Here it is – the big content update! When I say Pirate Update, I’m not messing around. Whether you're tearing through enemies with dual pistols as the all-new Pirate class, or navigating the treacherous, ghost ship–inspired zone dodging cannonballs and irate sharks, one thing’s for sure: you're gonna find that booty. This update is packed with content – practically a DLC’s worth – so read on to see everything I’ve added to the main game!

One of the most consistently requested playstyles since launch has been a gun-wielding class. At first, I wasn’t sure it was the right fit—this game has always leaned into melee combat, and let’s face it, there’s no shortage of games with guns out there. But over time, the idea grew on me. I started to see how I could put my own spin on it and make it feel unique and interesting within the world of Mortal Sin.

Unlike staves, guns can fire projectiles even with basic attacks. While they generally deal less damage than spells, they make up for it with faster projectiles and firing speed. Performing a power strike with a gun unleashes a power shot—a special bullet with increased damage, added knockback, and piercing capabilities. Additionally, performing a whirlwind allows you to rapid-fire your gun, making it a great tool for shredding through groups of enemies or quickly bursting down tougher foes.

Some guns, like the dual-wielded Pistol & Scimitar or the Axegun, feature a hybrid melee-ranged playstyle. Others, such as the dual Pistols or the Cannon, lean into more traditional ranged combat. And if your pirate ever gets overwhelmed, you’ve always got a blackpowder bomb on hand—perfect for clearing the room in a pinch.

But what’s a badass pirate without a ghostly pirate ship to raid? Ever since the early access release, I’ve felt the game needed a late-game area—something that unlocks deeper into your playthrough and offers a fresh kind of challenge. Now, by completing all of the C-variant levels for the core three zones, you’ll gain access to Vessel—a spectral, high-risk area packed with danger, gold, and exclusive loot drop boxes for those bold enough to brave its haunted decks.

While exploring the depths of this cursed vessel, you’ll encounter a new cast of dangerous foes—from your friendly neighborhood man-eating, overly buff shark man, to skeleton pirates armed with dual pistols and cannons. Stay sharp and always watch your surroundings—poor positioning might land you right in the middle of a skeleton cannon-firing squad!

I’ve decided to keep the game’s pacing intact by still requiring only three areas to reach the final level. That means the overall length remains the same, but with more route options for increased variety and replayability. To support this, I’ve done a polish pass on the progress screen—now it clearly highlights the areas you can visit, along with the path you’ve taken so far. This should make the game’s structure much more understandable for new players, and a welcome quality-of-life improvement for seasoned veterans.

Content

• Added a new class: Pirate. Specializes in guns and can use his ability to throw an explosive bomb at groups of enemies. Also has a unique set of combos to learn, just like the other classes!
  
• Added a new area: Vessel. This is a ghost pirate ship–themed area with new enemies, a new boss, new traps, new unlockables, and over 80 unique new rooms!
  
• Added a new enemy: Cutthroat. A dual-sword-wielding pirate with a devastating whirlwind attack.
  
• Added a new enemy: Deadshot. A dual-pistol-wielding pirate that moves quickly and fires bullets from afar.
  
• Added a new enemy: Boomer. A cannon-wielding pirate that moves slowly but deals heavy ranged damage. He can also lob an explosive grenade to really mess up your day.
  
• Added a new enemy: Devourer. A giant, ripped shark bro that tanks hits and can eat you alive if you're not careful.
  
• Added a new boss: Cursed King. He is the most deadly melee boss—running at mach speed, wielding two heavy maces, and unleashing guard-breaking multi-hit strikes. Try to parry him at your own risk!
  
• Added a new weapon: Pistol & Scimitar. Combo fluidly with your blade and finish them off with a close-range blast from your flintlock.
  
• Added a new weapon: Pistols. Dual-wield two flintlocks, unleashing a devastating barrage of bullets.
  
• Added a new weapon: Axegun. An axe–shotgun hybrid that combines spread fire with a deadly blade.
  
• Added a new weapon: Cannon. Pretty self-explanatory! Deals a ton of damage, pierces through enemies, and knocks you back from the recoil.
  
• Added a new trap: Spinning Saw. This is a rotating double-sided saw that spins incredibly fast, shredding anything that gets close. It pauses briefly every now and then to give you a chance to pass by. You can also crouch under it at any time!
  
• Added a new trap: Cannon. There are several variants, but basically, these will fire big cannonballs at regular intervals. It would be in your best interest to avoid getting hit by one of these.
  
• Added two "new" scares to the Vessel area (totally not reskins of older scares).
  
• Added 12 new unlockables exclusive to the Vessel to encourage exploring all three variants.
  
• Added a new skill: Sniper. This is a Pirate-exclusive skill that functions identically to Headhunter, except it applies only to projectile weapons rather than melee weapons.

Balance

• Made Gladiator the default starting class, swapping its place with Struggler. The early experience is super important for first impressions, and I didn't feel that Struggler was fitting the bill. Gladiator is a strong fighter type, with an immediately useful ability, great auto-combos, built-in crowd control, high damage, and fewer itemization decisions to make, which makes it more friendly to a new player.
  
• Added the basic cleaver to Gladiator's weapon spawn pool.
  
