NIKKE September 3 Update: Drake: Great Villain, GREAT VILLAIN UNION, Union Raid, and more

Goddess of Victory: NIKKE is getting its first September update on Sept. 3, with the new GREAT VILLAIN UNION story event leading a smaller patch between the ongoing Persona collaboration and another event planned for later in the month. Maintenance runs from 11 am to 6 pm UTC+9 and also adds a new Union Raid, Coordinated Operation, Champion Arena Beta Season 3B, and changes to how future game data is downloaded. Drake: Great Villain joins Special Recruit New Drake is here. Image via Shift UP Drake: Great Villain is the update’s new SSR and the third upgraded Matis member following Laplace: Ultimate Hero and Maxwell: Ordinary Mechanic. Her Special Recruit banner runs from the end of Sept. 3 maintenance through Sept. 17 at 4:59:59am UTC+9. We have a separate full breakdown of Drake: Great Villain covering her class, weapon, Code, recruitment rates, and availability after the banner ends. Maxwell: Ordinary Mechanic will also move into Ordinary Recruit, Social Point Recruit, and Mold items when the update goes live. She will remain unavailable through New Commander Special Recruit, the Ordinary Recruit tutorial, and the Mileage Shop. Maxwell joins the Ordinary Recruitment. Image via Shift UP GREAT VILLAIN UNION puts Drake in the spotlight GREAT VILLAIN UNION runs from Sept. 3 through Sept. 17 and follows Drake after she establishes the New Villain Union. Her attempts at minor villainy eventually lead the group to a massive trail outside Reclamation Site 01, giving Drake the larger story role she missed during July’s PROJECT MATIS event. Event stages award currency for Recruit Vouchers and development materials, while a separate Challenge Stage opens during the event. GREAT VILLAIN UNION will also be added directly to Storyline after maintenance, and the 2025 ARCANE ARCHIVE event becomes available through Archives for three Memory Films. The seven-day DAILY EVIL DEED login event runs over the same period, with Recruit Vouchers and development materials available for logging in across seven days. Union Raid and Coordinated Operation return The next Union Raid begins Sept. 4 at 5 am UTC+9 and ends Sept. 10 at 4:59:59am. Unions must be at least level three to participate, with members fighting bosses for Union Chips that can be spent on rewards. Players cannot leave their Union or remove members while the Raid is active. Storm Bringer returns as the Coordinated Operation boss from Sept. 11 to 13. Five Commanders can enter through automatic matchmaking or premade groups and earn Broken Cores, with additional rewards tied to ranking. Champion Arena Beta Season 3B begins Sept. 10, while the patch also adds new Profile Decoration objects and titles. Larger Champion Arena changes, including expanded qualification and revised target-priority rules, are planned for its move out of beta later this year. NIKKE is changing its patch system The Sept. 3 update introduces a new resource structure designed to reduce the amount of data players need to download in future patches. Everyone will need to redownload the game’s patch data once during the transition, with the new system supporting smaller future updates and partial resource management. Players will also be able to delete resources they are not using, including unselected voice-over languages and unused texture or model quality data. Shift Up announced the resource overhaul in its August developer note after the game’s growing collection of music, event scenes, 2D assets, environments, Raptures, and other content pushed the existing update system increasingly hard. Dot Esports is supported by our audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Learn more about our Affiliate Policy