Demo

Read the timeline before the names

The previous and next buttons walk five public windows. The playtest comes first even though the demo app opened later: August 2025 was a short Carthage slice, and the November app stayed up until launch week.

Just under 10,000 players entered the one-week public playtest that opened on 29 August 2025. Closed beta begins 18 April 2026 and has no end date. The open beta runs from 16 July 2026 at 10:00 AM PT through 19 July 2026 at 11:59 PM PT.

What the demo app let you pick

The November 2025 demo lets you choose sword, spear, mace, or flail, then fight five Carthage battles and a boss mounted on a rhino. The May 2026 update adds Rhino and Ibex, reworks beasts already in the build, and adds the bow. Those names are on Beasts, next to the build that added each one.

That May update uses four difficulties: Pleb, Legionnaire, Centurion, and Hades. 1.0 uses ten levels. The demo quartet is not the retail list, even if a later menu reuses a word.

The May 2026 update also lets a Twitch chat vote on which affliction potion you drink. That vote belonged to the demo. 1.0 does not include a chat vote on potions.

July’s Germania weekend

The July 2026 open beta boss in Germania is Goliath, with a jump and a ground slam. 1.0 does not name him as the chapter boss. See Arenas.

The open beta adds Psychosis (hallucinated weapons), Untouchable (6 seconds of invulnerability after an execution), and the Priceless Vase (100 coins if you hold it and take no damage). It also adds the axe and puts the Surgeon between acts, where a procedure can treat an affliction or augment a skill. Every procedure has a cost. See Afflictions.

After the playtest, shields became durability pickups that stun on block, and the Trainer can injure you. That change came from playtest feedback. It is not a 1.0 damage table.

Featherweight’s Discord is https://discord.gg/3qKKQ52P4W.

Where the demo went

Demo app 3978510 is the Carthage slice from 12 November 2025: a tutorial, five battles, and the rhino-mounted boss. It left when 1.0 launched, so the retail game is the only install. May 2026 is when Rhino, Ibex, the bow, and executions arrived, and when a Twitch chat could pick an affliction potion.

Closed beta began 18 April 2026 with no end date. Open beta occupied 16 July 2026 from 10:00 AM PT through 19 July 2026 at 11:59 PM PT. The public playtest opened 29 August 2025 and lasted about one week. The combat those builds were teaching is still the retail idea: throw a weapon for range, and keep another in hand or the next swing is gone. Executions and dismemberments arrived with the closed beta and returned in the May update. The July skill Untouchable grants 6 seconds of invulnerability after an execution. That timer belongs to the skill, not to every execution in 1.0.