• Added guns not only to Pirate, but also to the hybrid classes (Struggler, Martyr, and Enigma). Duelist also has a very small chance to find the dual-wield guns.
  
• Reduced Echo and Fracture mana cost from 2% to 1.5%.
  
• Removed projectile weapon range/radius scaling. This was always really hard to balance and would sometimes lead to projectiles getting so big they hit a wall in tight corridors before reaching their target.

Polish

• Added a small crosshair in the center of the screen that is hopefully not too intrusive. If you don't like it, you can always disable it in the settings.
  
• Updated the progress screen map to highlight both your possible level paths, as well as the paths you've already traversed.
  
• Added unique backgrounds to the progress screen for each area.
  
• Did polish on various other progress screen elements like the icons and borders.
  
• New enemy projectile attacks with fast travel times (i.e., bullets and cannonballs) will show a red line-of-sight warning, giving you a chance to parry or move out of the way.
  
• Gladiator's Battle Cry animation now shows the fists closed to project real chad strength.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where bosses sometimes wouldn't drop their gold essence.

That’s all for this update—thanks so much for playing, supporting, and being part of the journey. Whether you’re a longtime player returning for new challenges or someone just jumping in, I hope the Pirate class and Vessel area give you fresh ways to explore, experiment, and have fun.

This update marks another big step toward full release. There's still more polish, tuning, and content to come, but the finish line is getting closer. Your feedback, bug reports, and support have been instrumental in shaping the game, and I couldn’t be more grateful.

Until next time—may your aim be steady, your loot plentiful, and your shark bros only mildly aggressive.

Hello! Wanted to share this nice quality of life update that spices up the game and opens some new build options to play with.

Content

• Added a new skill: Chain Strike. Each successive hit in a single melee attack deals additional damage. This further encourages flicking the weapon around and also letting the entire animation play rather than cancelling it early.
  
• Added a new skill: Combustive Rush (replaces Trapper). Starting a sprint will trigger a fiery explosion. Also explodes enemies who are knocked into traps. Not having to always rely on traps should make this much more of a build defining staple.
  
• Added a new staff-only skill: Mana Surge. Every combo level restores some mana directly to the staff using this skill.
  
• Added a new curse: Arcane Fragility. Item's that are reduced to zero mana will break, similarly to how it worked in the previous version. Rewards +4 item level
  
• Added a new curse: Raging Spirits. Killing an enemy from afar has a chance to fire a projectile at the player. Rewards +3 item level
  
• Added two new staff-only auto combos to Vampire to give a few more options if you happen to have missed your Waves of Blood combo ability reset.

Polish

• Renamed durability to mana to more accurately reflect how it works now, as resource for powerful skills, rather than something that deteriorates and breaks over time.
  
• Lowered the gravity a little bit in portal rooms, so jumping has a little more hang time.
  
• Blood spray effects now fade out the closer they are to the camera, so they don't obscure the action.
  
• Did a pass on all of the cave textures and colors so it's brighter, more aesthetically pleasing, and has better contrast with the enemies.
  
• Damage numbers are bold and outlined so they stand out a little more.

Balance

• Reworked Hunter Vanish a bit. It no longer grants critical strikes, but does trigger a shockwave on use and also grants very brief invincibility. I've seen a lot of comments confused why the ability triggers so often during auto combo. The answer is, it allows you to attack faster than you otherwise would by cancelling the attack animation, and also is a key component in every Hunter combo. I believe making it an actual attack will make it feel less strange, and also adds the benefit of not leaving you vulnerable for the moment it's active.
  
• Added Heavy Strikes, Vortex and Body slam to Hunter in case you want to try more of a whirlwind style build.
  
• Increased elite enemy scare attribute cooldown so it doesn't spam as frequently.
  
• Iron Grip and Clarity now use a percentage of the skill's reduced cost, rather than a flat percentage. This way, faster weapons aren't drained disproportionately faster compared to slower ones.
  
• Soul Cleave and Manifest Weapon now hit on every rotation like they used to. Manifest Weapon has been buffed significantly in particular, with longer duration and many fast spins for high damage.
  
• Moved Berserker Rage from weapons to gloves (with small chance for other armors as well)
  
• Moved Bloodthirst from weapons to helmet (with small chance for other armors as well)
  
• Moved Combo Mastery from boots to gloves (with small chance for other armors as well)
  
• Doubled Sin Ward cross duration so you have more time to accumulate them
  
• Reduced parry health gained from Unyielding Faith slighly from 25% to 20%

Bug Fixes

• Spirit Drill now correctly applies critical strike damage.
  
• Alchemist now shows up on gloves like it was intended (instead of being solely a passive skill)

I'm beginning work on new enemies / levels, but also trying to think of a way to introduce these piece by piece instead of going silent for two months and dropping it all at once. Stay tuned for more exciting content additions!

I've been reading all the comments closely, particulary those having to do with the durability rework that went along with this update. I was admittedly a little concerned about how these changes would go over, considering durability is already a controversial feature in most games. Although most sustainability issues can be mitigated through various skill choices, I get it, it can be stressful to keep checking on your durability in the middle of a hectic fight and the penalty is pretty harsh for ignoring it even for a few moments.

