It's been a busy year for us here at Codename Entertainment working on Crusaders. We thought we'd take some time to look back at the last year, as well as look ahead to what's still to come in 2017.

This past year has been an exciting time to play Crusaders. We've been pumping out a never-ending stream of content, including a host of new campaigns, new events, and new Crusaders. In researching these numbers, we really came to appreciate all the hard work our designers and artists put into keeping things fresh all year round.



In 2016, we released 54 updates including:

• 13 brand new events:
• Princesses Pool Party
• The Blood Bowl
• Merci's Mix Up
• Hermit's Premature Party
• Nate's Candy Conundrum
• Superhero Spring
• Gardener's of the Galaxy
• The Song of Thrones
• Trek Through the Hidden Temple
• Alien Invasion Day
• Littlefoot's Big Adventure
• Dr. Evil's Summer Sabotage
• Sasha's Schoolhouse Scourge
• 4 events re-run with additions:
• Carnival of Sorrows
• Emo's New Moon
• Kaine's Dinner of Doom
• The Nate Before Christmas





• 43 new crusaders:
• Pilot Pam
• Queen Siri
• Groklok the Orc
• Drizzle the Dark Elf
• Rocky the Rockstar
• Sally the Succubus
• Larry the Leprechaun
• Kyle the Party Bro
• Alan the ArchAngel
• RoboRabbit
• The Bat Billionaire
• The Metal Soldierette
• Broot
• Robbie Raccoon
• Leerion, the Royal Dwarf
• Brogon, Prince of Dragons
• Montana James
• Serpent King Draco
• President Billy Smithsonian
• Kizlblyp, the Alien Traitor
• Ranger Rayna
• Littlefoot
• Veronica, the Android Archer
• Bubba, the Swimming Orc
• Karen, the Cat Teenager
• Mr. Boggins, the Substitute
• The Exterminator
• The Shadow Queen
• Greyskull the Pirate
• Gloria, the Good Witch
• Ilsa, the Insane Wizard
• Eiralon, the Blood Mage
• Mindy the Mime
• The Half-Blood Elf
• Henry, the Scaredy-Ghoul
• Fright-o-Tron 4000
• Graham the Driver
• Paul the Pilgrim
• Petra the Pilgrim
• The Dark Helper
• Robo-Rudolph





• 25 weekend buffs:
• Mischief at Mugwarts
• Cookie Crusaders
• Wibbly Wobbly Wackiness!
• Ready Player Two
• The Beasts Within
• Missions Madness
• Kick Off Summer
• Father's Day Weekend!
• Mobile Launch Weekend!
• Tasty Summer Talents
• Natalie's Gold Medal
• Midsummer Meditation
• Schoolhouse Rock
• Legendary Weekend
• Autumn's Upon Us
• Off-Week Offense
• Canadian Turkey Weekend
• Octoberfun Objectives
• Emo's Weekend Wonder
• Tiered Up Trouble
• Veteran's Remembrance
• Chilly November Nights
• The Great Darkness
• Clowning Around
• White Christmas
• 4 new campaigns:
• Mischief at Mugwarts
• Ready Player Two
• Idols Through Time
• Amusement Park of Doom
• 1702 new monsters
• 562 new pieces of loot
• 1050 new areas and quests
• 221 new objectives (including events and tiers)
• 26 Talents to spend idols on!
• Tier 2 and 3 objectives!
• An entire mobile version of the game!
• Missions! Including missions to obtain event crusaders and gear!
• 157 chest code giveaways via email, partners, treasure hunts, and more!
• 196 change logged bug fixes, including some significant performance improvements.

Phew! That lists make me tired just looking at it.

So how can we possibly top that in 2017? Well, we've got a few ideas up our collective sleeves, and since this is the season of giving, we thought we'd share one of them with you now. Take a look at these bad boys:


What are these brilliant beauties? They're LEGENDARY ITEMS, a new tier of loot coming to Crusaders in early 2017. You'll be able to upgrade your existing Epic items into Legendary items in our long awaited crafting update. Legendary Items have an additional unique effect, on top of their boosted epic effect, which can be leveled up multiple times to be even more powerful! These items represent the most significant increase in Crusader power since the Talents update earlier this year.

If you want to get prepared early to deck out your favorite Crusader with Legendary items, you'll need to make sure you've got the slots you want to upgrade filled with purple epic-y goodness. We'll be releasing more details about these items and how you get them in an update closer to the release of the crafting patch.

That's all we've got for you today! We hope you have a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year! See you in 2017!

It's that time of year again when thoughts turn to family, presents under the Christmas tree, turkey dinners, and giant twin swords to destroy unrelenting hordes of monsters.

Today we launch The Nate Before Christmas 2016 with both the original Crusaders for new players to unlock and two new Crusaders for advanced and veteran players.

As well as the repeat event and picking up RoboSanta and Frosty the Snowman if you don't already have them, players who get through the Tier One objectives will be able to tackle the more challenging Tier Two objectives. Their reward for beating them will be two new Crusaders to add to the team in the form of The Dark Elf Helper and Robo-Rudolph.

Note: Since the new 'You've Been Naughty' objective was just added this year, players who completed this event last year will need to do it before starting the Tier Two objectives, so be sure to save up 2,500 Tokens before resetting!

This new Tier One objective will see the Crusaders beset with coal monsters. These charcoal beasts reduce your gold find to zero for as long as they are on the screen and for an additional extra second after you kill them.

