our guns, avoiding that generic reskin feeling and having each path with strong potential to add interaction and strategic depth to the game in its own way, but we also feel that we have learned a lesson from our Beast Handler experiences and have created something new that fits well with existing gameplay and where we want it to go.
• Given how many players have weighed in on how a Mermonkey could work, it was especially challenging to make a design live up to those ideas yet still feel special and surprising. We hope you find that Mermonkey freshens up gameplay in several fun ways, both by itself and in combos with other Monkeys!

We’re well past the half-way mark for 2024 and feeling good about delivering the things we wanted to by this point, including getting an entire new Monkey Tower across the line on schedule and about our planning for the rest of the year. We continue to balance awesome new content alongside creativity systems that expand players’ ability to build their own gameplay, share it with the community, and share revenue through Accolades. Part of the good feels is that we’ve been able to do this work while keeping the team energy positive, being update-focused but avoiding crunch, and keeping the company stable when industry news is full of studio layoffs and closures. So please read these notes as a mid-year sincere thank you to all of our amazingly supportive players, community members, content creators, and player creators. We hope you love update 44 and are excited for what’s ahead.

• Update 45
  • Blastapopoulos returns! Expect this Boss to have abilities you might recall from Bloons Monkey City but with a massive set of BTD6 upgrades that will challenge tower selection and placement in entirely new ways. Goal is to have Blastie enabled for Boss Rush Events, too!
  • Game Editor: we’ve been working on this since Update 42, and while it is a mountain of work, we are still pushing to have the first slice of tools releasing in 45.0. We’re starting with tools focused on classic arcade play, and we already have proof of concept versions of Bloons Super Monkey and Floaty Bloon working. Fundamental game object refactoring underpins this single player-character gameplay and opens up a crazy variety of player control, setting the stage for further expansion.
  • Store Changes: we haven’t updated the Store since launch, and the longer list of items is getting confusing, especially for new players. We’ll categorize items, surface new offerings more prominently, and unwrap purchases with a bit more flair.
• Update 46
  • Tack Shooter Paragon! We’ve always known there’s a Monkey inside each one, and now we’ll all get to see what the Paragon-in-a-can can do!
  • Legends - this is our answer to player questions and business questions around BTD7. We’re not ready to build BTD7 as we see incredible technical and creative potential inside BTD6 without disrupting our awesome community. With Legends, our plan is to build challenging new content that’s worthy of being in a new game and offer it inside BTD6 for a reasonable price. PC and console players will recognize that these are DLCs (downloadable content), which are standard ways to expand content on those platforms, so we are bringing this approach across to mobile as well. Overall we’ll continue to focus updates on a huge variety of content that players get at no additional cost, but we do need to keep IAPs and DLCs coming into the game to support all of our development. Hopefully tempting, this first Legends will be a BTD rogue-lite adventure.
• PlayStation - you heard it here first: PlayStation is now live as a PS4 game (fully playable on PS5)! Huge screen BTD, streamlined controller mapping, new co-op screens, and 4 player couch coop is now ready for you. Grab some friends and play!
• Console Overall
  • PlayStation content is at parity with Xbox for cross-play, (update 32) but we already have an update well in motion! Our first console priority continues to be this content update - adding more recent maps, Heroes & skins, and other content that doesn’t require bespoke controller mapping.
  • We can’t reasonably expect Switch to ship this year because of the delays on PlayStation but we will begin work on it following the console content update.
• Next Year - stay tuned for the Update 46 notes when we’ll share some of our plans for 2025!