3 November 2026

Dead Blocks: The Arsenal Update 0.8.0

Sainz

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What's New?

Sainz

The Arsenal Update

This is the biggest Dead Blocks update yet. The Shop now sells weapons that swap into your hotbar, every map has a boss of its own, there's a new map on a bridge in the middle of a thunderstorm, and 28 achievements pay out in coins. Here's everything that's new since the maps and skins update.

14 weapons that swap into your hotbar

The Shop has a new Weapons tab. Each weapon there takes the place of a standard weapon in one hotbar slot: it unlocks at the same point in your streak and gets that slot's upgrades, renamed to suit it. Buy one, put it in its slot before a match, and it's in your hotbar every game until you swap the standard weapon back.

Sidearm: the Nail Gun (Cool, 400 coins) fires fast, and every nail goes through one zombie into the next. The Flare Gun (Rad, 800) sets zombies on fire.
SMG: the Cryo Sprayer (Rad, 800) is a short-range freezing spray that slows zombies to half speed. The Minigun (Legendary, 3,500) spins up while you hold the trigger, then shreds.
Shotgun: the Scrap Cannon (Cool, 400) fires fewer, heavier chunks that reach further and go through a zombie. The Flamethrower (Savage, 2,200) is a jet of fire that passes through zombies and sets them burning.
Frags: the Buzzsaw (Cool, 400) throws a spinning blade out and back, slicing everything it passes both ways. Firebombs (Wicked, 1,400) make a smaller blast, but everything caught in it burns.
Tripwire Mine: Frost Mines (Wicked, 1,400) chill every zombie in the blast for 6 seconds. The Tesla Coil (Savage, 2,200) zaps up to 3 nearby zombies with lightning every second for 18 seconds.
Rocket Launcher: the Wrecking Ball (Rad, 800) rolls through the crowd crushing everything, then bursts. The Black Hole Launcher (Legendary, 3,500) opens a black hole that drags zombies in, then collapses in a big blast.
Arc Rifle: the Storm Caller (Savage, 2,200) throws lightning twice as far and stuns what it hits. The Ion Cannon (Wicked, 1,400) is below.

The Ion Cannon

Hold the trigger and it charges, with an orb of light growing at the barrel and a rising whine. Let go and a beam burns through every zombie in a straight line, all the way to the first wall or car. A full charge hits harder and sets them all on fire, and if you just hold the trigger down, it fires a full-power shot every time it's charged.

Its upgrades add side beams, more damage, a faster charge and a wider beam. Its Signature upgrade, Meltdown, charges faster still and ends every full-charge beam in a burning blast.

Bought the Prism Laser? It's been rebuilt as the Ion Cannon, and you keep it, skins and all.

Fire and ice that look the part

The Flamethrower pours out a real jet of fire: white-hot at the nozzle, then orange, red and smoke, splashing where it lands. The Cryo Sprayer sprays a stream of icy mist. Both reach exactly as far as their damage does.

The Minigun really opens up from mid game, too. Its Overdrive Motor upgrade makes it fire much faster and spin up quicker, and Depleted Rounds speeds it up again. Fully upgraded, it fires about twice as fast as a Hot Barrel SMG.

Signature upgrades

Keep your streak going past the last upgrade and there's a fourth row: a Signature upgrade for every weapon, and every Shop weapon gets its own. Some of them:

Sidearm: Penetrator Rounds: bullets go through 2 more zombies and hit 15% harder.
Shotgun: Incendiary Shells: every pellet sets zombies on fire.
Rockets: Cluster Warheads: three bomblets scatter around every blast.
Walls: Fortress: twice the health, and 4 more walls.
Minigun: Tungsten Belt: bullets go through 2 more zombies and hit 20% harder.
Ion Cannon: Meltdown: a burning blast at the end of every full-charge beam.

A boss for every map

Boss waves still come every fifth wave, with more bosses as the night goes on. The Block keeps the Abomination, and the other three maps each get a boss of their own, with its own look, roar, music and moves. Every move is telegraphed, so watch the ground, and your walls stop most of them.

The Gravelord rules Gravewood

Crowned, hooded and cloaked, with a sickly green glow.

