Season 4: Alien Invaders

Take Me To Your Crew Leader

Reports are coming in all over the city. UFO sightings in the skies. Increased military presence on the ground. Smoke rising from Overland Farms. ALIENS ARE INVADING KNOCKOUT CITY!

Ready for another high-octane Season jam-packed with Special Events, experimental game modes, a wild new map, mysterious Deep Space Dispatches, and tons of new cosmetics that are literally out of this world? Season 3 set a new bar for what to expect out of each Season of Knockout City, and Season 4 is on track to raise that bar even higher. So, strap on those moon boots and take a giant leap into all that’s coming up in Season 4: Alien Invaders!

Alien Smash Site

Overland Farms provides much of the fresh foods (and Scarecrow Bots) found throughout Knockout City. Its tranquil country lifestyle on the outskirts of the city limits has been majorly disrupted by the sudden appearance of an alien mothership hovering over the destruction caused by several UFOs shot down by the KO City Defense Force! Take this opportunity during the hubbub to get up close and personal with the crashed alien technology for an intergalactic dodgebrawling experience in the new map, Alien Smash Site.

As you tour through Overland Farms, hovering high above its patchwork of crops, you’ll encounter several UFOs smashed into barns, silos, generators, and even the poor farmer’s house. From each UFO, small hovering Saucers have emerged that brawlers can actually jump onto and ride around the map! This is the ultimate way to fly, allowing you to fully charge up your shots without slowing down, and to zip around the map creating your own shortcuts across gaps and up to higher ledges.

Oh, you want that ball just sittin’ there on the ground below you? No need to hop off your Saucer… Just hover over it to abduct the ball right off the earth and into your hands. And yes, this works for Ballform teammates and Cage Balled opponents as well!

The KODF Responds!

The KO City Defense Force has been mobilized to respond to the alien threat in our first Special Event of Season 4. The KODF will be equipping you with more information in the coming days, but you’ll have to stay tuned to find out what Police Commissioner Chase has in store for you when we announce details on Conflict Escalation soon.

Friend or Foe?

How much of a threat are these intergalactic visitors? Is the KO City Defense Force going too far? Head to the Brawl Shop to check out two new Bundles and pick your allegiance. Will you go with the Close Encounter Bundle, featuring the new Legendary Alien Voice, the Legendary Mind Binder Hairstyle, and the brand new UFO Crew Vehicle? Or will you choose the KO City Defense Force Bundle to equip the official KO City Defense Force Outfit, Tactical Glasses, Crew Logo, and more?

Keep checking back throughout the Season for even more exciting cosmetics, UFOs, and specially themed Bundles.

New Brawl Pass

Get to the bottom of exactly why these aliens have chosen Knockout City as their point of first contact by unlocking new Deep Space Dispatches in the Season 4 Brawl Pass. This is your opportunity to dig deeper into the lore around the Alien Invaders and Knockout City in general. Deep Space Dispatches are unlockable for FREE by leveling up the Brawl Pass, but if you want the best cosmetics and the ability to level up much faster, then consider the PREMIUM offering.

Once again, the Premium Brawl Pass offers over 100 rewards, from Outfits, to Poses, Ultimate Throws, Taunts, Style Chips, new Diamond Contracts, and so much more. You can even once again earn enough Holobux to buy next Season’s Premium Brawl Pass (with enough left over to spend in the Brawl Shop). These special space and alien themed cosmetics are ONLY available in the Brawl Pass for Season 4, so don’t miss your opportunity to earn it all, especially that Legendary Alien Invader Outfit. (Have you seen that thing Ball Up?? GROSS!)

Premium Brawl Pass players can also earn an extra special treat at Level 5: The Plumbob Hairstyle straight out of The Sims! We are having a blast with all these special EA crossover cosmetics and can’t wait to see the Plumbob darting through the battlefield. Just, you know, don’t pair it with the “Woohoo” Taunt, okay? We have a family-friendly rating to keep!

