The Matriarch

Released: Sep 26, 2022
Platforms
Last updated: 13 Sep 2026, 02:21 GMT

Updates & announcements

20 posts

10 Oct 2024Developer post
You're invited to die! Try out 'The Masquerade' Demo
The Masquerade Demo is now available on Steam! The Masquerade is a murder party game from 2 to 8 players where you're simultaneously a target and a hunter. Impersonate NPCs to hide from your hunter, while completing tasks to unmask and eliminate your target. Demo content Play the
The Masquerade Demo is now available on Steam!
[url=]https://store.steampowered.com/app/2595530/The_Masquerade/[/url]
The Masquerade is a murder party game from 2 to 8 players where you're simultaneously a target and a hunter. Impersonate NPCs to hide from your hunter, while completing tasks to unmask and eliminate your target.
Demo content

Play the standard gamemode on the manor map without limits
Customize your games: Experiment with various scoring options and other parameters.
Open up your own private server and play with a group of friends, or join public servers.
The final game will include:

Additional game modes (including team-based game modes)
Additional maps, each with their own set of tasks & quirks.
Additional game options
Cosmetics unlockable with in-game coins, earned at the end of each round.
Quickmatch functionality
Gamepad support
French, German, Korean, Russian, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish languages
Original post
21 Apr 2024Developer post
New Update! Proximity Voice Chat, Matriarch Skins + Steam Daily Deal
Hey Sinners, V11 is live! What’s new? Proximity voice chat Experience a whole new way to play The Matriarch with the proximity voice and text chat. This game option can be activated by the host in the lobby. When activated, players are only able to communicate with other players
Hey Sinners,
V11 is live! What’s new?
Proximity voice chat
Experience a whole new way to play The Matriarch with the proximity voice and text chat. This game option can be activated by the host in the lobby.
When activated, players are only able to communicate with other players in their field of vision (both with the vocal & text chat). Be careful though, the Matriarch can hear you if she’s nearby! For other players to hear you, make sure to activate your microphone in the player options (turned off by default). You can lower the volume of the music / sound if the volume of other player voices is too low.
Matriarch skins
It was time for our dear matriarch to renew her wardrobe. Go to mephisto’s workshop and shop for accessories to personalize your Matriarch. New ones will be added over time!
Minor improvements

Game settings are now saved from game to game
Player options are now accessible from the lobby & game maps
Music / sound effects volume has been lowered
Your progress is now saved on Steam Cloud
Looking for a new party game to deceive your friends? My upcoming murder party project
The Masquerade will soon enter a beta phase, Wishlist now!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2595530/The_Masquerade/
I’m looking forward to your feedback, happy sinners hunting!
Original post
06 Oct 2023Developer post
New map, new skin, new...GAME !!!
Hey Sinners, V10 is live! What's new? New map ‘Windmill’, with 5 pillars, new tasks and unique interactions, this new map is aimed at more experienced players (I recommend to play it with tiles x1) New sacrifice device ‘The Pit’: Make sinners fall to their death for 900coins! New
Hey Sinners,
V10 is live! What's new?

New map ‘Windmill’, with 5 pillars, new tasks and unique interactions, this new map is aimed at more experienced players (I recommend to play it with tiles x1)
New sacrifice device ‘The Pit’: Make sinners fall to their death for 900coins!
New game option ‘random code visibility’: Spice up your games by making the code more unpredictable to uncover.
New statistics screen: You think Bertha is always a sinner? Time to fact check! (unfortunately the data is not collected retroactively)
Next, I will investigate proximity chat, matriarch skins and more game customization options.
I'm also thrilled to announce ‘The Masquerade’ !
In this murder party game, you impersonate BOTs to hide from your hunter, while gathering enough clues to unmask & eliminate your target.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2595530/The_Masquerade/
If you enjoyed The Matriarch, there are good chances you will also enjoy ‘The Masquerade’. There is still a long way before the release, but adding it to your wishlist would help tremendously! Thanks!
Happy sinners hunting!
Original post
23 May 2023Developer post
New Map with 2 Matriarchs, Spectator Mode, 한국어 and more!
Hey Sinners, Patch 9 is now live! This is the biggest update so far, and it contains a lot of exciting stuff! New Cemetery Map with 2 Matriarchs The cemetery is only playable with 2 matriarchs, thus recommended for 6-8 players. The initial plan was to have 2 votes per night, but
Hey Sinners,
Patch 9 is now live! This is the biggest update so far, and it contains a lot of exciting stuff!
New Cemetery Map with 2 Matriarchs

