Monster Sanctuary Update Adds PvP

Team17 and Moi Rai Games have released a new update for the Steam Early Access version of Monster Sanctuary. The primary addition in the update is the new competitive mode where players can battle against online opponents. To access the online battles, players will need to have reached the Keeper Lancer rank and are recommended to have their team of monsters at the current level cap of 29.

Online battles function in the same way as Keeper duels. Each player uses their full six monster team and it is only over once one player runs out of monsters. The update adds in an ability to switch monsters during fights as well as to forfeit. To prevent battles from taking too long, monsters will start gaining stacking boosts at a certain point that significantly increase their damage.

Monster Sanctuary aims to combine Metroidvania-style side-scrolling exploration with 3v3 turn-based combat. The game lets players tame and add any monster encountered in the game to their party. Monsters can be equipped with armor, fed to increase their stats, and each one has its own skill tree. In addition to being used in combat, some monsters also have abilities that aid in exploration, letting players access new areas of the world. The game was released on Steam Early Access in September 2019 and is expected to spend around a year in Early Access before being fully released.