Steam News24 July 202613d ago

Dev Diary - Ascension - The Path to Being a Demigod

The Path to Being a Demigod There comes a point in any game, where your characters have mowed down thousands of enemies and are able to single handedly defeat giants and dragons.

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Full Mercenary Brotherhood update

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addedPotential - Rewards Continual RisksCharacters gain experience as per normal in battles. Those that are defeating the enemy get more than those at the back but overall your units go up in levels at a consistent pace. As they go up in levels and unlock abilities, they get more powerful but in a more traditional sense. They learn Cleave to slice nearby units. Or they learn a more improved healing spell. While they can unlock some new tactics, they usually don't change your approach completely.

changedPotential - Rewards Continual RisksPotential is a parallel way to increase your power. As your units fight and risk their lives they slowly earn potential. The bigger the risk and harder the enemy they defeat, the more potential they get. Unlike normal experience, support units get far less. Also, whenever you level up your character, the amount of potential you have banked will drop. Potential is not just about taking risks one time but about keeping that momentum going. What this means is that you will have far fewer units that level up their potential. Once your potential levels up, then you will unlock the next awakening trait.

changedAwakenings — Ten Steps To Being A DemigodThere are ten tiers of awakenings. Each tier requires more potential and each tier unlocks 10 different awakenings traits or abilities to choose from. Like leveling up your character or skills, you are presented with three different options. Some of them are general ones that any can get and others are ones specific to those that focus on melee, ranged, magic, healing or performance (bard).

addedAwakenings — Ten Steps To Being A DemigodTake Blink Attack for example. Instead of standing and fighting, you unit can teleport next to an enemy, attack them once and teleport away. Great for jumping through the back lines and retreating to a new flank. Or Life Burn, where you can spend your health for more action points and to clear your fatigue. Each time you use it it's cost increases. Both of these are abilities, often with restrictions on how often you can cast them due to their power.

changedAwakenings — Ten Steps To Being A DemigodTogether these shift your tactics from standing and fighting to more dynamic movement and tactics. Tired of the Duergars turtling up on you in their closed formations? Use Leap and Smash which sends your unit leaping across the map and smashes back every enemy nearby.

changedAwakenings — Ten Steps To Being A DemigodThese are powerful but you will need them as the mid-late enemies get progressively more powerful so standing and fighting is a great way to lose some mercs. These will create some overpowered builds as people will find combos that work insanely good together. I am encourage that as finding powerful builds is half the fun of games like these. However I fully expect there will be tweaks over time to make sure there are none that are "must haves" and people can clear any map easily.

Mercenary Brotherhood changes

addedCharacters gain experience as per normal in battles. Those that are defeating the enemy get more than those at the back but overall your units go up in levels at a consistent pace. As they go up in levels and unlock abilities, they get more powerful but in a more traditional sense. They learn Cleave to slice nearby units. Or they learn a more improved healing spell. While they can unlock some new tactics, they usually don't change your approach completely.

changedPotential is a parallel way to increase your power. As your units fight and risk their lives they slowly earn potential. The bigger the risk and harder the enemy they defeat, the more potential they get. Unlike normal experience, support units get far less. Also, whenever you level up your character, the amount of potential you have banked will drop. Potential is not just about taking risks one time but about keeping that momentum going. What this means is that you will have far fewer units that level up their potential. Once your potential levels up, then you will unlock the next awakening trait.

changedThere are ten tiers of awakenings. Each tier requires more potential and each tier unlocks 10 different awakenings traits or abilities to choose from. Like leveling up your character or skills, you are presented with three different options. Some of them are general ones that any can get and others are ones specific to those that focus on melee, ranged, magic, healing or performance (bard).

addedTake Blink Attack for example. Instead of standing and fighting, you unit can teleport next to an enemy, attack them once and teleport away. Great for jumping through the back lines and retreating to a new flank. Or Life Burn, where you can spend your health for more action points and to clear your fatigue. Each time you use it it's cost increases. Both of these are abilities, often with restrictions on how often you can cast them due to their power.

changedTogether these shift your tactics from standing and fighting to more dynamic movement and tactics. Tired of the Duergars turtling up on you in their closed formations? Use Leap and Smash which sends your unit leaping across the map and smashes back every enemy nearby.