The cemetery is only playable with 2 matriarchs, thus recommended for 6-8 players. The initial plan was to have 2 votes per night, but it made the matriarchs too powerful, instead each matriarch player gets to vote once every alternative night.
The cemetery is the largest map, featuring 6 new tasks, 22 Nuns and even some hidden secrets (croak)!
Spectator mode
You can now join on-going games and spectate them, at the end of the game, all spectators automatically join the lobby. The main intention is to make it easier for players to find games, rather than having to wait for an active lobby.
한국어 / Korean language
이렇게 많은 한국 선수들이 게임을 즐기는 모습을 보니 반갑습니다. 번역 도구를 사용하여 게임에 한국어를 추가했습니다. 번역이 이상하거나 정확하지 않은 경우 디스코드에 가입하여 알려주세요.
3 new achievements
Other

Alternative controls to accommodate left-handed players (IJKL to move, H primary action, U secondary action)
Rework of the map selection in the game settings
Mouse cursor is now a pentagram
Bug fix: Caught Sinners sometimes not showing on the Iron Maiden
Bug fix: Matriarch sees the exit/pylon UI at the end of the game
Bug fix: Lobby menu showing up during gameplay when joining a game just before it starts
Bug fix: 2 nuns are sacrificed if the matriarch clicks a character when the countdown reaches 0 (potentially also fixing the dead sinners showing up with regular skin)
That’s all for today, join the discord if you haven’t already https://discord.gg/Hr5GVaXTH7, as always, I’ll keep an eye on potential bugs and fix them asap.
Cheers,
Original post
10 Mar 2023Developer post
50 000 Sinners, Thank you! + patch 0.8 is live
The Matriarch gathered 50 000 Sinners around the world! When I started developing the Matriarch as a side project 1.5 years ago, I couldn't imagine it would one day reach this milestone. To all the streamers, players, and everyone who helped making and growing this game, THANK YO
The Matriarch gathered 50 000 Sinners around the world!
When I started developing the Matriarch as a side project 1.5 years ago, I couldn't imagine it would one day reach this milestone.
To all the streamers, players, and everyone who helped making and growing this game, THANK YOU!
It has been pure joy seeing people from all over the world playing it, for the occasion I made a reactions compilation, enjoy!
Watch on YouTube
v0.8 is live!
This update mainly makes the game more intuitive / accessible for new players.
I've added visual feedback to help communicating the goals & progress when playing as a Sinner.
Interfaces have also been reworked / polished (position & states of buttons) so it all feels more smooth.
I'm aware that the lack of players is a problem to find games at all time, by making the game more accessible for new players and by reaching out to more content creator as well as releasing more content, I hope to continue growing the community over time.
Full list of changes ⬇️

The game icon has been changed from the unreal engine default icon to a Matriarch
On top of slowing her down, successfully spooking the matriarch now also has the same effect has 'signalling' her
The exit & columns being uncovered is now communicated in the interface.
Player sees '[space] Dig' when underground
The Main menu/Lobby interfaces have been polished
The option to play in LAN has been removed (I think it was broken in the first place)
Bug fix

Player sees 'Unlock trapdoor' when not standing next to the trapdoor
Dirt count is not accurate
Sinner nametag is invisible
Loca fix French / Chinese
If Sinner is the host, they don't hear the scary sound when the matriarch is in their field of view
The collision when digging as a ghost is not accurate
Next I will focus on the 4th Map, it's gonna be a cemetery! And the big novelty is that 2 Matriarchs will play together!
Cheers,
-Chewa
Original post
31 Jan 2023Developer post
0.7 is live! New Traitor Role, dig as Ghosts, save game options and more!
Hey Sinners, The new traitor role is here! What's New? New traitor role & achievement. Betray other sinners by locking trapdoors and slowing down their progress, be the last Sinner alive and kill the matriarch to win! If at least 3 sinners (including the traitor) are alive, S
Hey Sinners,
The new traitor role is here!
What's New?