Here are some changes that I think will help a lot to make the overall experience smoother:

• Equipment that is reduced to zero durability will no longer break, and will still keep its stats. However, it's skills will be disabled until you drink a wizard oil
  
• Any weapons that are depleted will turn red and deal 50% damage until you repair it
  
• Any staves that are depleted will not be able to cast until you repair it

Now if your equipment is depleted, you atleast still have a functional weapon until you have a moment to drink a potion, and most importantly, won't lose it permanently. For the future, I want to consider some more non-durability drawbacks such as health draining effects, penalty for using certain types of items over others, etc. I've also heard suggestions to rebrand durability, which I think may be appropriate especially now since durability is essentially a mana bar for that item. For now though, I believe this will help with most issues people have mentioned.

Here are some other fixes and changes as well:

• Fixed unkillable enemy bug (Had to make an educated guess, please send a bug report in discord if you still get this issue)
  
• Fixed a bug where quests wouldn't load if you had a innate skill quest reward from an older version
  
• Cheat death drains 100% durability and also has a chance to break a random piece of equipment on use. The chance to break something goes down with each stack, all the way to 0% to make it more appealing to stack.

Hello Sinners! In this update, I’ve done a complete overhaul of the skill system to encourage impactful decision making and greater build variety. Other highlights include the addition of sprinting, damage numbers, and more!

Overall, I am pretty happy with the core combat of Mortal Sin, but I felt like it was lacking a little bit as an action-rpg and roguelike in terms of the character building component. I did some reflection and came to the conclusion that the skills did not feel impactful enough, and were too easy to acquire. Additionally, I wanted there to be more of a risk-reward component in balancing greedy play versus safer decision making. Sort of like gradually removing pieces from a jenga tower, seeing just how close you can get to the edge before it collapses.

I realized that the risk-reward factor was mostly already built in the game, but just wasn’t being utilized effectively enough: I’m talking about durability, of course. Item skills and passive skills have now been unified, leading to direct synergy between your equipment choices and skill orb choices. However, nearly every skill is tied to durability usage, either from the equipment you got the skill from, or from an equipment slot tied to the passive skill you selected.

Passive skills are now tied to a particular equipment slot, i.e Melee Weapon, Staff, Helmet etc. This means you need something in that slot for the skill to be active, and it will also consume the durability of whatever is in that slot. You must strategically consider your skill selections, as stacking too many skills in the same slot may be powerful, but unsustainable for your durability unless you invest in other durability damage mitigating skills. Generally it's best to stack a smaller set of skills, since the durability cost stays the same, and they get super powerful bonuses you can truly feel. For example, increasing your Waveblade stacks increases not only damage, but the number of projectiles as well. Increasing Inner Fire stacks will make your fireballs pierce enemies, etc.

But how do you measure how well your build is doing? Well other than clear speed, you can now see exactly how hard each combo and skill is hitting with these handy damage numbers! You can toggle them in the settings, but you probably won’t want to because they are pretty addicting.

Oh yeah, there’s also sprinting now! To perform a sprint, simply hold the bash button. This opens up a lot of new tactical options that weren’t available before, such as running away to make space to drink your potions. Beware though, enemies will run after you too!

A note about saves: Because I removed the old passive skills, and made a new skill system, your skills on items will be removed along with your passives if you load up an old session. Your character will still be intact otherwise though, and the progression will normalize by the time you hit the next round. Here are the rest of the patch notes, excluding individual specific skill changes that are too numerous to list.

Content

• Added a brand new skill system! Passive skills and item skills have been combined into the same pool of skills, so you can now synergize and stack skills either with items or skill orbs. Every single skill in the game is stackable now up to a maximum of 5 stacks, with compelling rewards for investing heavily into one skill.
  
• Added 50 new skills! Although some share the same name and icon as before, they’ve all been reworked in some way, with different behaviors and scaling properties. Choose them wisely!
  
• Passive skills now are tied to a particular equipment slot, i.e Melee Weapon, Staff, Helmet etc. This means you need something in that slot for the skill to be active, and it will also consume the durability of whatever is in that slot. Reworked and updated the UI in many places to better communicate these changes.
  
• Reworked the starting area to be more compact and convenient. All of the points of interest are closer to the player, there’s less empty space, and it’s more decorated than before.
  
• You can now hold bash to immediately go into a sprint once the animation is complete. No more shift spamming!
  
• Reworked durability. Every item now has 100% durability across the board, but consumes different amounts depending on its weight. Fast, light weapons consume less durability per hit, but take more durability damage on block and parry. Slow, heavy weapons consume more durability per hit, but take less durability damage on block and parry. Skills will now consume fixed amounts of durability for the appropriate slots, rather than a random range of durability like before. Generally, you will take way less durability damage when you get hit now, but you will spend more for powerful skills.
  
• Added damage numbers! I wanted to communicate damage intuitively for all the numerous attacks that had no UI otherwise, such as kicks, punches, fireballs, explosions, etc. Critical hits will show as large yellow numbers. You can toggle damage numbers in the gameplay settings.
  
• Enigma now has random combos!

Balance

• Struggler has been slightly reworked and buffed greatly. His combos now flow more smoothly, and he is incentivized to switch between melee weapons and staves with the newly added Spellblade combo for a true hybrid playstyle. He also starts with +5 to all starting stats, which makes sin level stat boosts much more meaningful.
  