Bone Spikes: a warning line runs along the ground towards you, then bones burst up all the way along it. Get off the line.
Soul Volley: a fan of wailing souls that follow you for most of their flight. Shoot them down before they reach you.
Its roar raises skeletons.

The Yardmaster runs the Rail Yard

A hard hat, chains, a rail spike in its fist and a furnace glow.

Furnace Burst: glowing circles appear under you, and a moment later the ground erupts in fire. It keeps burning, so don't stand in it.
Rail Spikes: it hurls three at once, in a spread.
Its roar brings brutes along with the runners.

The Stormbringer haunts The Bridge

Draped in seaweed and an anchor chain, glowing cyan.

Lightning Call: once it's on your screen, circles appear on the deck, then lightning strikes each one.
Tidal Surge: a wall of water sweeps down the deck and knocks you back. Cars, barriers and your walls break it, so take cover.
Its roar calls runners out of the rain.

Each boss has its own music, and its own banner when it goes down.

New map: The Bridge

A long suspension bridge over a churning river, in the middle of a thunderstorm. High fences run down both sides, so the horde can only come at you from the two ends: hold the middle or get squeezed. Rain sweeps across the deck, puddles gather between the wrecked cars, and every so often lightning lights up the whole bridge, with the thunder right behind it. It's 500 coins in the Shop's Maps tab.

28 achievements

Achievements unlock on your s&box profile, and every one pays coins into your bank: 100 for the easy ones, up to 1,000 for the hardest. That's 11,900 coins in all. A few to go for:

Grave Robber, End of the Line and Calm After the Storm: beat each new boss on its own map.
One-Man Army: beat a boss on your own.
Unstoppable: reach a x100 kill combo.
Not a Scratch: clear a wave from wave 10 onwards without taking any damage.
Still Standing: reach wave 30.
Arsenal: own every weapon in the Shop.

The moment you earn one, a banner pops up with the coins it paid, in a match or in the menus.

70 new skins, and skins that do what they say

Every Shop weapon has five skins, from Cool to Legendary, in a new Shop Weapons section of the Weapon Skins tab.

Skins now live up to their descriptions, too. Diamond Hands fires diamonds that shatter, Midas Touch leaves golden sparks and bursts into coins, Dragon's Breath breathes fire, Blue Hell burns blue, Hellhound smoulders, Butcher drips, and Ice Queen throws up a ring of ice spikes. Legendary skins fire a special shot every few shots, and their auras are much easier to see.

Unranked games

Changing any lobby rule, like starting at wave 15, makes the game unranked. Unranked games don't go on the leaderboard, and they don't pay coins or unlock achievements. A red UNRANKED tag shows on the setup screen, in the lobby, during the game and at game over, so you always know.

Better co-op

Voice chat: hold V to talk to your whole team, in the lobby and in a match. A speaker icon shows who's talking, and it has its own on/off and volume settings.
Invites: the host can invite anyone in a Dead Blocks lobby or with the game open. Invited players skip the passcode, and can bring their whole group.
Assists: hurt a zombie that a teammate kills and you get a streak point, your combo keeps going, and it shows on the game over screen.
Team revives: every extra teammate reviving the same survivor makes it 60% faster.

Also in this update

Every coin is banked: you keep all the coins you earn in a match.
The Shop opens from the lobby and the game over screen.
An automatic Sidearm: hold the button and it keeps firing at its own pace.
Half-height walls: you can shoot over your own walls. Zombies still can't climb them, and they still block zombie and boss attacks.
Calmer acid spitters: they're much less accurate. They still aim better on Medium and Hard.
Sound: no more sounds cutting out in a busy fight, new Game volume and Sound effects volume settings, a sound for every Shop weapon, boss attack and power-up, and human grunts when you get hurt.
Power-ups on the minimap with their own symbols, lock icons on locked maps, weapons and skins, and sounds on every menu button.

Found a bug? Press Report Bug in the pause menu. Got an idea? Suggest an Idea sends it straight to me. And come say hi on the Discord: the button's on the title screen.
Hold the line. Pick your arsenal.