For the veteran or hard-working players who have completed all the Tier One objectives, the new objectives require you to purchase the Tier Two talent Do it Again in the Talents shop.

New Tier Two Crusader: The Dark Helper

Once unlocked you can tackle the five new objectives. The first of them is 'Recruit the Dark Helper.' The Dark Helper is an elf (natch) who temporarily knocks out the front two Crusaders. For 10 seconds they'll be put to sleep and reduce their DPS and disable all their formation abilities to 1 all the way to 300.

New Tier Two Crusader: Robo-Rudolph

'Recruit Robo-Rudolph' requires you escort the malfunctioning reindeer to area 300 where he will be serviced. Until you reach the workshop, he'll short circuit and debuff three random Crusaders to zero in the formation for up to 15 seconds.

New Tier Two Objective: Presents.

The 'Presents' objective is the equivalent of Christmas morning as you anxiously eye the wrapped boxes under the Christmas tree. Is that box a pair of socks or the brand new X-Station console? When you kill the present monsters, they'll randomly buff or debuff your Crusaders all the way to area 400. You won't know what the effect will be until you take the wrapping paper off.

New Tier Two Crusader: Let It Snow.

The penultimate new objective is 'Let It Snow.' Drifts of snowflakes will accumulate on random slots in the formation. The drifts will get larger and will reduce the DPS of the affected Crusaders by 1% up to a maximum of 100%. If you can dig yourself out in time and complete the area the debuff is reset to zero. You're going to need a snow shovel to make it to area 400.

New Tier Two Crusader: Robo-Christmas.

The final new objective is 'Robo-Christmas.' Only robot and Christmas-y Crusaders are available for selection to beat area 500.

Equipment for both Tier 1 and 2 Crusaders can be found in Christmas Silver and Jeweled Chests, which you can earn from objectives or buy in the shop. However, gear for the Tier 2 Crusaders will only appear once you've unlocked the respective Crusader.

Once you have enough tickets, you'll have until December 27th at Noon PST to complete the event before the holidays will be done for another year.

We are delighted to announce that Crusaders of the Lost Idols has been included in the Yogscast Jingle Jam 2016 Humble Bundle.

For the whole month of December, the Yogscast team have organized to give away 31 Steam games and DLC add-ons as part of their annual Jingle Jam event with all the proceeds going directly to charity!

This year’s charities are:

Mental Health Foundation

Cancer Research UK

ILGA

Whale and Dolphin Conservation

Special Effect

GamesAid

The first 75,000 people to donate $30 or more will get all 31 games, including our very own Legendary DLC pack for Crusaders of the Lost Idols.

To celebrate we've also created a special boss monster, Honeydew the Dwarf. For those of you unfamiliar with Honeydew, he is based on Yogscast celebrity and long-standing YouTuber Simon Lane.

Honeydew the Dwarf.

Simon Lane.

Honeydew can be found in the Amusement Park of Doom campaign. You'll find Honeydew starting at area 40, and he'll appear every 100 areas from then on.

Please help support a great cause and, of course, enjoy the hilarious shenanigans from the Yogscast team this holiday period.

You can watch the festivities live on Twitch here, and you should check out all their YouTube channels by going here.

Detective Kaine's mother is at it again in Kaine's Dinner of Doom 2016. Her amazing Thanksgiving recipes are just too tempting, and things have gone awry again.

Kaine's brilliant scientist mother decided to apply her vast scientific knowledge to her culinary skills but didn't stop to think if she should!

Now the Kaine mansion is awash with various foodstuffs intent on making the Crusaders choke on them. Or more to the point, choke the Crusaders to death.

You can read about the two Crusaders, Momma Kaine and Roboturkey and the original two companion objectives here.

If you've already beaten last year's event, we're also introducing two new Crusaders and three new, harder objectives this year. These are available once you've completed the Tier 1 objectives and unlocked the Tier 2 talent.

New Objective: Attack of the Turkeys

There's a new Tier 1 objective, Attack of the Turkeys, to beat first. The feathered fiends have had enough of Thanksgiving, and different types of turkeys attack your formation. Don't let the fact they all look the same fool you, they'll be pulling out all the dirty tricks to avoid ending up on the dinner table.

New Crusaders: Paul and Petra Pilgrim.

The first of the two Crusaders is Paul the Pilgrim. He's an elf (because the Pilgrims were elves, okay) who shares a lot with Jason, Master of Shadows. You're going to have escort him all the way to area 300 while he wipes out your Gold Find by 100%. However, for every monster you kill, the debuff will shrink by 1%.

Petra the Pilgrim is also an elf who also came over on the Mayflower and shares a slot with Merci. Again, you're going to have to beat area 300 while she hampers your monster killing by redirecting your DPS to the furthest monster.

New Objective: Feast or Famine.

The remaining three new objectives starts with Feast or Famine where your Gold Find and DPS oscillate between zero and buffed all the way to area 400.

The Blood Harvest objective reduces your DPS to zero (there's a theme here!) in every non-boss area while Blood Glob monsters swarm you to area 450, apparently anxious to get to Thanksgiving dinner. Killing a Blood Glob causes one of your Crusaders to recover their DPS again.

New Objective: Doubleheader.

The final new Tier 2 objective is Doubleheader. Football players assail your Crusaders with random types of attack. You'll just have to wait and see. Beat area 500 and put the ole pigskin in the end zone. Score.

Can you stop the killer food before it's too late? Or will the enhanced tryptophan slow you down?

You have until Tuesday November 29th at Noon PST to control the madness!