• Reduced level size scaling overall from 1x, 1.5x, 2x for A, B and C areas respectively, to 1x, 1.25x, 1.5x.
  
• Base crit percentage starts at 0%, down from 5%.
  
• Attack stat no longer adds to your base damage, but instead increases your global damage by up to 200%. Attack was basically the number one source of damage before, which hurt build diversity and meaningful decision making. Now it’s still good, but it doesn’t have to be your main source of damage increase.
  
• Punches and kicks now scale with your current level, rather than not scaling at all. I felt this was necessary to compensate for the fact that weapons scale with item level and unarmed attacks didn’t have anything similar so they fell behind a lot later in the game.
  
• Fist weapons now have varying attack speed, in addition to the different damage and hitboxes they already had before, to make them feel more different.
  
• Elite enemies no longer drop skill crates, but rather sinful essence. This improves the pacing of the game, and ensures that skill choices remain meaningful, rather than being flooded with skills like before. Added a new in-game sin level UI to better show the sinful essence gains since they happen more frequently now.
  
• Some of the skills ported to the new system will only trigger with direct melee hits now, such as Shared Misery, Chains of Ice, Volatility and Headhunter. I want these effects to reward skillful aim, rather than being triggered automatically by all the different projectiles and explosion effects.
  
• Portal rooms are always the smallest size now, instead of increasing in size over the course of the run. Empty portal exits are guaranteed to have a sinful essence now so they aren’t just rewardless dead ends. I don’t want portal rooms to ever feel like a drag, particularly when multiple portals spawn in the same room.
  
• All trials reward a Skill Orb selection now, which is a lot more valuable because skills are not as plentiful as before.
  
• Rerolling Skill Orbs doubles the price each time.
  
• Reduced all enemy health by 20%
  
• Curse item bonuses now scale multiplicatively with each round, so they are way more impactful in later rounds.
  
• Reworked quest weapon / armor upgrade formula to be more linear rather than exponential scaling
  
• Tweaked item rarity drop rates so the best items are less common
  
• Rare (purple) items now have +2 skill level, which makes them unique since every other item can only give +1. Upgrading a rare item with the helena quest reward will give you a godlike (pink) item, with +2 instead of +1, making it the best type of equipment in the game.
  
• Removed drop chests for now. I don’t think there’s really a good place for these in the game at the moment, as they slow down the tempo and make the rewards less meaningful, but I may bring them back if I find another use for them.

Polish

• The delay after a hit cancel which then allows you to perform your next action now behaves consistently regardless of your frame rate. Increased the delay from roughly .1 seconds (5 frames), to .2 seconds, so attacks have to follow through a little bit rather than having their animation cancelled before the hit is even visible. This does make the game a little less spam friendly, so sometimes it’s best to wait just a beat before inputting your next action to decide if you should block or continue attacking.
  
• Helena has her own crafting sockets now so crafting at the anvil doesn’t stomp on her rewards.
  
• It’s now a little more difficult to get out of bounds in the starting area, but if you do, there is an endless void to look at in the horizon. Whatever you do though, don’t touch it!
  
• Removed the cooldown from buying Sinful Offerings, and added an option to buy Sinful Offerings in batches of 10 for convenience.
  
• Increased head bob amount, and doubled it while sprinting.
  
• Hitstop won’t trigger again until the last hitstop is finished
  
• Hunter’s Mark curse no longer makes the player’s light go dark

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where jumping straight out of a dash in portal rooms would sometimes kill your upwards momentum
  
• Fixed a bug where it was possible to endlessly dash jump in portal rooms
  
• Fixed UI bug where sell button prompt sometimes was in the wrong position
  
• Other minor bug fixes

This is my last planned systemic rework for Mortal Sin. From here on out, I want to focus on fleshing the game out with additional content and polish for the 1.0 release. I spent a lot of time on the tool sets for levels and enemies, did numerous code rewrites, and I want to fully utilize all the work I did to make the game really shine. Thank you for supporting my game for 2 years now. I will do my best to make the full release the fullest execution of my vision, which you have all given me the opportunity to do!

Hello Sinners! Back with an update that includes a lot of polish and also some commonly requested features that will help increase replayability. I really appreciate the feedback on the last combo update, and now I'm more in the mindset of using that as a base to expand the game rather than rework it.

Starting off with one of the most commonly requested features, a random color cycler! It will automatically pick a new color at the start of each run, which adds a lot of variety. It was kind of cumbersome before to have to go to the settings every time to swap colors, so now you can set this once, sit back, relax, and play!

I also went ahead and added a random class option. Not sure what to play on a given day? Give this option a spin and learn a new class you haven't tried yet!

Instead of having a small chance to get any off-class weapon (which was usually something boring like a sword or axe), each class has a small chance to get a rare weapon that is useful for their kit. Finding one of these weapons can even open up a new playstyle altogether. In the case of the Monk, he has a small chance to find a Guan Dao. If you are lucky enough to find one, you will have access to two incredibly powerful weapon-only combos!

Manage your invincibility timer like a pro with this new handy UI! This is a small, but very nice addition that allows you to really unleash your offense potential without ever taking your eyes off the action.

