Slay the Spire 2 Removes Act 3 Boss Doormaker in Beta Patch

The roguelike deckbuilder sequel Slay the Spire 2 has undergone a significant content revision in its latest beta patch, with developer Mega Crit removing the Act 3 boss Doormaker entirely. The update, version 0.105.0, replaces the removed encounter with a new boss named Aeonglass while simultaneously introducing a long-requested Bestiary feature accessible through the Compendium menu.

According to the official patch notes, the decision to cut Doormaker came after extensive monitoring of player feedback and performance metrics. The team stated the boss was "over the complexity threshold of what we want and had lingering issues." This admission follows months of community discourse around the encounter's mechanics, which had become a focal point for review bombing campaigns on Steam.

The removal represents a notable shift in development philosophy. Rather than iteratively adjusting Doormaker's abilities, Mega Crit opted to start fresh with Aeonglass. As reported by Eurogamer, the developer acknowledged that while Doormaker "had interesting micro decisions in the fight," the complexity created friction that outweighed the design benefits.

Independent coverage from IGN contextualizes this within the broader Early Access landscape. The game has faced persistent review bombing tied to balance changes, with English reviews remaining "very positive" while overall Steam reviews sit at "mostly negative" due to regional voting patterns.

The Bestiary addition addresses a common player request for centralized enemy information. Currently, it functions as an outline—showing monster portraits and animations without full data implementation. Players can navigate through entries using keyboard shortcuts (1-8 keys), though the feature remains skeletal compared to its intended final form. It's still an outline of what it will end up being, per the developer's own warning.

Beyond the headline changes, the patch includes substantial balance adjustments across all characters. The Silent's Blade of Ink card received a nerf to its Inky enchantment damage, dropping from +2 to +1. The Regent's Sword Sage card was reworked to grant Replay 1 instead of additional hits, creating new synergy with the Parry card. The Defect saw multiple buffs including Hyperbeam damage increases and Shatter now evoking all Orbs twice.

Mega Crit also announced a structural change to their development cadence. The team moved from weekly to bi-weekly patching to reduce internal pressure and allow more time for polishing. This may be a bit surprising as the first game patched weekly, but it was a lot of work so it really sucked, according to the developer's blunt assessment. The slower rhythm should give beta players more time to absorb changes and provide meaningful feedback.

Relic adjustments include a complete rework of Tezcatara's Pumpkin Candle, which now extinguishes after five combats rather than at Act 3's start and can be kindled at rest sites. Three new Neow relics were added: Kaleidoscope grants cross-character card rewards, Fishing Rod upgrades random cards every three combats, and Silken Tress enchants first card rewards with Glam.

Technical improvements address several pain points. Save file corruption after crashes or power outages has been fixed, along with controller navigation issues in shops and rest sites. The game no longer rapidly switches between controller and mouse detection modes—a change that should eliminate the frustrating input lag many controller players experienced (a problem that has plagued users for years, frankly).

Audio additions include new background music for Soul Fysh and Kaiser Crab, plus additional sound effects for Hyperbeam. Visual updates cover multi-hit animations for Corpse Slug, unstun animations for Rock Bowlbug, and corrected hitboxes for Gremlin Mercenary combat encounters.

The patch also includes translation fixes across German, Spanish variants, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Thai, and Turkish. These updates matter for a global audience navigating complex card text and relic descriptions during actual gameplay.

Whether players actually prefer Aeonglass over the removed Doormaker remains the real question. The Bestiary will need substantial content before it becomes genuinely useful rather than a placeholder screen. And the bi-weekly patch schedule means fewer opportunities for rapid iteration on balance issues that emerge post-launch.

For now, beta testers can evaluate these changes while the broader community waits for full Early Access rollout. The decision to cut rather than fix Doormaker suggests Mega Crit prioritizes long-term design coherence over short-term player attachment to specific encounters. That's a pragmatic choice, even if it means some fans will mourn the loss of a boss they'd grown to enjoy.

Artūras Malašauskas is an AI Systems Integrator with 20+ years of production-grade web engineering experience. He has designed, shipped, and scaled enterprise Python/PHP systems for logistics, SaaS, and public-sector clients. For the past year, he has focused exclusively on AI integrations: deploying open-source LLMs, building generative media pipelines (image, audio, video), and engineering multi-agent workflows for real production environments. His standard: reproducibility, security, cost-efficient inference—no vaporware. He documents and evaluates emerging AI tooling, separating verified capabilities from marketing noise. Technical editor at: muza-ai.eu, ai-verslas.lt, ai-naujinos.lt Connect on LinkedIn