New traitor role & achievement. Betray other sinners by locking trapdoors and slowing down their progress, be the last Sinner alive and kill the matriarch to win! If at least 3 sinners (including the traitor) are alive, Sinners have a chance to vote and neutralize the traitor before a sacrifice occurs.
Ghost can now dig (spook over tiles)! Remember that you can select the dig cooldown in the game options if you want to make it more or less effective.
Change: It's not possible for Ghosts to see the code and communicate it to their peers anymore
Steam cards have been added earlier this month, along with community badges and emojis
A new button in the game options menu allows you to set the settings back to what they were in the previous round
With more things to buy in Mephisto's workshop, I've decided to make the x2 coins permanent (and fixed the bug where it showed the previous amount)
The loading screen now gives you more information about your role
Games that already started will show (in progress) in the server browser
Bug fixes

Double message in chat
Sheers showing behind nun in the Barn
Sabotage and spook defaults values were incorrect
Let me know what you think about the new roles and other changes!
In the near future, I will focus on polishing various aspects of the game, such as the tutorial or UI that feels a bit clunky aswell as smaller bug fixes that are pilling up in the backlog for a long time! I will also investigate how I can release & support a MAC version.
After that I will start working on the 4th map, which will have the particularity to allow multiple matriarchs!
Cheers,
- Chewa
Original post
10 Dec 2022Developer post
v0.6 is live! Ghost skins, new game options, christmas event...
Hey Sinners, v0.6 is finally out, thanks for your patience! What's new? Ghost skins are available to purchase in Mephisto's workshop, they're purely cosmetic, but they will give you some achievements! The spooking area has been changed from a rectangle to a circle shape To celebr
Hey Sinners,
v0.6 is finally out, thanks for your patience!
What's new?

Ghost skins are available to purchase in Mephisto's workshop, they're purely cosmetic, but they will give you some achievements!
The spooking area has been changed from a rectangle to a circle shape
To celebrate the Christmas spirit and the end of the year, you'll get x2 coins during the month of December!
2 new music tracks have been added (in the lobby and the monastery)
2 new game options: Spook cooldown & Sabotage timer
Bug fix

Text doesn't wrap appropriately in chat
Chinese and Spanish languages are not appropriately saved when restarting the game
The Matriarch hint game option is not working properly with the new 'signal' feature
Matriarch sound playing when loading the game
Some achievements are unlocked when the matriarch quits the game
Ghosts being able to escape and dig on the monastery map
Various localization fixes
I'm still figuring out what will come next, but one of my priorities is to add a bit more depth to the game & make the games less repetitive, I'll review the many ideas that have been discussed on the discord and keep you updated!
In the long term, I will also slowly start working a new map that will allow multiple matriarchs (while keeping the game balanced), stay tuned!
-Chewa
Original post
13 Nov 2022Developer post
Network optimization, new achievements, new 'signal Matriarch' feature and more!
Hey Sinners, Patch 0.5 is live! What's new? Network Latency shouldn't impact Sinners' movement when they perform their tasks anymore. As a Matriarch, differentiating bots from laggy sinners was sometimes too easy because their movements were not as smooth, hopefully, this should
Hey Sinners,
Patch 0.5 is live! What's new?

Network Latency shouldn't impact Sinners' movement when they perform their tasks anymore. As a Matriarch, differentiating bots from laggy sinners was sometimes too easy because their movements were not as smooth, hopefully, this should be fixed!
If the Matriarch is nearby, Sinners can now press 'space' to signal the matriarch's location to other sinners. When concepting the game, I imagined that sinners communicating the matriarch's location to each other would be necessary to time when to go underground. While this could be achieved with chat or voice chat, this new functionality should make it more practical.
During the round, Sinners can now see the number of tiles that have been cleared.
3 new achievements!
Bug fix: not being able to go through walls as a ghost in the monastery / wrong collision in the monastery / Chinese loca fix
Coming up next!