Here are more detailed patch notes below:

Content

• Added a Random Colors option to the visual settings! Turn this on to get a random color right away. It will also automatically cycle through colors every time you start a new session for more variety!
  
• Added a Random Class option to the class selection screen! It won't pick a class you haven't unlocked yet.
  
• Reworked the code for loot so that every class has a more customizable loot table.
  
• Instead of having a small chance to get any off-class weapon (which was usually something boring like a sword or axe), each class has a small chance to get a rare weapon that is powerful and can open up a new playstyle.
  
• Berserker has a small chance to get a Sinblade or Devil's Arm, opening up options for faster play.
  
• Gladiator has a small chance to get Sinblade or dual-wield Cleavers for more variety.
  
• Monk has an increased chance to get fist weapons like Claws and Caestus.
  
• Monk get's no weapons normally, but has a 1% chance to find the Guan Dao.
  
• Added two monk weapon-only combos intended for the Guan Dao, Phantom Wind and Dragon's Fang. Dragon's Fang is a powerful ability reset combo that opens up a new style of play!
  
• Added a new combo action called "Slash" specifically for attacking with melee weapons (similar to "Staff Attack" or "Punch"). It's only used by the Dragon's Fang combo currently.
  
• Paladin has a small chance to get the thematically appropriate Divine Radiance, in case you want to go two-hand style.
  
• Reaper has a small chance to get Mortal Coil or Spirit Drill, in case you want to go spell caster style.
  
• Stalker has a small chance to get Soul Lance, in case you want to go spell caster style.
  
• Vampire has a small chance to get Blizzard or Spectral Mace, to add some variety.
  
• Warlock has a small chance to get the Scythe, in case you want to go melee-hybrid style
  
• Replaced the old invincibility UI indicator with a simple radial graphic in the center of the screen. Managing invulnerability is a very important part of the game, so I want to make this as smooth as possible so you don't need to take your eyes off the action.
  
• Added scare spawn attribute to elite enemies (similar to the final boss)
  
• Added homing skull attribute to elite enemies (similar to the final boss)
  
• Added sound and visual effects for various stages of charging when you hold attack. Now you can see one ring for a One Whirlwind, two rings for a Half Whirlwind, and three rings for a Full Whirlwind. Sometimes a combo may offer One Whirlwind for example, and if you hold just a little longer you can get it to Half Whirlwind, and Full Whirlwind. This is always faster than charging from nothing, and now it's more clear what the timing actually is.

Balance

• Hits that cause an explosion from combos or parrying now scale based on your weapon's damage versus a flat value. This means heavier weapons will appropriately do more explosion damage than faster ones.
  
• Explosions from parries deal slightly less damage (80% of weapon damage), compared to explosions from combos (100% of weapon damage). This shouldn't really be that noticeable, but its just a slight extra incentive to perform combos rather than farm parries.
  
• Made all invincibility effects that weren't already on a timer timer-based so they can show up clearly for the new radial UI.
  
• Reduced invincibility timer for Quick Step, Perfectionist, Bone Saw and Blood Boil.
  
• [Hotfix 1/6/25] Increased range of katanas to match the default sword
  
• Potion shops found in dungeons have a maximum of one purchase per statue. This makes it so you can't max out so easily, and also gives more meaning to having two of the same kind of potion statue next to each other.
  
• Reduced elite enemy slow aura duration and increased the cooldown so it can't chain nonstop.
  
• Reduced the amount of unique combos you need to perform to avoid the stale moves penalty. Since there's less combos now per class, the old threshold didn't really make sense.

Polish

• Hits that cause an explosion now explode at the point of impact, rather than the player's position, so it enforces that that the explosion is coming from the hit itself.
  
• [Hotfix 1/6/25] Decoupled auto combo and combo UI code so you can have auto combo work even when combo shuffle or combo UI is turned on. Leave your ultimate combo that takes practice to memorize up on the screen while still being able to do those juicy auto combos!
  
• [Hotfix 1/8/25] Renamed "Cast" combo action to "Staff Attack" to hopefully make it more clear
  
• Disabled crafting anvils for Hoarder since he has no weapons
  
• Banned weapon quest rewards for Hoarder since he has no weapons
  
• Bosses drop yellow essence for Hoarder instead of loot crates
  
• Added a nicer in-game Discord button and removed the other social media links. Since there's no comprehensive wiki or guide for Mortal Sin yet, I really want to make sure players have a resource to learn more about the game and ask questions. And as of now, the Discord is the best place for that!
  
• Elite enemy split attribute will now spawn smaller versions of itself with the same color as the original elite.
  
• Color coded the tooltips for auto versus manual combos on the combo screen to make it more clear.

Bug Fixes

• [Hotfix 1/8/25] Fixed bug where you couldn't navigate to combo list with controller or keyboard.
  
• Hitting enemies through walls no longer shows the hit marker UI (since they don't take damage).
  
• Fixed an issue where you could often end up crowd surfing enemies.

Thank you for the support! I notice some people did indeed gift a copy to their friends and spread the word after my last post. This has a snowballing effect because not only is it an additional sale, but it also helps boost the steam algorithm to recommend the game. If you are able to gift a copy or leave a review, i'd really appreciate it as it will help carry momentum to release.

