After the... tumultuous events of Sands of Secrets, I imagine that Seasun is looking to make a recovery an end the year off strong. How do they plan on doing this? Let's take a look and find out what they've got in store for us.

New Operative: Bubu - The Geomancer

• Bubu - The Geomancer preview
• Featured weapon: Gilded Blaze preview
• Featured logistics set: Halo Squad preview

If there ever was a character that could provide a strong return to form for Seasun's character design department, I think this would be it. Her kit has somehow managed to avoid the increasingly-stale gameplay loop of building up resources to deal large amounts of burst damage with that' plagued almost every modern DPS to date, instead looking to be more of a sustained damage dealer.

Now, I do have my concerns about her getting the Agave treatment and not being allowed to passively regenerate S-Energy while also being reliant on it to boost her damage. But if she can perform well despite that, it'll be a big win for ballistic damage enjoyers after the relative disappointment that was Fritia - Turbo.

Reruns

Eatchel - The Cub

While she had a pretty rough start on her initial release, Eatchel's stock has only been going up since then. Players looking for a strong ATK buffer would do well to consider picking up both her and her signature weapon, Blitzing Fangs. And yes, she still heals real good.

Katya - Dawnwing

...Back so soon?

After just one patch, Katya returns to finish the job of taking all your Digicash so you can make her damage numbers go up. She's been slowly taking over Neural Sim, racking up fast times and even quite a few world records. Just make sure you can afford the relatively steep investment cost required to do so.

Check out the in-depth Katya - Dawnwing guide and review here.

Event Game Modes

The big new debut here is Supreme Battleground, a Neural Simulation-like event that headlines this update. I'm looking forward to it, and hopefully it doesn't disappoint. You can see more details about this event here.

As for the other events, it seems that Seasun has once again changed up their event scheduling strategy, this time going for a gradual release of new game modes every few days. We'll see well how it works. The double-co-op combo of Endless Battle and Containment Protocol are back, and are the other main thing you'll be doing this update. Hero Games anchors the back half of the update as usual, and Seven-Day Carnival makes a return with new minigames including a third-person Zuma clone that looks way more fun than it has any right to be.

Interestingly enough, Brave Squad doesn't make an appearance for the first time since it was introduced over a year ago. Whether it's a one-time thing or a more permanent discontinuation, we'll have to see.

Skins

In my opinion, the star of this event's outfit offerings is Cherno - Enigma's Dual Tranquility, which also has a weapon skin available. This is also the case for the other premium skin this update, Eatchel - The Cub's Prowl and Pounce.

Katya - Dawnwing takes the battlepass outfit slot, featuring the outfit from a certain infamous segment of Snowbreak's first anniversary livestream.

There is notably no skin for Bubu this update, as the rushed production schedule from remaking large portions of 2.3 likely didn't give Seasun quite enough time to have one ready to go. Maybe next update.

Maintenance

Seasun seems to have finally committed to a set maintenance time after shifting it around in previous patches. It's scheduled for December 19 at 9:50AM, UTC+8 (convert to your time zone here). Maintenance rewards are as usual: 420 Digicash, 25,000 Silverbucks, and a 60AP stamina refill.

Lyfe, Eatchel, and Nita are getting their CN VAs replaced, in what should be one of the last few replacements to take place. As well, there are some optimizations for improved controller support.

The big announcement hidden here, however, is news of a logistics reroll pity system coming in 2.5 (next update) that will apparently give you a token that can be used to pick a specific basic stat (which I believe is Seasun-ese for the first two stats) after enough rerolls done with the upcoming logistics stat rerolling mechanic coming this update. Rerolls done now will count towards it, so there's no reason not to chase your dreams of having perfect stats on your logistics pieces.

That's it for here. Remember not to eat weird mushrooms you see in the wild.