Custom ghost skins and custom graves, start saving up coins!
As a reminder, The Matriarch is 20% off until tomorrow!
Cheers,
Chewa
Original post
31 Oct 2022Developer post
New map, 中文
Hey Sinners, You can now diversify your sessions by playing on the New Map: The Monastery With 5 tasks and 18 nuns, the Monastery is a bigger map, ideal for 5-8 players The tasks are more complex, often combining movement with interactions The underground area is divided into 2 p
Hey Sinners,
You can now diversify your sessions by playing on the
New Map: The Monastery

With 5 tasks and 18 nuns, the Monastery is a bigger map, ideal for 5-8 players
The tasks are more complex, often combining movement with interactions
The underground area is divided into 2 parts
The codes are scattered on the map
I’m looking forward to your feedback, I’ll keep an eye on potential issues and hotfix them asap!
What’s next?

Improve network stability to reduce visible lag, I have a solution in mind that will hopefully reduce this issue by a lot.
Give sinners the ability to signal the matriarch’s position to other sinners when she comes in a range
Add custom graves to the shop that you can buy with coins (maybe ghost skin?)
Add more game options (like the possibility to kill more than 1 nun per night, or disable the bell)
Many of you suggested smaller cool ideas that would be quick to implement, I’ll look into my backlog and prioritize them.
I know that The Matriarch is a bit too powerful now, her being ‘punished’ for choosing a non-Sinner was an idea suggested by many, I want to investigate if that could be a potential solution, I’ll keep you updated!
Happy Halloween!
Cheers,
Original post
08 Oct 2022Developer post
Patch 0.03 is live! Exit rework, bell sabotage, spanish loca, green/black bug...
Hey Sinners, What's new? The exit has been reworked to prevent sinners from guessing the 3rd number or force-brut the code. Even if the 3 numbers are correct, Sinners still have to unlock the exit manually, if the code is wrong there is a 10s cooldown until you can try another co
Hey Sinners,
What's new?

The exit has been reworked to prevent sinners from guessing the 3rd number or force-brut the code. Even if the 3 numbers are correct, Sinners still have to unlock the exit manually, if the code is wrong there is a 10s cooldown until you can try another code
Do you like to play risky? As a Sinner, you can now sabotage the bell! This won't be easy as it takes some looong seconds before it breaks. In the future, I would like to give players the option to play with or without this feature or decide the number of seconds it takes to sabotage it.
Black / Green screen bug is hopefully fixed, this bug happens when you try to join an ongoing game. I'm not sure yet why ongoing games are shown in the server browser, but now you'll get kicked back to the main menu with an error message.
Spanish loca has been added, and Ukrainian will be next, after that I'll stop adding new languages to focus on other parts of the development.
If you unlocked the pyre/guillotine during the beta, you should now get the achievements when opening the shop.
Iron maiden sound effect has been adjusted
What's next?

I continue to work on the 3rd map, here is a small preview! Amongst many other changes, activities will be more complex and combine movement with interactions.
I have a solution in mind to make lag less visible, but the implementation is a bit complex, I'll focus on it once the 3rd map is released, (4-8 weeks from now)
Until the new map is released, I'd also like to commit to bi-weekly releases with more minor improvements/features/bug fixes, more to come soon!
Cheers,
Original post
01 Oct 2022Developer post
Hotfix: Black/green screen, full lobbies, golden shovel...
Hi Sinners, I just pushed a small hotfix -> Attempt to fix the black / green screen bug, my guess is that it happens when joining a full lobby or because of pirated versions. I added a validation to ensure only the servers with updated versions of the game are shown in the gam
29 Sep 2022Developer post
1.1 Patch: Iron Maiden, bug fixes..
Hi Sinners, I just pushed an update with the following changes: -> The Iron Maiden device is now available for 750 coins! -> Bug fix: Sinners should not be peeling potatoes or turned in the wrong way when teleported to the church anymore -> Lobby names can be slightly lo
26 Sep 2022Developer post
The Matriarch is now available!
Hey SInners, The time has come! I’m thrilled to finally announce that The Matriarch is now available! First of all, thanks to everyone who has helped me make that day happen, from the players who have been involved since the early betas, the discord members to the friends & f
12 Sep 2022Developer post
Release Date on September 26th
Hey Sinners, I'm super thrilled to announce that the Matriarch will be released on the 26th of September. And this is only the beginning! New content such as maps, sacrifice devices, game options, and steam achievements will be added regularly for free, I started to work on a new
28 Jul 2022Developer post
Devlog #7: July update, new lever system & various improvements
Hey Sinners, I spent the past couple of weeks implementing a lot of feedback you provided during and after the beta. New Features The big new thing is the rework of the lever system, in an effort to prevent the sinners from instantly going underground to dig and win too fast, wit
Hey Sinners,
I spent the past couple of weeks implementing a lot of feedback you provided during and after the beta.
New Features