I also wanted to share that the steam experimental beta branch is very much active now. I update on there nearly every day, so I'd highly recommend to leave it on because you'll never know what fun new content you'll see every time you play! Beta feedback is prioritized, so make your voice heard on the Discord[discord.gg].

Hello Sinners! First of all, I want to thank you for the support in 2024, and I intend to carry this momentum into a strong 2025 release year. This started out as a minor update, but then I realized in order to do it right, it needed a lot more work. I’ve done a complete overhaul on all the classes in the game, giving them unique movesets and a stronger overall identity. Here is a breakdown of some of the major changes, starting with class combos:

I found that people tended to stick to one or two reliable combos, such as Whirling Dervish, and ignore the others. I initially added combo shuffle and combo rewards to help encourage people to mix it up, but then I realized it’s probably best to go with how people play instead of fighting against it.

Less is more! Each class now has a smaller set of unique combos that more impactful than before. For example, the monk is all about battering your foes with quick blows, setting them up with an uppercut, then doing an exploding whirlwind finisher. The hunter is all about thrusting attacks, and weaving the vanish ability between each attack for some peekaboo style gameplay. Classes tend to lean more heavily into one type of attack such as basic attacks, heavy attacks, thrusts, whirlwinds, etc.

Some ability combos are difficult to execute, but can lead to an ability cooldown reset. This allows you to chain the combo repeatedly as long as you can execute it consistently. If you drop it though, you’ll be stuck waiting for the cooldown and have to resort to your basic combos. Take this reaper combo for example, which allows you to chain bonesaws when performed correctly.

Speaking of basic combos, you don’t really have to worry about memorizing them at all, because the game takes care of that for you. With the auto combo setting on by default, you will automatically perform some short bread and butter combos simply by clicking. The system is smart enough to detect your distance, angle, and movement direction. This means you will bash, kick, or attack depending on these factors as well as the random combo selected. You can tell if a combo is an auto combo, by looking for the small gear icon on the right.

The goal is to minimize the overhead of learning each class, make gameplay flow smoother, and also allow newer players to immediately understand the benefits of combos and how fast paced the game actually is. Now you memorize 1-3 class defining combos, and leave the rest to the left mouse button. It may sound simple on paper, but each class has their own ins and outs that must be mastered to succeed.

Manual combos are still prioritized even when auto combo is toggled on, so it should never interfere with you trying to pull off that six button, mega death explosion combo. If you are still not convinced though, you can always toggle it off in the settings.

Here are more detailed patch notes below:

Content

• Added 78 new combos to try out! Each class has around 6 unique combos on average.
  
• Each class was entirely overhauled to have a stronger identity so enjoy the variety and satisfaction of mastering each one!
  
• Added an auto combo system that can be toggled at any time in the settings. Auto combos are there to help make general offensive gameplay smoother, and help reduce the overhead of trying to memorize many combos. Only basic combos can be auto combos, and the more advanced combos with high payoff must be performed manually.
  
• Added 12 unique combo attributes for different finishers. These include explosions, four different kinds of whirlwinds, invincibility, shock blasts and more!
  
• Since many combos are now a core part of their respective class kits, I replaced some of the unlockables from the level progression system.
  
• Added a +1 health potion at start unlockable.
  
• Added a +1 wizard oil at start unlockable.
  
• Added three +1 sin levels at start unlockables.
  
• Added three +1 quest reward retained between runs unlockables.

Balance

• Thrusting weapons and whirlwind weapons now alternate regular attacks with their thrust / whirlwind attack respectively. This is done to make them feel better to use so they don’t just spam the same animation over and over. Whirlwind weapons perform a fast whirlwind by default.
  
• The stages of attack charging are now slow power strike, one slow whirlwind power strike, half duration slow whirlwind power strike, full duration slow whirlwind power strike. Shortened the time it takes to get to the next stage a lot to compensate and better fit the fast paced nature of the game. Try holding some combo power strikes to take it to the next stage. Utilizing combos can also help you perform the fast variants of these finishers.
  
• Performing any power strike attack will slow your character down during its active frames.
  This is done to make heavier attacks feel stronger, and also to help balance ranged characters firing projectiles so enemies have a chance to close the gap.
  
• You move slower during a whirlwind startup. The active whirlwind part is normal speed, down from 1.5x speed.
  
• Numerous adjustments to class stats, ability cooldowns, weapon tables to help fine tune gameplay.
  
• Paladin Holy Spirit ability also fires magic shields on bash, in addition to block.
  
• Nerfed Blood Ritual cast speed a lot.
  
• Hold thrust is now a default mechanic and no longer needs to be unlocked. I think it’s a little underutilized in this current version of the game, so I’ll probably find another use for it in the future.
  
• Changes in player speed happen with a little bit of acceleration / deceleration to make movement feel smoother. Dashing starts at max acceleration still, but will gradually decelerate to normal speed at the end.
  
• Berserker rage skill now only applies to power strike whirlwinds, and only grants 1 second of invulnerability at the beginning of a whirlwind’s active frames (instead of the whole animation)
  
• Reduced drop rate of off brand weapons for classes with weapon restrictions by a factor of 10. I may remove or rework this in the future, because it seems cool on paper, but in practice it’s rarely exciting when it happens and takes away from the class identity.
  
