October Progress Update! Halloween Monsters!
Dear Monster Keepers,
we wish everyone a Happy Halloween! Just in time for the spooky season, we want to share a special progress update with you featuring some of the spooky Monsters you will be able to find on the full release of the game! (Which is happening on December 8th, just in case you missed our last update: Monster Sanctuary is exiting Steam Early Access and will launch on PC Dec 8th)
If you have followed our Community Monster contests, you will likely recognize all of these Monsters, as all of them are contest winners!
Plague Egg
"Plague Eggs are usually reclusive and only rarely appear to attempt to cure illnesses and injuries on unattended patients. However, interrupting their 'operations' or attempting to capture them will provoke them to attack with magic, which curses and interrupts the biological functions of living creatures. Their cures sometimes resemble ominous experiments - for instance, they might save a human's life, but at the price of their legs. Conversely, sometimes they add enhancements to their patient's bodies, such as additional limbs or wings, but neglect to treat their illnesses."
Plague Eggs are the mad scientists of the Monster Sanctuary, with a very heavy focus on debuff skills, but also a good selection of support skills. They're very rare Monsters, but you might just get one from a certain Alchemist...
Thanatos
"Hundreds of years ago, there lived a king with his royal court in a majestic castle. One by one, the people living in that castle started dying under mysterious circumstances. At first, only servants and knights fell victim to this phenomenon. When it happened to close relatives of the king, panic took hold of the court. Many great warriors were summoned, patrolling the castle at all times. However, each of them lost their lives. After many weeks, an old priest came to the castle, feeble and barely able to walk. Thanks to divine magic, she hunted down the Thanatos that was responsible and banished it from our world, returning all of its victims to life."
Thanatoi can be quite deadly damage dealers, but they can also learn several very useful utility skills, including three different Multi-Buff auras. You will find Thanatoi as one of the new Monsters in the final area of the game, the Abandoned Tower.
Aazerach
"According to the Blind Starseer's own writing, she was visited by an Aazerach when she was very young. The demon took her eyesight, but granted her the same supernatural sense that Aazerachs possess. Over time, it allowed her to gain the demonic knowledge that led to the creation of the Ahrimaaya, the tome of demons. According to her later writings, she spent many years trying to escape other Aazerachs that were hunting her. Supposedly, Aazerachs watch over our world and step in whenever humans come too close to finding out about the worlds around us."
Aazerachs are dangerous damage dealers as well, but what makes them truly deadly is their ability to quickly apply many stacks of "Blind" on their enemies and some skills to profit off of those stacks. Aazerach will be a special Champion Monster that you will only be able to fight after completing the main story of the game - as such, defeating it will be no easy task.
New feature revealed: Ultimates
You may have spotted something new in the previous screenshots of those new Monsters' skill trees: a new row of three skills opens up after reaching Level 40! These are unlike any of the other skills a Monster can learn so far. They are Ultimates, special skills that can be used in combat and are quite stronger than other skills. Because of that, you are limited to using only one Ultimate per turn, and each Ultimate has a cooldown of three turns. They can be devastating single-target attacks, powerful multi-target attacks with different effects, strong support skills, or a mix between all of these.
A Monster may choose an Ultimate after reaching Level 40, and it does not require a skill point to be spent. A Monster can also always switch its Ultimate without having to use a Skill Resetter item.
That's all for this month's Progress Update! We hope you're looking forward to finding these new Monsters and teaching those Ultimate skills to your Monsters.