The big new thing is the rework of the lever system, in an effort to prevent the sinners from instantly going underground to dig and win too fast, without having to cooperate much, I replaced the previous lever with new ones which not only require to be found but also set on the right number. The combination that opens the exit is progressively revealed each round, and someone will have to take some risk to find it!
More timer options (45s & 75s)
Nun names are sorted alphabetically in the book
The interacting / reporting UI has been reworked
New menu for controls
The names of Sinner are now green
When you're sent back to the main menu after the Host disconnected, you now receive a message 'Lost connection with Host'
To ensure balanced games, there are now recommended settings based on the number of players
Bug fixes

Improved chat (movement correctly works after sending a message)
'Press F' correctly disappears when activating a lever
Ping should show the correct value instead of 9999
Names of sacrificed nuns don't stack anymore on top of each other
Characters are not wrongly displayed on top of certain decor elements (like the apple tree) anymore
Devices that are bought in the game lobby are not saved properly
Finally, after 1 year of developing the game, I'm happy to see that the Matriarch made it to the top 500 most wish-listed upcoming games on Steam, the game is slowly getting ready for the release, more to come soon!
Enjoy the week-end, cheers!
Chewa
Original post
13 Jul 2022Developer post
Devlog #6: Beta wrap-up & next steps
Hey Sinners, First and foremost, thanks to everyone who participated in the beta, it was a quite big achievement, the demo was in the top 5 steam demo in term of concurent players (which peaked at 400!) and there were tens of thousands of players over just a few days! I'm thankfu
Hey Sinners,
First and foremost, thanks to everyone who participated in the beta, it was a quite big achievement, the demo was in the top 5 steam demo in term of concurent players (which peaked at 400!) and there were tens of thousands of players over just a few days! I'm thankful for all the feedback you shared and I can't wait to continue improving and preparing the game for the next phases.
Here is a quick update on what will be my focus in the upcoming weeks:

The most frequent feedback was that as a Sinner, you spend too much digging and not enough time pretending, which I agree is an issue, ideally I would like it to be 50/50, but currently rushing to dig seem to be the most efficient strategy to win (it's even more problematic when The Matriarch is inexperienced). There were some great ideas to counter it, like adding constrains to when you can use the trapdoors or limiting how many tiles you can dig each turn, but ideally I would want a solution that still allows this strategy but make it way more risky / less efficient. An idea which I'm going to try is that instead of having levers with a binary state (activated/deactivated), each lever will have a number that Sinners can change (like a padlock), the right combination to unlock the exit will be hidden next to the church and revelead progressively, which should encourage the Sinners to spend more time outside and also to communicate more with each others.
Another feedback was that having flexible game settings is great but can lead to unbalanced games, I will add recommended settings that change based on the number of players.
Stability also continues to be a priority, I'm happy to see that the last beta much more stable and the vast majority of you could join games and complete them without major issues but there are still a bunch of annoying glitches that need to be fixed. Bugs like the Matriarch journal not showing the correct information have already been fixed!
I'm also adding small quality of life features, I've just implemented to option menu that will let you configure the audio and resolution settings.
That's it for now, have a great end of the week, cheers!
Original post
28 May 2022Developer post
Devlog #5: OTK Expo, New Map, Bug fixes and more
Hey Sinners, hope you're doing well! I've been a bit less active on social media recently, that's because I've been busy fixing bugs reported during the recent Beta and there wasn't much to show, but in the past few couples of weeks, I've also worked on the second map, which I am
Hey Sinners, hope you're doing well!
I've been a bit less active on social media recently, that's because I've been busy fixing bugs reported during the recent Beta and there wasn't much to show, but in the past few couples of weeks, I've also worked on the second map, which I am happy to share now. I also have nice news that I'll keep for the end of the devlog