• The no damage quest objective now only fails if you take a direct hit that stuns you. This means poison damage and bloody palm damage is ignored.

Polish

• Battle music will fade out sooner after all nearby enemies are dead.
  
• Redid the kick collider to contour more to the thigh as well as the leg. Gave it a longer hitbox.
  
• Redid the bash collider to be a sphere around the player instead of using the fist hitboxes. It should hit enemies more consistently than before. Increased the radius also.
  
• Redid the player fist colliders to contour to upper arm as well as forearm. Gave them a longer hitbox.
  
• Redid the Caestus and Claw hitboxes. Claws are long and narrow, and Caestus is short and wide.
  
• Dashing near enemies will cause you to stop dashing and decelerate so you don’t shoot past them at mach speed as often.
  
• Polished the player combo UI to look nicer and have more helpful text descriptions.
  
• Added some simple tutorial texts for auto combo.
  
• Heavy attacks and whirlwinds will clear the input buffer when they first activate so it’s not so easy to accidentally interrupt them.
  
• Reduced freeze effect size a little so it’s easier to see enemies close up

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Scythe not glowing during power strikes.
  
• Disabled enemy hitboxes when they are stunned so they don’t hit you while going from an attack animation to a stun animation.
  
• Fixed a bug where enemy mortal coil projectiles didn’t stun the player.

I wanted to share that Mortal Sin has hit a bit of a slump in terms of growth, so I’d really appreciate any support that will give me time to get the game over the finish line. I’ve tried to pick up the marketing lately, reaching out to influencers, revamping the steam page, making a new trailer, and running ads, but none of them have seemed to have a major impact so far. If you could help by letting your friends know about the game or perhaps gifting them a copy, I’d greatly appreciate it. There’s still a lot of content I want to do, such as a gunslinger class, new enemies, new traps, new area, and more polish that I believe will make the game truly shine. Stay tuned for more updates, and happy new year!

Hello Sinners! I've been working on polishing up the current gameplay before moving on to bigger content updates. Enjoy this batch of class changes, new color palette, bug fixes, and various other balance tweaks for a more enjoyable experience.

Content

• Added a new color Palette, Helloween! This orange / black palette is a lot of fun to play with, and is inspired by the Halloween update artwork.
  
• All color palettes start unlocked now from the beginning. Although it wasn’t intentional, for some the palettes are useful for accessibility reasons, and in that case, I feel it’s unnecessary to gate them behind play time if they make for a more comfortable experience
  
• Timed enemy survival and elite enemy floor plate quests can now spawn in arena rooms as well. This also fixes an issue where the plate could sometimes not spawn at all if that floor was only an arena room

Class Changes

• Juiced up the Monk’s Dragon Punch ability. The uppercut deals 4x normal fist damage (up from 1x), has more force, and triggers a more powerful explosion
  
• Juiced up the Gladiator’s Battle Cry ability. It triggers an additional shockwave, deals 3x damage, has more force, and has half the cooldown
  
• Reworked the Duelist’s Blade Dance ability to have half the cooldown, but triggers a fast, short whirlwind
  
• Berserker now has the Brand of Sacrifice curse to start, totally unlike Guts from Berserk
  
• Increased the starting health of nearly all classes, minus the tankiest ones

Balance

• Combo levels now reward 1 second base invincibility, up from .5 seconds, and scales with the reward multiplier for 2 seconds and up to 3 seconds respectively at higher combo levels. I want to push the combat a little more in the direction of combo rewards so people don’t feel as inclined to only parry
  
• Removed the fast power strike after a regular block
  
• Parries have a slightly smaller window to execute
  
• Added back in shield weapons having a slightly bigger parry window
  
• Parry whirlwinds only do one rotation now, rather than a full cycle. This new type of whirlwind is referred to in-game as a fast, short whirlwind
  
• Parries mitigate .5x guard damage, down from .75x
  
• Poison can no longer be parried
  
• Made the forest swinging branch trap smaller and easier to crouch under
  
• If you stun an enemy while it’s already stunned, it will preserve the stun duration of the longer stun rather than reset the timer
  
• Enemy kicks now do increased guard damage rather than bypassing guard entirely
  
• Did a pass on projectile stun and knockback values so they appropriately match the force of the attack (was all the same before)
  
• Enemies are guaranteed to have at least half of the player’s movement speed after round 1. This is to prevent cases where the player has stacked so much speed the enemies can’t keep up early on
  
• Reduced the random range of equipment durability damage when taking hits from 1x-4x to 1x-2x
  
• During arena events, each enemy spawned will add 1 second to the timed completion quest objective timer, rather than pausing it completely
  
• Made split enemies a little bigger so they’re easier to hit
  
• Reduced the damage of boss overhead double slam attacks by 20%
  
• Summoned minions have .75x health

Polish

• Enemy line of sight checks work more reliably now so enemies will attack their friends’ backs less now
  
• Enemies can no longer get hit behind walls
  
• Enemies that just spawned will delay appearing until the player is a sufficient distance away. Helps with cases where the player could end up riding on the head of an enemy that just spawned underneath them
  
• Blood / audio hit effects now play at the point of impact more accurately
  
• The enemy attack warning now shows from further away and appears more reliably
  
• The enemy attack warning now plays a sound effect
  
• Far away enemies will move slowly towards the player until they are in a certain range. Reduces the amount of hunting for enemies in large arenas.
  
