Single-world MMO Bitcraft Online ramps up dungeon difficulty and rewards

If you were to capture the feeling of playing out a small Minecraft server with your friends and smash it into the scale and scope of the best MMORPGs, I like to think the result would look something like Bitcraft Online. Taking place in a singular, shared world, it combines the inherent player-led creativity and worldbuilding of Mojang's sandbox with the spectacle of WoW and the long-form profession grinding of OSRS. Launched into early access in June, developer Clockwork Laboratories has been building on that groundwork since, and its new patch notes hone the design of its first dungeon and introduce some key combat changes.

Much like the main world of Bitcraft Online, its first dungeon is not instanced like you'll find in most MMOs. While it looks like the traditional offerings you'll find in World of Warcraft or FF14, Clockwork Labs says it's actually "closer to an open-world boss or open-world dungeon in terms of the design it requires." With the potential for anyone in the multiplayer game to show up, that means "both the gameplay and the rewards should not be negatively impacted by having other players join."

Having tested it for a couple of weeks, the team has determined two key improvements that are now being implemented, along with a few other smaller adjustments. The first is enemy scaling. This will increase the strength of monsters in the dungeon as more players join the encounter so that it doesn't become trivialized. However, Clockwork Labs says it wanted to make sure that this "does not negatively impact the experience gained or the contribution which goes towards rewards, both of which are calculated based on damage done."

On the loot side of things, contributions will no longer be weighted against those of your companions when calculating rewards. This was included for release due to the lack of enemy scaling, but could create situations that "prevent some players from being able to get meaningful amounts of loot." Your payout will be ramped up as you hit discrete levels of contribution against the boss, but you won't need to worry about your drops being impacted by how others are performing in the fight.

Alongside this, Clockwork Labs have made a few more changes, some of which extend to combat across the wider game. You must now clear each room of the dungeon in turn, meaning you can't simply rush through. Passive health regeneration for players, enemies, and bosses has been disabled in all combat, but creatures will gradually heal if you stop fighting them. Weapon tooltips have also been updated, and tier 7-10 food has been added.

"We hope that these changes bring the dungeon to a much better place," Clockwork Labs writes. "Going forward we plan to focus on balancing the content (difficulty and rewards) as well as introducing new dungeons and bosses in the near future. The next aspect of the game which is going to be getting some love is hunting, then some big improvements to sailing and hauling."

The Bitcraft Online dungeon update is live now. You can read through the full patch notes courtesy of Clockwork Labs.

If you're always on the hunt for fresh worlds to explore, here are the best new MMOs in 2025. We've also gathered together the best sandbox games on PC right now to get your creative juices flowing.

Have you been playing Bitcraft Online? Let us know how you're finding it in the PCGamesN community Discord server, or just drop by to tell us what your favorite MMO dungeon of all time is. It might be a controversial choice, but I'm a sucker for the Strayborough Deadwalk.