Mechabellum, the sci-fi auto battler where you draft mech armies, arrange their formations, then watch the fight play out hands-off, has rolled out its biggest change since launch. The 2.0 update landed on September 22, 2026, and it bolts on what the developer describes as an entire second game: a roguelite mode called Star Expedition, a new mech named the Centurion, and a free-to-play entry point. Anyone who already owns the game gets all of it at no extra cost.
Quick answer: Mechabellum 2.0 is live now. It adds the solo and co-op Star Expedition roguelite mode, the Centurion mech, and a free Steam edition, with existing owners updated automatically.
The base game still works the way it always has. You and an opponent take turns drawing sci-fi units, spend resources placing them on the grid, and then start an automatic battle. When one army dies, the next round begins with everyone’s previous placements repaired and back on the field. You can see what your opponent did last round, but not what they plan next, which is where the mind games start. Version 2.0 keeps that core and builds around it.
What Star Expedition mode is
Star Expedition is the centerpiece of the update. It is a roguelite campaign you can play alone or in two-player co-op, and the goal is to conquer nine planets in a row. Instead of fighting a live opponent, each battle pits you against a mirrored army build pulled from a real player’s recent run somewhere in the world. You are up against their units, not the person, so it plays more like a puzzle: you see what they fielded, then put down the best counters.
The mode drops the round timer entirely. Battles are asynchronous, so you get unlimited planning time to work out placements and upgrades without a countdown pushing you. Every expedition also drops loot you can equip to gain an edge on your next attempt, and there are three separate leaderboards to climb: World Rank, Division Rank, and a Friends-only board. In two-player co-op, each commander leads their own army onto a shared battlefield, so you coordinate deployments while keeping control of your own units.
Under the hood, the mode introduces 42 new Reinforcements and 27 new Assets, and the developer plans to move suitable pieces of that content into Standard Versus later. Two features are missing at launch: you cannot save and quit partway through an expedition, and there is no lobby spectating yet. Both are planned for future updates.
How a solo expedition run unfolds
A run starts before the first shot. You configure a loadout of depot items that grant passive effects for the whole expedition. Examples include the Battlefield Piggy Bank, which hands you extra supplies equal to 20% of the previous turn’s leftovers, the Modification Blueprint, which cuts portable tech costs by 100, and the Self-built shed, which raises your population cap by 1 every turn but blocks buying cap directly. Each item has a load cost, so you balance what you bring.
After launch, choose a starting squad and move across a planetary network of nodes, fighting AI formations that grow stronger as you progress. You can begin with just one Steel Ball and two Fangs. Placement is crucial: units generally stay where you put them between rounds, unless you purchase and activate Redeployment at the Research Center. Energy towers add a hazard; destroy one and units within its radius are stunned temporarily.
Between rounds you get one Reinforcement card from three options, or you can skip the pick for extra supplies. You also buy new squads from the shop, level up existing units, add tech modifications, and upgrade your two core structures, the Command Center and the Research Center. Reinforcements range from equipment bundles to full units, including free Titans like the Mountain, a massive robot with over 100,000 HP. Cards such as Coordinated Operations reward variety, granting +20% attack and HP once you field five different unit types.
Units are sorted into weight tiers that shape how you build. Light units include the Crawler and Fang, Medium covers picks like the Arclight, Vortex and Steel Ball, Heavy holds the Rhino and Tarantula, Giant spans the Fortress, Vulcan and Overlord, and the Titan tier tops it off with the Mountain, War Factory and Abyss. Losing every hull integrity life ends the expedition. A demonstrated solo run closed out at four planet wins after falling in Round 8, posting an expedition score of 571 and the Vanguard-Death Knell as spoils of war.
The Centurion mech and its weapon modes
The Centurion is the new unit, and it is built to be flexible. Its default precision rifle handles long range, but its tech tree lets it dual-wield rifles for mid-range suppression or switch to a heavily armored melee mode. In melee mode it drains its magazine, then charges enemy lines to impale targets, trading ranged fire for a big survivability and damage spike.
| Tech | Effect |
|---|---|
| Range Enhancement | Range increased by 40m |
| Melee Mode | After 20 rounds, switches to melee: +18 speed, +300% HP and ATK, +0.8s attack interval, 9m splash |
| Dual Wield | Attacks two enemies at once, but range drops by 25 |
| Summon Hounds | Summons 2 same-level Hounds at battle start |
| Tracking Missiles | 4 missiles every 5s, 800 damage each, 60–160m range |
| Reactive Armor | Incoming damage is lowered by 80%, for as many as 5 hits. |
A follow-up patch, 2.0.0.1, already adjusted the mech. Its base attack rose from 1,401 to 1,500, and the cost of Melee Mode dropped from 200 to 100, because early data showed the Centurion was slightly underpowered. That patch also fixed a bug where its rifle failed to consume ammo correctly under EMP.
Mechabellum Free Edition and its limits
Alongside 2.0, the game went mostly free-to-play. A separate “Play Mechabellum – Free Edition” button now sits on the Steam store page, and free players get access to the vast majority of the content. Progress carries over if you later upgrade to the paid version. The full unlock recently sold for £12.79 / $15 during a 40% launch discount, with a wider anniversary sale cutting the game 40% through October 9, 2026.
The Free Edition does carry a handful of restrictions compared with the paid game:
- Limited access to public chat
- Smaller Star Expedition warehouse capacity
- Slower acquisition of cosmetic rewards
- Reduced Tech Point unlock speed
- Half of Standard Battle Contract rewards locked, plus a 40,000 credit cap
Buying the full game lifts every one of those limits and hands over nine Full Game Benefits, including a Depot Capacity boost, a 300% account leveling speed bump, and several exclusive cosmetics. You can grab the free version or the full game from its Steam store page.
Battle Contracts, seasons, and balance changes
Cosmetic and seasonal progression moved to a new Battle Contract system, and it comes in two flavors. The Standard Battle Contract is free for everyone and pays out rewards simply for playing in any mode; the first one is the 2nd Anniversary Contract, with new rewards added every few weeks. The purchasable Elite Battle Contract grants three skins instantly and unlocks more through play, never expires, and launched at $11.90 each (reduced to $7.14). The update shipped four of them: Royal Phoenix, Royal Sabertooth, Dieselpunk Overlord, and Dieselpunk Steel Ball. A Golden Age Edition bundle packages all four with the Premium Edition for $59.90 ($35.90 during the promotion).
Season 9 arrives with 2.0, and seasonal rewards are now fully separated from Combat Power, so ranked play reflects skill rather than gating cosmetics. The update also folded old panels into a single Career screen, added collectible loading screens, a Friends leaderboard, and a Hangar revamp that lets you rotate and orbit units with the mouse buttons to inspect them.
Standard Versus got a round of tuning too. The three big Battlefield Powers, Nuke, Lightning Storm, and Ion Blast, all dropped in cost but now need one round of preparation before firing. The Vortex gained more HP and attack while losing anti-swarm efficiency, the Sabertooth picked up an Anti-Air Missile tech at the cost of slightly lower base stats, and the Crawler took a small nerf to rein in its high pick rate. New equipment like Secondary Laser Sights, Fire Control Systems, and Heavy Armor, along with an Equipment Expansion card that raises a unit’s equipment slots to two, rounds out the arsenal for competitive play.
