News from the Arena

Patch 2.02 v9.7.7 Released!

Jun 30, 2026

Patch 2.02 v9.7.7 has been released, which resolved a critical bug + implemented several balance changes and improvements.

Patch 2.02 v9.7 Series Overview

Jun 30, 2026

Patch 2.02 prides itself on its competitive-balance tuning, bug fixes, QoL improvements, and other immersive features. Find below some of the biggest highlights of the v9.7 series patch

Patch 2.02 v9.7.6 Available for Download!

Jun 7, 2026

Patch 2.02 has been released with several fixes and improvements just in time for the upcoming tournament

Clan Wars!

May 25, 2026

Clan Wars is coming to Arena, with clan based matches, a separate clan elo ladder, and dedicated clan competition.

Eleven languages, and no more administrator prompts

Aug 25, 2026

Arena now speaks eleven languages: English, German, Russian, French, Spanish, Turkish, Dutch, Polish, Czech, Portuguese and Italian. The launcher, the Arena, the Workshop and the website are all translated. The website answers in your own language too, so a link you share opens in the language of whoever opens it. Arena picks up your Windows language the first time it starts, and you can change it any time in Settings. Your choice now follows you between the launcher and the Arena instead of being quietly reset. A few screens, including tournaments, are still English and will follow later. Arena and the launcher no longer need administrator rights. Signing in, starting a game and normal everyday use all run as your own Windows account now. The only step that still asks for permission is adding the firewall rules, and that happens once. If your game folder is not writable, Arena now repairs it for you in a single prompt, instead of failing later with an error that did not explain itself. The download is much smaller. A 546 MB component that nothing actually used has been removed. Chat no longer falls behind your typing on busy nights. On a crowded evening the friends list was being rebuilt once for every player who came online, which is what made the cursor lag. Your display name can now be up to 16 characters, instead of 10. Match results are recorded more carefully. Where two accounts shared the same in-game name, a game could previously be recorded against the wrong player. Arena now records no result at all rather than the wrong one. Quickmatch army selection works properly. Picking several armies now selects those armies, and your picks are remembered next time. Settings no longer asks you to save changes you never made. Winner claims are limited to one open claim per replay. Filing the same claim again is refused, instead of quietly adding another copy for the moderators to work through. News posts and tournaments now have readable links you can share, and every link that already exists keeps working. Tournaments have a shareable link at all for the first time. Restart Arena to update.

Quitting players are much less likely to freeze your game

Aug 18, 2026

When someone quits mid-match, the rest of you could be left stuck with the game locked up and no result recorded. That should now be much rarer. Both players need to have updated for the full benefit, and we are not going to tell you it is gone for good: the root of it sits in the game engine itself and it happens on other services too. If it still happens to you, tell us. The post-game ladder screen was often showing grey bars with no names and no ELO. It was giving up on the ladder if it took a moment to load, which at the end of a match it usually does. It now waits and fills in properly, and the list no longer starts out of position and slides into place. We were also drawing our own connection diagnostics over the corner of your game. That is gone. The small line in the bottom left with your connection status stays. Supporter colours and the heart now show up everywhere they should: your friends list, the online and in-arena lists, friend requests, the blocked list, direct messages and party labels. Before this they only appeared in chat and on the ladder. This one you get without updating. The short feedback card now has proper red to green faces, the whole face is clickable, and the grey box that used to sit over them is gone. Restart Arena to update.

Smoother arena joining, replay filters, and a few fixes you asked for

Aug 16, 2026

Joining an arena is now one clean action. Clicking an arena will not stack up multiple joins any more, the joining screen stays put if you switch arenas, and if you are blocked or suspended you get told straight away instead of waiting for it to time out. If you ever lost a game because someone dropped out, or you were suspended from an arena, you should have received a message explaining why. Those messages were silently failing to send. They work now. On your profile, your own status no longer always shows as Offline, and on the website you can filter your replays by wins or losses. The post-game ladder screen now shows ELO where there used to be three empty bars, and the player count picker for FFA games sits at the top of the setup card so you can actually see it. In the launcher you can rename a snapshot from its right-click menu, and a snapshot you just made shows up straight away instead of after a reload. Tournament organisers can now set command point factor, starting resources and whether ring heroes are enabled per tournament. Now and then the Arena will ask you a short question about how something feels. One question, five faces, and you can skip it or turn it off in settings. Restart Arena to update.

