BALL x PIT's Risen Ballbylon expansion lands 12 November
BALL x PIT gets its first paid expansion on 12 November, and Risen Ballbylon sends the lift up into the sky instead of down into the pit.
Kenny Sun and Friends are taking BALL x PIT in the only direction left: up. Risen Ballbylon is the game's first paid expansion and it lands on 12 November, announced during the PC Gaming Show Tokyo Direct broadcast on 20 September. The lift that used to grind down into a meteor crater now climbs into a floating city above it.
The expansion marks a change of commercial tack as much as a change of scenery. The developer's own Steam post opens with the numbers: one year after release, two million copies sold and three free content updates behind it. Naturalist was billed as the final free update in August, so Risen Ballbylon is where the studio starts charging for the next layer of the game.
Where it goes, and who is allowed in
Risen Ballbylon floats high in the sky, and each level of it is a layer of the former city, with a population warped by whatever the meteor did to it. There is one hard condition attached: the expansion's content only unlocks after you complete the base game. No new profile, no shortcut, no dipping in on a fresh save.
What is actually in it
Four new battlefields, each with its own boss, and more than 40 new enemies to break them in. Eight new characters, including the Sentinel, who can aim in any direction, The Stonewaller, whose balls warp to the opposite side of the arena the first time they hit a wall, and The Right Hand Man, whose shots do double damage off the right wall and half off the left. Twenty-four new balls to fuse, 45 new passives — Lucky Coin, Eldritch Gauntlet and Vampire's Kiss among them — and 20 new buildings for the homestead.
The Steam listing gives the expansion a 12 November date and names Kenny Sun and Friends with Devolver Digital, on Windows and macOS. There is no price on the UK store page yet, so the cost is the one number worth waiting for before you get excited.
Our opinion
Gating an expansion behind finishing the base game is a bold bit of gatekeeping, and it will irritate exactly the people most likely to buy an expansion on day one. It also makes a strange kind of sense for a game whose entire loop is escalation, because the new toys only mean anything once you know what a good run feels like. Three free updates and two million copies is a strong record to start charging from, and the price is the outstanding question. On the strength of the list alone, this is a proper expansion rather than a cosmetic pack, which is more than "paid DLC" usually promises.