• Headless enemies will approach the player if they are too far away, preventing cases where they had to be hunted down or moved so far away they were no longer a threat
  
• Frozen enemies have their hitboxes disabled, but continue to show their attack warning, and will immediately activate their hitboxes again after unfreezing
  
• Smoothed enemy pathing around various static forest objects like graves and crosses

Optimization

• Freeze effects will only trigger once per enemy, rather than once for every single body part

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug with shared misery that would cause an error which could make a domino effect and cause other weird issues (11/1 hotfix)
  
• Fixed a bug where you could trigger Quake and Judgement even on non power strike weapon attacks (11/3 hotfix)
  
• Warlock’s Dual Cast ability now properly resets it’s cool down every time you parry
  
• Fixed a bug where invulnerable frozen enemies could still get hit sometimes
  
• Fixed a bug where the player could get stuck in the Immortal Construct’s grab indefinitely
  
• Fixed a bug where Immortal Construct (i.e. Pursuer) could die and despawn awkwardly
  
• Fixed a bug where Blood Ritual wouldn’t activate sometimes and you’d have to swap your weapon to reset it
  
• Fixed a bug where parry explosion / whirlwind could trigger multiple times
  
• Fixed a bug where selecting a quest reward could make Divino unintentionally go into an aggressive state
  
• Fixed missing audio on bone saw

With the last major rework style update, I feel confident that I can push out updates more frequently now due to the stronger code base. Stay tuned for some exciting stuff to come like new enemies, new classes, new quests, new items and more!

I've been reading all of your feedback carefully, and decided to make some adjustments I believe will help make for a smoother experience. I was a little worried about how the stun changes would be received initially, and I hear you loud and clear. Reliable stuns are not only a core part of controlling large crowds and encouraging offense, but also critical to satisfying hit feedback as well. Additionally, the early game in particular was rough to get going, so I want to ease people in better.

Balance

• Normal enemies will now get stunned reliably as before. Unholy Rage enemies, Bosses, and Elites still have poise, meaning they are more likely to be stunned as they take more damage. Projectiles can now stun again, but it's very short and only affects the upper body, while the legs can continue moving towards you. The upper body stun also applies to enemies who are running (instead of them having poise like it was before).
  
• The attack warning indicator UI now overlaps all other indicators so it doesn't get covered up by slowing ground and similar status effects
  
• Enemy health reduced by 20% for Area A, round 1 (i.e. the first five levels). I feel this will help in getting the run going, because it allows a little bit of time for you get some skills and equipment to boost your damage.
  
• When you have your guard broken, you will now take less durability damage proportionally to how much was blocked, similar to how health damage works after guard break. Before it would take full damage no matter what, even if you blocked most of the attack.
  
• Wraiths can headbutt like they used to when they have no arms, so they don't run away as much
  
• Reduced Summoner (cave goat caster) base health from 425 to 375
  
• Reduce Zealot (forest pumpkin head caster) base health from 375 to 350
  
• Reduced Baron of Sin (dungeon demon boss) explosion force from 10 to 5, reducing its durability damage

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a missing enemy spawn in Maw of Sin
  
• Fixed bug where enemy invulnerability shields ignored their legs

Thank you for your honest feedback, and let me know what you think of these changes. I am committed to keep refining Mortal Sin, and make it the best action roguelike possible

Here are a batch of balance hotfixes that should help smooth out the whole experience. I really appreciate all the feedback! Releasing a massive patch like this can be a little tough at the start, but I'm reading all of the comments I can and considering each one carefully. Please bear with me as I continue to iterate and get closer to that perfect balance of challenging, engaging gameplay.

Balance

• Did a pass on all of the enemy kick animations, slowing them down in most cases and playing the attack warning earlier so it's easier to parry
  
• Parrying now has a minimum window of 0.2 seconds, up from 0.1 seconds by default. Starting a block after an enemy's attack warning shows will give you extra lenience and increase the window to up to 0.4 seconds (for that attack only). This extra buffer makes parrying feel a lot smoother, and makes it so the visual warning is a more reliable indicator for when to parry. This extra time buffer only applies to melee attacks, whereas projectiles always have the minimum window of 0.2 seconds.
  
• Ramped up the spawn chance of spellcasters gradually over the course of the dungeon. This was done so you don't get a room full of summoners in first or second room of an area.
  
• Increased the Baron of Sin (big demon boss) hellfire explosion attack warning radius by 12%
  
• Reduced the Baron of Sin's hellfire explosion damage from 50 to 45. The maximum health percentage damage it can deal has been reduced from 100% to 90%
  
• Reduced the Embodiment of Sin's homing skull damage from 50 to 45. The maximum health percentage damage it can deal has been reduced from 100% to 90%

With the entirely new framework I created, it's now easier than ever to make balance adjustments as needed. So please keep the feedback coming (as specific as possible), and I will do my best to address it!