Slay the Spire 2 has placed what Mega Crit calls its biggest Early Access update yet onto its public beta branch. Update v0.113.0 introduces The Fool, the first character added during the sequel’s Early Access period, and pairs that arrival with two modes designed for sharply different kinds of runs: the deckbuilding-first Blitz and the punishing, heavily gated Dread.
It is a substantial moment for a roguelike deckbuilder that has been in Early Access since March. New cards and balance adjustments can reshape a run, but a new playable character potentially changes the game’s decision-making at a much deeper level: what resources matter, which rewards are attractive, what risks are worthwhile and how a deck’s core strategy comes together.
There is an important caveat for anyone rushing to meet the new arrival at the Spire’s front door. The Fool is available in beta rather than the main branch, and Mega Crit has said it expects further content and balance work before the character is considered ready for the standard version of the game.
The Fool is Slay the Spire 2’s first Early Access character addition
The Fool is presented as a whimsical musician who wields a bow. That deliberately unusual premise is also the clearest official indication so far of the character’s flavor; players will need to discover the mechanical identity, strategies and story themselves as the beta develops.
For a deckbuilder, a character is more than a cosmetic new viewpoint. Characters ordinarily establish a different starting point for a run and invite a different approach to card choices, deck construction and combat plans. The practical consequence is that The Fool’s arrival gives experienced players a new set of questions to solve rather than merely another route through familiar encounters.
Mega Crit’s warning that content and balance changes are expected matters here. A beta character’s early strategies may be revised, cards may change and the strongest apparent combinations may not survive through to the main branch. That makes the public-beta period useful for experimentation, but less suitable for treating any early consensus as final.
How to access the public beta on Steam
Players who want to try update v0.113.0 can opt into the beta through Steam:
- Open Slay the Spire 2 in the Steam library and select its properties.
- Open the Game Versions & Betas section.
- Select public-beta from the available dropdown menu.
This is specifically the route for accessing the work-in-progress build. Players who would rather wait for a more settled version of The Fool should remain on the main branch until the character is moved there.
Related coverage includes Slay the Spire 2's Biggest Early Access Update Adds The Fool, Blitz, and Dread.
Blitz removes familiar run-planning priorities
Blitz is described as a condensed, chaotic mode focused on deckbuilding. Its most striking changes are the removal of the map, the lack of value for Gold, and Merchant stock that behaves differently from the usual expectation.
Those rules have immediate implications even without a full mechanical breakdown. In a conventional roguelike deckbuilder run, a map provides route planning: players can make informed choices around upcoming paths and weigh rewards against risks. Removing it makes the run less about plotting an ideal course and more about adapting to the structure the mode presents.
Gold, meanwhile, is normally a resource whose value is tied to future opportunities, particularly purchases. Blitz saying that Gold no longer matters strips out that familiar layer of delayed economic planning. A player cannot simply preserve currency for a later payoff if the currency has no meaningful role. The focus instead shifts toward choices that strengthen the deck immediately.
The Merchant’s altered wares add another destabilizing element. Mega Crit has not detailed exactly how those wares differ, so players should not assume the normal shopping logic applies. The mode’s name is apt: Blitz appears intended to compress a careful, route-and-economy-driven run into something faster, stranger and more directly centered on building a workable deck under unusual constraints.
In plain terms: Blitz is not just a shorter run. It changes the value of information, currency and shopping decisions, three pillars that can inform standard roguelike planning. That should make it an appealing alternative for players looking to test deck instincts without relying on the same long-horizon habits.
Dread is locked behind mastery across every character
The other addition, Dread, takes the opposite attitude. It is described as a brutally difficult mode, and access is restricted: a player must reach Ascension on every character, including The Fool, before attempting it.
Ascension is the progression benchmark named in the requirement. The key point supplied by the update is not a precise list of modifiers, but the breadth of the gate. Dread is not positioned as a mode to sample after progressing with one preferred character. It asks players to demonstrate progress across the entire roster, including the newly added beta character.
That requirement is notable for two reasons. First, it gives The Fool an immediate place in the game’s wider progression picture rather than treating the character as a detached novelty. Second, it makes Dread a long-term objective. Players interested in its challenge will need to spend time learning every available character and meeting the Ascension condition on all of them.
The timing also makes the beta status of The Fool especially relevant. As the character receives content and balance changes, the route toward Dread involving that character could evolve too. Players chasing the unlock should be prepared for an Early Access target rather than a fixed endgame finish line.
A larger-update approach begins to take shape
Earlier, Mega Crit said it was reducing the cadence of updates in order to concentrate on bigger, more impactful additions. Version 0.113.0 shows what that approach can look like: one update simultaneously expands the roster, adds a condensed variant that challenges normal deckbuilding assumptions, and establishes a demanding mode with account-wide progression requirements.
That combination gives the update distinct value for several audiences. Players who enjoy uncovering fresh synergies have The Fool. Players after a more compact and volatile format have Blitz. Players who have already built broad mastery across the cast have Dread waiting behind a high bar. It is a broader spread than an update focused solely on balance numbers or a single new system.
Slay the Spire 2 launched in March, and Mega Crit has indicated that its Early Access period may be comparable to the roughly year-and-a-half path the original game took to reach version 1.0. That is an expectation, not a firm completion schedule. Still, the scale of v0.113.0 suggests that the remaining Early Access period is intended to include significant additions rather than only maintenance work.
For now, the most useful distinction is simple: The Fool, Blitz and Dread are part of the public beta, while The Fool in particular remains subject to change before joining the main game. Players comfortable with that uncertainty can opt in on Steam and help explore the update’s new approaches to deckbuilding. Everyone else can wait for the character and its balance to settle. For more platform-side PC catalog news, see Xbox bringing 21 more original Xbox games to PC.