Leaving a ranked game now counts, and your connection got better

Aug 10, 2026

Leaving a ranked match now gives the win to the other side. If you press LEAVE, that is a forfeit. If your game closes on its own we only count it once the relay confirms your game actually left, so a brief hiccup will not cost you a match. You will get a notification telling you when a match was recorded as a loss. Leaving a game used to freeze the Arena on a spinner that never finished. Fixed. Connections should be steadier. There is a new way to route match traffic when a direct connection will not hold, the reconnect can now follow you if your IP changes mid-game, and the game will warn you on screen when an opponent has stopped responding instead of leaving you guessing. The friends list no longer shows people as offline while they are in a game, and games no longer sit in the live list forever after everyone has gone. Achievements with levels are now one badge showing the level you reached instead of a row of near-identical squares, and you can choose which level shows next to your name. Faction achievements are earnable in BFME1 again, and every faction and arena now has its own artwork. The post-game ladder screen shows real player names as it scrolls. Restart Arena to update.

Achievements are here

Aug 7, 2026

Achievements are live. There is a new ACHIEVEMENTS tab on your profile with 55 of them to earn, each with its own icon, and hovering any badge now tells you what it is. Your medals have moved from the STATS tab onto this new tab, so that is where to find them from now on. You can put achievements in your name row. Open Settings and pick auto, manual or off. Auto keeps your best ones on show, manual lets you choose, and supporters get an extra slot. You now get told when you earn something. Achievements, medals and ladder resets never sent a notification before. Direct messages sent while you were offline were being lost completely, and they now reach you when you come back. The website has a notification centre of its own, plus your badges and your past seasons. Settings has been reorganised into groups so related things sit together. You can change your password and log out everywhere from inside the Arena now. On the website you can pick your medals, verify YouTube, unlink Discord or Google, and retract or reply to a report. Party play: the host now rotates between games, observers can actually get into the game, a party search stops when you stop it instead of pulling everyone back in, and an invite accepted after a game works. You can unpin a replay. The website shows your pinned replay, and your MATCHES list is no longer squeezed by it. Freeplay rooms have sound again for joins and chat, with separate switches for each. Quickmatch can widen your search range automatically if you want it to. It is off unless you turn it on. Ranks ending in 1, 2 or 3 above 20 now read 41st, 152nd and 683rd instead of 41th, 152th and 683th. The message you see when matchmaking is paused now says what is happening and what to do. Restart Arena to update.

Quick match fixes, a faster Stats tab, and tournament teams

Aug 3, 2026

Quick match: - Games no longer start a player short. If someone drops for a moment while the game is loading, the match now waits for them and re-sends their start instructions instead of going ahead without them. - Fixed a crash that could kill your game mid-match after someone reconnected. - Games with observers now launch properly. Stats: - The Stats tab opens fast again. It used to take around 20 seconds, and the Armies tab could crash Arena, sometimes taking a running game down with it. - You can now pick a period: last 30 days, 90 days, 12 months, all time, a past season, or the lifetime of the patch you play. It opens on the last 30 days. - The activity chart is readable, with a daily average. Ladders and medals: - Past seasons no longer show rows with missing player names. - Season medals say which season they came from, and no longer print the patch twice. - Opening a profile from the ladder now shows that player's badges. - Switching gamemode or arena keeps the season you were looking at instead of throwing you back to the live ladder. - Past seasons load a lot faster. Tournaments: - Organizers can build the teams for 2v2 and larger events: create teams, place players who signed up, move them around, and add someone who never signed up. - Captains can add their own team-mate. Replays on the website: - The download button gives you a file that opens. - Search matches maps, gamemodes and armies, and the game and patch filters narrow the results properly. Launcher: - Fixed the Offline tab crashing on some machines depending on the display colour profile. Games that have finished no longer sit on the website as live. Restart Arena to update.