Chained Beasts classes: Roles, Skills, and Picks

Why the Chain Decides the Build

Two fighters share one length of chain, one paying crowd, and very little room for a selfish build. That is why Chained Beasts classes matter before the first spectator is dragged into the pit: the pick decides who anchors, who throws, and who drinks the next permanent affliction. In the public demo, Chained Beasts classes are not a roster of named heroes with locked skill trees. They show up as animal costumes, weapon habits, and conditions that stick for the rest of the run. Player experience from that session is the best public look at how those choices feel in a real lobby.

Official screenshot · Source: Steam store

A hosted online lobby came up quickly, which is a good sign, but the class fantasy starts when both players are tied together. If one gladiator sprints ahead, the other runs out of slack and gets stuck. Community reports describe a fighter who could barely retreat until the partner closed the gap. The character who needs room to aim a throw and the character who must stand on a melee target are negotiating the same rope.

Treat Chained Beasts classes as role contracts you renegotiate every round. Stamina drops when you dodge and when you attack, then it has to return. A charge attack spends that budget faster. Holding aim to throw spends positioning instead: you want distance, but not so much that a partner with no ranged weapon cannot reach the target. In the tutorial, the pair cleared training dummies, followed a shoulder-break prompt, picked up a weapon after soaking hits, and blocked a body thrown at them. Those drills matter more than the animal name on the costume.

The fighters are prisoners pushed into paid gladiator work. A handler prompt says the crowd will pay, then asks them to chain a spectator from the stands. Cheers and boos track the show. Health does not really reset between levels, and a bad affliction does not fall off. Whiff the opener and later rounds get meaner. That snowball is why a lion-or-eagle label is the least important decision on the card.

Animal Costumes and What They Do Not Do

Players did not open a deep class select. One fighter loaded as a lion and wanted to switch. The partner took the eagle because the mask and eyes read more clearly. They then agreed the costumes barely changed the silhouette. One noted a green tint. That is community reporting, not a patch note, and it is enough to stop treating the animal label as a full archetype.

Use the table as a reality check before you theorycraft Chained Beasts classes around beast fantasy. The demo never showed a lion pounce or an eagle dive. It showed two matching arena bodies, color and mask aside, sharing one chain and one stamina system.

The useful split is social. Call someone the eagle if that helps you remember who throws, then say the job out loud. Without a spoken contract, both costumes play like the same brawler, and the chain punishes the duplicate plan. Two throwers leave nobody on the weapon. Two infighters yank each other off spacing every time the crowd shifts.

They liked the fight animation more than the costumes. One gamepad would not move down until it was reseated, so check the controller before you blame the beast you picked. Mouse aim may be cleaner for throws. The session never proved that, and one player simply preferred a pad.

Weapons That Split a Duo Into Roles

The most useful way to read Chained Beasts classes in this build is by what is in your hands. Combat plays like a street brawler in a round pit. You close, swing, throw, and hope your partner is not standing where the chain drags them. Ranged options were scarce. When one fighter had nothing to throw, camping at the rim was a mistake. The partner had to walk them in.

These four jobs covered what the demo actually rewarded.

Shields were loot, not a starter guarantee. A side room did not hold the extra board one player expected, though they later shared a shield they did find. One enemy read as a shield breaker. Friendly damage also seemed to be on: players thought their own swings could clip the duo, and some foes hit their teammates. On a short chain, step off your partner's arc before a wide flail swing.

Chained Beasts classes also show up in the crowd contract. The clear one was brutal and specific: kill five enemies with a flail and the cut rises to 60 percent. Player experience says the money is real and the logistics are rude. They had a single flail, were unsure a throw counted as a kill, and watched the counter crawl while both bars dropped. A wild toss did not finish the job. Land the killing blow with the flail in hand. Yeeting your only copy is how the contract dies.

Round pressure in that lobby looked like this.

Bodies are weapons too. When one fighter dropped, the partner could pick them up, and the downed player's plan was simple: throw me at people. If you can walk, you can dodge, so a rescue is not a funeral. Use the throw when the chain is short enough to aim, not as a panic button from across the sand.

Afflictions and Skills Are the Real Spec

Permanent drinks are where Chained Beasts classes stop being cosmetic. Between brawls the demo offers a portion and warns that drinking it causes a lasting affliction. These are conditions you carry, not buffs that wash off at the gate. The pair saw an earlier affliction still active after the next fight. Thin healing between levels means an early sip can decide the run.

The option they debated was extra health paired with double vision on hit. More life is the bait. Seeing double is the hook, and they called it the worst drawback in front of them, especially for someone who already loses track of busy fights. They did not know if it hit the drinker, the partner, or both. Do not take a permanent malus until you know who lives with it. One player already disliked a screen pulse, and the other only guessed it might be removable. Stacking double vision on top of that turns the pit into a guessing game.

Read the drinks and half-seen perk blurbs like this until the game prints real tooltips.

Skill cards used the same tradeoff tone. This is a paraphrase of blurbs they read, not a tested database. One card seemed to keep throws from being disarmed on a blocked attack. Others mentioned periodic damage, hallucination, a weaker throw, blocking projectiles, landing on your feet, and a guaranteed follow-up. Offense asks for a messier fight. Defense gives up pressure in a mode that scores the show.

If you are already low, do not buy power with a permanent vision or timing debuff. You will not heal that mistake away next round. If you are healthy and the contract needs five flail kills, take the option that helps you land them. Risk versus reward only works when you can still see the weapon.

Co-op Habits That Survive a Bad Round

If you are sorting Chained Beasts classes for a new duo, ignore animal names for the first hour and assign jobs out loud. Someone watches slack. Someone owns the objective weapon. Someone is allowed to drink. Better moments in the demo came when the pair let a brawling pack clip itself, then cleaned up. Worse moments were max-range stubbornness, a lone flail toss, and a health bar that never returned.

Chain etiquette from the same lobby:

Steal these habits even from a rough clear:

• Finish training until throw, block, charge, and pickup are boring.
• Restore slack before you chase a far pickup.
• Name the flail user before the doors open. Five kills is a shared cut.
• Assume a thrown flail might not count until the counter moves.
• Bank health. Early chip damage plus a flashy affliction is how a run feels lost.
• Let enemy infighting work. Some foes hit their own side, and playing the round still scored.

This is not a tier list. The source is one demo lobby, not a ranked season, and there is no supporting class page in the material gathered here. Watch the Chained Beasts demo with Joe and Laura for the raw reads on costumes, the flail contract, and those permanent drinks. Expect kits to change if the game grows past the demo. Until a formal class screen exists, the chain, the weapon, and the affliction are the three columns that sort the cast.

FAQ

Do Chained Beasts classes change your stats in the demo?

Not in any way the session proved. Lion and eagle played like costumes on the same chained body. What shifted the kit was a flail, a shield, a skill card, or a permanent affliction. Judge the pick by those, not by the animal name.

Which animal should a new duo pick?

Pick the mask you can tell apart, then ignore it. Player experience said the eagle's eyes were easier to notice and that the bodies still matched. The real choice is the job: anchor, striker, thrower, or the person chasing five flail kills.

Does an affliction hit one fighter or both?

The demo never answered. The players asked out loud and kept going. Until a tooltip is explicit, assume both of you have to live with it, especially double vision or anything that makes hits harder to read. Conditions they took were still there next round.

Is the five-kill flail contract worth chasing?

Chase it if you can protect the weapon. The stated reward was a 60 percent cut. Skip it if you are already hurt and holding the only flail on the sand. In that session, throws were not a reliable way to move the counter. Get the kill up close, then get out before chip damage eats the payout.