If you are waiting on the next Slay the Spire 2 beta patch, that time is going to an alternate Act 2 and a new character

Promising more frequent updates is common. Announcing fewer of them in advance is not. The August newsletter Mega Crit posted to Steam on August 14, 2026 does the second thing: the beta patch that had been arriving every two weeks will now come less often, and the time saved goes to an alternate Act 2 and a new character [1]. As of September 3, 2026, no announcement has followed it [3].

A sequel about building a deck and climbing a tower

Slay the Spire 2 is a deckbuilding roguelike made and self-published by Mega Crit. Each fight adds cards to a deck, the deck carries you up one floor of a tower at a time, and death sends you back to the bottom. The Steam description calls it the return of the iconic roguelike deckbuilder. It entered Early Access on March 5, 2026, meaning it is sold in an unfinished state and revised in public. As of September 3, 2026 it lists at $24.99 in the United States and includes both a solo mode and online co-op [2].

Fewer, larger drops instead of small ones

Mega Crit’s reasoning is laid out plainly. The biweekly cadence cleared a lot off the to-do list and let the studio be dynamic and experimental about changes, but doling content out piecemeal made it harder to spend time on the bigger, more impactful pieces players want most. So updates move further apart, at least for a while, with an explicit caveat: the studio cannot guarantee the exact pace, or that the pace will be regular at all [1].

Anyone waiting has one number to work with. On August 14 the studio wrote that it would be at least a month before any of the new content hit the beta branch, which puts the earliest arrival in mid-September. The beta branch is the opt-in Steam channel that serves a test build in place of the release version. The same post gave advance notice that there would be no August 27 patch, because the team was out of office for its annual break, and added that a mostly remote company benefits from meeting in person [1]. The Steam announcement list bears that out on September 3: the last beta patch notes are v0.111.0 from August 14, and nothing is dated August 27 [3].

What came off the list, and what is being held

The Roadmap Revisited section runs two lists. Added: Steam Workshop support, initial scaffolding for The Bestiary, the badge and score system, Traditional Chinese and Indonesian localization, and a large batch of new cards and relics. Actively in progress: experimental game modes, the alternate Act 2, and the new character, with the last two set in bold in the original [1].

One item on the first list is not yet visible from outside. As of September 3, 2026 the supported-language table on the Steam store page lists fourteen languages, and neither Traditional Chinese nor Indonesian is among them [2]. There is no art of the new content either. The studio said it dislikes spoilers and posted a single drawing of a foot instead [1].

Answers from the mailbag

The back half of the newsletter answers fan questions, mostly in Casey’s voice. Ascension is the difficulty ladder, where each step makes the run harder; the current thinking is that Ascension 10 sits close to the highest difficulty the sequel will have, because grinding to Ascension 20 would be a chore with a larger cast of characters. Enchantments, which bolt extra effects onto a card, are explicitly barred from stacking: one card snowballing becomes too likely, and the studio wants players doing deckbuilding rather than cardbuilding [1].

Two answers carry timing. Steam achievements arrive with the v1.0 release. Touchscreen input will most likely come in with the push for mobile ports, though no date or platform for those ports has been announced. Character outfits and recolours were called a reasonable idea, with the caveat that a small team cannot say when it would prioritise them [1].

The one deadline on the calendar

Only one item in the newsletter has a date attached for readers. The community cover art call for next month’s issue runs on the theme September in the Spire, at 800x450 pixels, with no text and room left for a title. Submissions go to fanmail@megacrit.com or the fan art channel of the official Discord, and the deadline is Thursday, September 10 [1]. The other community item has already passed: the seventh Cat Food Cup, a Chinese community tournament held on bilibili from August 8 to August 30, in which two players run the same seed and whoever climbs further and faster wins [1].

What is missing is a date. Mega Crit did not say when the next update lands, or whether the alternate Act 2 or the new character comes first. The only commitment is that the newsletter returns next month, which leaves the Steam announcement list as the place to watch [3].

Sources

[1] Mega Crit. The Neowsletter - August 2026. Steam announcement, August 14, 2026.

[2] Valve. Slay the Spire 2. Steam store, checked September 3, 2026.

[3] Valve. Slay the Spire 2 announcements. Steam news hub, checked September 3, 2026.