How Sorrem Plays

No classes, no fixed builds. Descend into Crucibles with your party and become whoever you play.

Grow By Doing, Not Leveling Up

There's no class to pick and no experience bar to fill. Combat and Essence skills — Blade Mastery, Archery, Dual Wielding, Elemental Magic, Warding, and more — grow the more you actually use them, from level 1 up to 10. Stop using a combat skill, and it decays; Essence skills, once learned, stay with you. Your build is just a record of how you've actually played.

Skill-based progression across combat and Essence disciplines
Combat skills decay with disuse — no permanent optimal build
Veil Attunement deepens as you use Essence skills, earns attribute points, and never decays
No fixed classes — respec by playing differently

Essence and Crystals

Every manifestation you destroy in a Crucible releases Essence — six kinds, Courage, Fury, Sorrow, Memory, Truth, and Resonance. Coalesce it into a crystal for a burst of power mid-run, or carry it out and bank it for the long haul. Crystals are born of their Crucible and don't survive leaving it.

Collect Essence from every manifestation you defeat
Enter each Crucible with a few starting crystals drawn from its edge
Coalesce short-lived crystals for in-run power
Six Essence types; what a Crucible yields depends on what it remembers

Gear That Backs You Up

Two weapons, one suit of armor, four accessory slots — every piece matters, and what you can carry into a Crucible is limited. Loot and Essence earned in a Trial follow you back out — if your party shatters the heart.

Two weapon slots plus armor and four accessories
Limited carry capacity inside a Crucible
Loot and Essence persist between runs on victory
Equipment and skills compound — gear alone won't carry you

Trials, Built for Parties

Trial mode drops you and your party into a procedurally generated Crucible with no clock. Fight your way to its heart at the deepest point, gather your party, and shatter it to win. Each Crucible is matched to your party's strength, solo included, and its Veil Saturation — from faint to overflowing — sets how much Essence it holds and how hard it pushes back.

Procedurally generated Crucibles — each surfaces once and collapses for good
Solo or party play — up to 8 in a single Crucible
Crucibles matched to your party's strength; Veil Saturation sets the stakes
Solo and two-player parties are the most tested path in alpha; larger groups are experimental

Commissions

The House of Exchange buys the essence Veil-touched carry out, and sometimes it asks for more: a commission to bring back essence from a particular Crucible. Your first comes from its clerk on your first day, a small Crucible that has surfaced in the old quarry outside a frontier town. Each commission is told through illustrated scenes, and new ones open up as you prove yourself.

Story-driven Crucibles with their own goals
The heart stays sealed until the commission's goals are met
New commissions unlock as you complete earlier ones and win more Crucibles

Falling Isn't the End

Inside a Crucible, the Veil running through you won't let death keep you, but it takes its price. When you fall, you lose a share of your banked essence and have a few seconds to choose: spend essence to re-manifest where you fell, or let the Crucible cast you out and leave the rest to your party.

Re-manifest on the spot, at a price that rises with each fall in the same run
Cast-out players keep the essence they gathered on the run
If the whole party falls, the run ends and each member loses a carried item

On the Horizon

Onslaught drops you into a Crucible that is still forming. Its heart pulses, and every pulse sends out a stronger wave. Once it crests you can shatter it any time, but every pulse you survive makes the prize richer. Onslaught is designed and in development, but it isn't part of the current alpha. Trial mode is the only way to test your build for now.

Ready to Descend?

Join the alpha and test-drive Trial mode. Solo or with friends — see what your skills become.

Join the Alpha