Chained Beasts

What a 1.0 run contains

1.0 is 9 battles across 3 acts, then a final encounter, on 10 difficulty levels. The chapter order is Carthage, then Germania, then Rome. Rome’s boss is Praefectus, backed by the Praetorian Guard. Bosses along the way are arena heroes with the advantage, and a win moves the crew closer to Rome, freedom, or revenge. Chapter differences are on Arenas.

The genre is Action, and the game is paid. The price table, the day-one stores, and the PC and Mac minimums are on Launch.

A 1.0 run holds 70+ afflictions, 70+ skills, and 40+ items. Three afflictions have rules you can plan around: Annoying, Impulsive, and Infatuated. Read those on Afflictions before you build around a wound you only saw in a trailer.

The launch video shows how a fight looks. The platform video on Launch shows the stores that opened. The older gameplay trailer is on Demo. Watch the one that matches the question: the current combat, the platforms, or the earlier cut.

Who is in the party

You can go in alone or with up to four friends. Online play includes cross-play, and you can also share one couch. The chain is the party’s physical link: someone who wanders off pulls the rest of the crew, and a tangled chain can wrap a pillar. Same-screen play needs a gamepad. Linux is not supported. Those limits are on Chains.

1.0 unlocks 8 beasts plus variants with different stats, abilities, and cosmetics. Rhino and Ibex are the two named beasts. The named weapons are sword, spear, mace, flail, bow, and axe. The roster is on Beasts.

What comes after launch week

On 12 October 2026, before the doors opened, wishlists stood at 200k. December brings update 1.1 with no calendar day: a new arena, a new boss, a new weapon, and new enemies. Fighting friends is a hope for the first quarter of 2027. The schedule is on Roadmap.

Public builds came first. A Carthage demo, a one-week playtest with just under 10,000 players, a closed beta, and a July open beta each added weapons, beasts, and bosses. The demo used four difficulty names: Pleb, Legionnaire, Centurion, and Hades. Retail uses ten levels, and those four names are not the retail list. Keep the builds apart on Demo.

The game has 60 achievements. Ten names are featured, from Test Subject through L. Their order is on Achievements. Unlock steps for those ten have not been announced.

Directors and the jam

Tim Kaldor and Dylan Bevis direct Chained Beasts at Featherweight Games. The project began as a 48-hour jam named Enterchained, drawn from the chained fight in Gladiator, then sat for about six months before the studio returned to it. The shipped game is that later project, not the jam build.

A day in the arena can leave a limp, a missing eye, or hallucinations only you can see. Potions ease pain and can leave a worse affliction. Between acts, surgery is the other option. Experience teaches skills, saved coins buy equipment and weapons, and a crowd you have won backs the crew. Each run takes a different path.