This is... the "new" "Water Monkey" "icon" (+ rant about the state of the game)
Aside from the Ocean Obyn and Pat Fusty balance changes this was like, the only thing I was actually looking forward to in this update, among some straight up negative things about this update that would make something I like all the more important. "Oh! A Water Monkey Icon! I love Water Monkeys! That'll be fun to see!". Nah we get Buccaneer specifically (them being my favourite isn't gonna win me over on this).
At least if they had re-used the icon of one of Ocean Obyn's water based cosmetics (Tidal Wave Victory Animation, Splash Down Placement Animation, Geyser Level Up Animation, even part of the Splash Pops animation itself where it's just the splash) it'd fit the style of hero key trait icons and would properly communicate the idea of the theme of water as a whole. Like, is that obviously reusing assets? Yes. ...but this is more-so, so like??
My LOWEST expectation was that they'd just put Buccaneer, Sub, and Ice together in the frame to represent them. I've looked over other icons and realized it's actually a fairly common issue for them to just have a single tower icon to represent multiple tower buffs. However, those are for situations where they buff two full monkeys, or DJ Ben's Side Hustle which is for specific upgrades (although tbh that one's weak too, just being a supply drop icon. I just don't care about that one as much). This icon doesn't even really give a good indication of what a "Water Monkey" is, which I think is important since Ice Monkey is technically amphibious and can even be buffed while on land. It's a gray area that most monkeys don't have when it comes to these buffs, closest I can think of otherwise is biker buffing bucc mini-aces with specifically flame trail but the Level 7 description mentions the "fighter planes" separately from the Monkey Ace tower so that's accounted for.
I've tried to be optimistic about this game for a long time but I think at this point my passion is growing cold until they actually show us stuff, actually put content directly into the game, or at LEAST give us ACTUAL teasers and trailers.
It's not like I'm going to suddenly get "mad" at the developers or something (in a non-sarcastic manner anyway, i'll get sarcastically mad at them plenty, especially in clan chat). But like, this update is very disappointing overall. The new content I was hype for was a type of icon I haven't analyzed deeply on other heroes up to this point since I wasn't too terribly interested aside from the occasional original art asset, and it wasn't even something new. The map is terribad (and I'm usually more optimistic about maps than others, I like stuff like Neo Highway that many people don't like). I appreciate that it re-uses elements of other models to make developing it more efficient, but it's not like the effort saved on that went anywhere else that we get to see. And at this point I'm done with "Well guys, because of x, y, and z, they ARE planning a big update, SOON!", even if I feel like I COULD make such an argument. As I said, my passion is growing cold. If I'm going to be excited, it's going to be because they were actually given the resources to do something.
And it's not like they don't WANT to do something or that they've given up on the game or something. They're just... Too small a team for everything that's been going on. SAS 5: ZAR was supposed to be released at the end of last year, if they could do that then they'd probably get some folks back onto *this* game 7 months ago or so. But it was delayed unexpectedly so they're rolling with that punch, while also trying to nurture Bloons Blitz.
Just... Ninja Kiwi, as a total conglomerate. Please. Upsize NK Europe. It is managing the only new revealed Bloons spinoff, it is managing the second biggest Bloons game which has a lot of potential within a largely unique genre (this one), and it is managing the second biggest Ninja Kiwi franchise's first new game in a long, long time. It deserves to have the size to be able to handle these three important (to varying degree) projects, instead of having to leave Bloons TD Battles 2 to ROT because they just can't do anything else, even if they want to, even if this game could be huge, even if people have been willing to give it a second chance even during this content drought throughout the years. This just isn't it.