Bug fixed: - Not being able to use the chat - Character that doesn't turn / can't use their capacity - Invisible character - Stuck on a black/green screen - BOTs are not correctly marked as 'dead' in the book - Players being able to join a game that already started - Game doesn't end when Matriarch leaves
New Map: The Barn - The map is designed for shorter games & fewer players, (2-4 players ideally), it's much smaller than the first map and has only 3 activities - New activities such as shearing sheep or peeling potatoes, the gameplay is a bit different than the activities of the first map since it's not about moving but rather using or holding the action button with the right rhythm. In the future, I'd like to experiment with a variety of gameplay (like action + movement) - Check out the new map video https://twitter.com/matriarchgame/status/1530539132505792512 if you want to know more
New Game Option: Random Matriarch
And finally, I'm happy to announce that The Matriarch has been selected to participate in the upcoming OTK Expo, on June 8th & on Asmongold's twitch channel. Asmongold and the OTK team will be reviewing 30 indie games, save the date!
That's it for this month, after wrapping up the new map, I'll focus on public servers and a few other small features, stay tuned!
Cheers,
Original post
22 Apr 2022Developer post
Devlog #04: Beta-test dates, new killing devices, golden shovel and more!
It's been a while since the last devlog here! After the Steam Festival in February and a short break in March, I've been working on a mix of big and small new features. Scoring and shop systems: At the end of each game, earn a number of coins that depend on if you won, lost, or d
It's been a while since the last devlog here!
After the Steam Festival in February and a short break in March, I've been working on a mix of big and small new features.

Scoring and shop systems: At the end of each game, earn a number of coins that depend on if you won, lost, or died. Use these coins in Mephisto's workshop to buy new exciting killing devices! My plan is to regularly update the workshop with flavorful cosmetics.
The Golden Shovel feature! At the beginning of each game, a special shovel is hidden somewhere on the map, if a sinner finds it, they will be able to dig 2x faster
Sinners now have bigger names than BOTs (for sinners only), making it easier for players to identify their allies.
The Matriarch now has a 'reset all' button in the journal, changing all the checkmarks or crosses to '?'
I slightly reworked the first map (adding some flavorful decor elements) and started working on the second map
I will activate the demo on Steam for 4 days from the 29th of April to 2nd of March to test all of these, if you didn't have a chance to test the game yet, or want to test the new functionalities, I'd be happy to have you participating in this new beta!
Cheers,
-Chewa
Original post
15 Feb 2022Developer post
Developer Q&A and Livestream
Hey Sisters, I'll be playing The Matriarch with some friends, come chill with us! Ask me anything, I'll be happy to talk about the development or the future of the game.
10 Feb 2022Developer post
Loading issues fix & next bugs
Hey everyone, I pushed a fix for the loading issue (stuck on the lobby screen when launching a game from the lobby), this might also have fixed this issue of nuns sometimes having the matriarch book and not being able to go underground. Hopefully, that's fixed but please let me k

Updates & announcements

The Masquerade Demo is now available on Steam!

Demo content

The final game will include:

Proximity voice chat

Matriarch skins

Minor improvements

V10 is live! What's new?

I'm also thrilled to announce ‘The Masquerade’ !

New Cemetery Map with 2 Matriarchs

Spectator mode

한국어 / Korean language

3 new achievements

Other

The Matriarch gathered 50 000 Sinners around the world!

v0.8 is live!

What's New?

Bug fixes

What's new?

Bug fix

Patch 0.5 is live! What's new?

Coming up next!

New Map: The Monastery

What’s next?

What's new?

What's next?

I’m thrilled to finally announce that The Matriarch is now available!

What’s next?