S4 League Play

By popular demand, Team KO is BACK in League Play! In case you missed the in-depth breakdown of all the major changes coming to Season 4 of League Play, here’s a quick summary of all that was covered, plus a few new bits of information:

• Team KO is back as the focus of League Play in Season 4.
• Team Elimination is back into the Daily Playlist rotation, and has picked up some new polish and balancing improvements to the Danger Zone and ball/player spawning behavior (which has also been propagated to all modes that use the Danger Zone).
• At Diamond Rank, Skill Rating (SR) ties are now decided by Win Spread, which is your total number of wins at Diamond minus your total number of losses at Diamond.
• ALL players now start at Skill Rating 0 when they first reach Diamond, putting everyone at even footing when they first arrive.
• The amount of bonus SR players receive (or lose) based on their MMR value has been significantly reduced, further reducing any unfair advantages while still subtly rewarding players with better win/loss records in ranked play.
• Exclusive new Season 4 cosmetics are available to earn for each Rank Tier in League Play, including bonus Player Icons and Holobux for brawlers that place in the top 1000/500/100/50/10/5/4/3/2/1 places on the Leaderboard.

Pom-Passer Energy Drink

We hope you’ve been focusing on your teamwork, because Season 4’s new Energy Drink will only reward you for PASSING. Gulp down a POM-PASSER Energy Drink to earn 15 XP for every HIT made by a teammate using a ball that YOU PASSED TO THEM! So if you’re one of those jerk-faces that scream “PASS TO ME!” the moment each round starts but then never gives it up in return, there’s no better time to change your jerk-facey ways. Pom-Passer is best paired with a teammate using last Season’s Orange Overcharge, to help avoid the “After you.” “No, after YOU.” “NO! AFTER YOU!” politeness that will inevitably arise with this new drink! It also pairs well with a nice Chicken Marsala. Yum!

On a side note: Why 15 XP per hit? Well, this is an experiment to make Energy Drinks more fun, effective, and rewarding to use. Energy Drinks typically reward 25 XP for KO Finishes only. But sometimes it’s frustrating to perform the right action just as the final hit, resulting in less bonus XP than originally intended. By giving you 15 XP for every HIT you make, that opens up the possibility of doubling the number of successful actions and MORE than doubling the amount of potential XP you can earn. Let us know what you think of how this works for the Pom Passer, and we may propagate this change to other Energy Drinks!

...And More!

There are too many other additions and improvements to cover here, so be sure to head over to the Update 4.0 Patch Notes when they go live on December 7th to read through the complete list. Here are just a few highlights to look forward to when Season 4 starts.

• Improved Camera Sensitivity setting for controllers. Snappier and a little faster, this is the first step to adding even faster speeds in a future update coming soon.
• Increased look-up angle. Players can now look up at a much steeper angle than before, improving vertical combat for players on the ground and allowing for better counter-play against high-flying brawlers (a.k.a. the "AC-130 strat").
• Reduced Contract difficulty. We’ve used community feedback and game data to analyze Contracts and reduce their difficulty across several categories. Contracts are designed to span an array of difficulties, time investments, and activities. So each “group” of contracts, from Daily, to Crew, to Brawl Pass, to Events, etc., all contain easy, medium, and hard contracts to cater to different types of players and Crew sizes, and to provide both quick wins and substantial rewards for those that invest the time. We’ve brought down the difficulty and time investment required in a lot of the more difficult contracts, especially Crew Contracts, while maintaining our basic philosophy. We know we probably haven’t gotten them all right just yet, so please sound off on which ones specifically seem unfair in the #tell-us channel of the official Knockout City Discord so we can continue to find the right balance of challenge and fun.
• For the first time, we are increasing the length of our Seasons. Season 4 will be 12 weeks long, giving players more time to breathe between Special Events and more time to balance between League Play and other activities.

If you thought Season 3 was big, Season 4 is even bigger, with more to do, more to earn, and more variety than ever. Knockout City ain’t slowing down, so crack those knuckles, charge those controllers, and get ready to dig into a whole new universe of possibilities in Season 4: Alien Invaders! And, if you want to get in on the first look at this new Season, tune in tonight at 5:30pm ET as we show off Alien Invaders live on Twitch!