Aethermancer’s next update rewards a chaotic party and brings in Rivals of Aether’s Kragg

Most monster-taming games quietly betray their own premise. You are invited to befriend a whole bestiary, and then you carry the same three creatures to the credits because they are the strongest. Aethermancer, the roguelite from moi rai games, the small studio behind Monster Sanctuary, has spent its Early Access run arguing against that habit, and its next free update turns the argument into a character.

The update is called Maverick’s Compendium, and its centrepiece is the Aether Maverick, a new player class built around variety and randomness. In the announcement, publisher offbrand games describes a class that unlocks exclusive buffs according to how many different types of monster share your party. It is a small rule with a large consequence. In a game where every run reshuffles the Fractured Ruins and every level-up asks you to choose the direction a creature grows in, the Maverick pays you for refusing to specialise: the best team stops being the strongest trio and becomes the most varied one.

Aethermancer level-up screen offering three new traits for the monster Cherufe — Image: moi rai games / offbrand games

The roster grows by two. One newcomer is the Philosopher’s Stone, a monster designed with the game’s community; the other is a guest who explains offbrand’s presence on the project. Kragg, the rock-armoured beetle from Rivals of Aether, crosses over from the platform-fighter series that offbrand also publishes, a kinship the two games already wear in their names. Recasting a fighting-game character as a creature you bond with and raise, rather than a body you pilot, is the kind of cross-pollination indie publishers rarely attempt.

The rest of the update is about legibility. The Siriux Journal is an expandable compendium that tracks and unlocks monster stats and lore as you play, giving the bestiary a memory that outlasts any single run. A new Combat Log records every action in the turn-based fights, which matters in a system where synergies between three monsters can chain faster than the eye can follow. The release promises more beyond those headline additions without detailing it.

Aethermancer hub village at night, the hooded player character speaking with a capybara merchant — Image: moi rai games / offbrand games

Maverick’s Compendium arrives free on October 29 on Steam, where Aethermancer has been in Early Access for Windows and Linux since September 23, 2025. It is the third major content update and the fourth overall on the Early Access roadmap, following June’s Alchemical Awakening, which added the Alchemical Woods biome and took the roster to 40 monsters. The developers have already pushed the final Early Access update and the 1.0 release back to allow more polish; leaving Early Access is currently slated for 2027. On Steam, the game holds a Very Positive rating across more than 2,600 user reviews.

For a genre built on collecting, a class that rewards collecting widely is the most pointed design statement Aethermancer has made so far, and a clear sign of the game moi rai games wants to finish.

Tags: roguelites, Aethermancer, moi rai games, Monster Sanctuary, monster-taming games, offbrand games