The Path to Being a Demigod

There comes a point in any game, where your characters have mowed down thousands of enemies and are able to single handedly defeat giants and dragons. At that point, you characters are so powerful that you feel they are legends heros and... then that's it. They are so powerful that there is nowhere else to go.

With Mercenary Brotherhood, I wanted to take a different tactic. Once you get that powerful, you are are basically a demigod, however it is a journey and not a trigger at level X. That journey is about gaining potential to awaken your power. This power increases over your mid to late games.

Potential - Rewards Continual Risks

Characters gain experience as per normal in battles. Those that are defeating the enemy get more than those at the back but overall your units go up in levels at a consistent pace. As they go up in levels and unlock abilities, they get more powerful but in a more traditional sense. They learn Cleave to slice nearby units. Or they learn a more improved healing spell. While they can unlock some new tactics, they usually don't change your approach completely.

Potential is a parallel way to increase your power. As your units fight and risk their lives they slowly earn potential. The bigger the risk and harder the enemy they defeat, the more potential they get. Unlike normal experience, support units get far less. Also, whenever you level up your character, the amount of potential you have banked will drop. Potential is not just about taking risks one time but about keeping that momentum going. What this means is that you will have far fewer units that level up their potential. Once your potential levels up, then you will unlock the next awakening trait.

Awakenings — Ten Steps To Being A Demigod

There are ten tiers of awakenings. Each tier requires more potential and each tier unlocks 10 different awakenings traits or abilities to choose from. Like leveling up your character or skills, you are presented with three different options. Some of them are general ones that any can get and others are ones specific to those that focus on melee, ranged, magic, healing or performance (bard).

The first three tiers are focused on increasingly larger stat boosts. They make you hit harder, move faster and able to tank more hits. Upon tier four it starts getting really interesting as it unlocks game breaking and rule breaking abilities and traits.

Take Blink Attack for example. Instead of standing and fighting, you unit can teleport next to an enemy, attack them once and teleport away. Great for jumping through the back lines and retreating to a new flank. Or Life Burn, where you can spend your health for more action points and to clear your fatigue. Each time you use it it's cost increases. Both of these are abilities, often with restrictions on how often you can cast them due to their power.

Steam post image On the other side are the passive traits that are always on. Tired of being kited around by archers? Then Gravity Well is for you, as enemies within two tiles from you are physically unable to move.

Together these shift your tactics from standing and fighting to more dynamic movement and tactics. Tired of the Duergars turtling up on you in their closed formations? Use Leap and Smash which sends your unit leaping across the map and smashes back every enemy nearby.

These are powerful but you will need them as the mid-late enemies get progressively more powerful so standing and fighting is a great way to lose some mercs. These will create some overpowered builds as people will find combos that work insanely good together. I am encourage that as finding powerful builds is half the fun of games like these. However I fully expect there will be tweaks over time to make sure there are none that are "must haves" and people can clear any map easily.

Ascension— Final Step Towards Becoming a Demigod

At the final Ascension tier, your unit can ascend to becoming a demigod. You are presented with 8 different options; such as Ascendant of War or Ascendant of Endurance. These provide a large stat bonus but not over the top. This is just your final step on your journey, but it is all those steps, all those abilities and traits you earned, that make you into a demigod.

What Does Ascending Do

You can still "die" after you ascend. However you are remembered in future games you play. Every character that ascends, whether they live or die, is stored in history. In future games you can run across shrines dedicated to that ascendant. Or in the local tavern you can overhear them talking about Grok the Ascendant of War. It even ties into rewards. After defeating an end game boss you can find a relic sword with immense power, only to realize it was that has Grok's sword he ascended with. Over time I plan on adding more interactions with your past demigods, such as fighting followers to them.

Mercenary Brotherhood Coming to Steam as Early Access this Fall 2026. Demo: The demo is out, try it now.

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Source

Steam News / 24 July 2026

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