After millions of play sessions upon its explosion onto the arcade scene in 2013, Killer Queen is back in black.

BumbleBear’s Nik Mikros and Joshua DeBonis, the original creators of Killer Queen, have fine-tuned the experience with new mechanics suited for home play. Up to eight players split off onto blue and gold teams ready to fight for their hive.

One player on each side takes on the role of the Queen, and the others play as drones. Cunning reflexes and keen tactical planning are the key to reigning supreme over opponents. Each team’s Queen starts armed with a stinger to defend herself and attack the contending team. Be wary when controlling her, as her dangerous attacks and heightened agility come with the trade-off of limited lives.

Drones are the best units for the job when it comes to completing non-violent, game-winning objectives. Though drones begin unarmed, they don’t have to remain defenseless for long. Gates on the map empower drones in exchange for berries, transforming them into warriors with flight capabilities. Depending on which gate the drone enters, they gain powerful upgrades such as speed boosts and new weapons, including maces, lances, swords, shields, and laser rifles. But bee careful, as the Queen simply needs to fly over these gates to claim them for her team.

Killer Queen Black’s player base becomes stronger by the day. Liquid Bit has heard their feedback: eight-player local co-op on one machine, Switch or PC, is now available via the latest update, Hydra (Patch 1.60). No internet connection or Nintendo Switch Online account is required; crush friends and enemies while rubbing elbows on the couch.

In addition to the highly requested local play update, new features such as selectable regions on Nintendo Switch are available. Check out the complete feature set of the Hydra patch:

• Eight-player local support for PC and console
• Region selection on Switch
• Custom (online) and local matches can be started by a single player
• Bots can fill out local and custom matches
• Teams in local and custom matches can now be automatically shuffled
• Streamer mode: Choose which names to display in-game and in menus
• Map pools now skew towards more variety and fewer repeats
• Various bug fixes and UI improvements

For cyber cafe and Arcade owners looking to break into the Killer Queen Black scene, a new commercial build is available on Steam. For more information on this build, please visit the commercial version’s Steam Cafe page. This is far from the end of Liquid Bit’s plans for Killer Queen Black: check out the roadmap to see what the team is dreaming up.

“Our community has been behind us the whole way and we are happily providing the most requested additions,” said Matt Tesch, co-founder of Liquid Bit. “Players can now host the ultimate Killer Queen Black tournaments and bring the full experience of the arcade home.”

Three types of victory and a sky-scraping skill ceiling mean each match offers near-infinite permutations to persevere and complications to conquer. Economic Victories require drones to scoop up berries on the battlefield and bring them back to their base faster than the other team. Snail Victories involve slowly riding the snail on the bottom of the screen into a goal post, hoping that other team members ward enemies away. To earn a Military Victory, the adversary’s Queen has to be slain three times, making warriors highly sought-after.

Killer Queen Black has four game types: Quick Matches for those eager to leap into the fray, Ranked for those who want to rise to the top, Custom games with adjustable rule sets, and Arena. Arena requires a ticket to enter, earned through victory or purchased via in-game currency, and tasks players with going for victory streaks that earn awesome rewards. A notch is added to players’ swords for every victory, and reaching 100 earns them a fancy sword to brag about. Liquid Bit plans to continue supporting the game with additional maps post-release.

At any given time, there is one single “Black” team. Any team that defeats the Black team dethrones them and becomes the Black team themselves. Liquid Bit hopes to broadcast these fierce competitions and encourage the Black team to remain a constantly-shifting, coveted position.

Killer Queen Black is available digitally for Switch, and PC, coming to Xbox One at a later date.