During the GamesCom 2024 Day 1 livestream, Rod Fergusson (general manager) and Rex Dickson (lead game designer) revealed more details about the Mercenaries feature.

Mercenaries are a group of ordinary people with extraordinary skills. They are members of the Pale Hand and willing to fight against the demons of Hell. You can collect each Mercenary over the course of the Vessel of Hatred campaign.

Mercenaries also have their own Skill tree and earn Mercenary Skill Points to unlock each choice in their Skill Tree. You can complement the Merc skill tree to match what you need or lack in your character’s Skill Tree.

  • Raheir is a blacksmith and a shieldbearer. A defensive fighter. He soaks damage and uses his shield as a bulwark against the enemy. You will find him early during the campaign, and he is the one who introduces you to the Mercenary network. You will obtain acquisition quests for 3 other Mercs you can find throughout the course of the story campaign and you bring those Mercenaries with you to the Mercenary Den.
  • Subo the drunken archer provides ranged-attack support by throwing jars and shooting arrows.
  • Varyana is a berserker crone, melee combat fighter in close range. Her UI has a combat meter that you must fill by killing enemies.
  • Aldkin is a demon child. A magic user who can transform from human form to demon form.

The more you play with your Mercenary, the more your rapport increases, allowing you to level the Mercenary up to unlock item rewards for your Mercenary for it to grow in power.

If you don’t want a Mercenary with you all the time, there is an alternative known as “Reinforcement” where you can map one of your character’s skills to a specific Mercenary and Mercenary attack. The Mercenary will jump in when you use that skill. The Mercenary attacks, then despawns. Feels like giving other Classes the Spiritborn ability to call down a spirit, to a degree.

You can have one Mercenary active with you at all times, and simultaneously you can have a second Mercenary as reinforcement that only spawns when you use the keybinded character skill. He/she jumps in, attacks, and despawns.

NAHANTU

The seventh zone in the Estuar continent, Nahantu has a deep ancient forest and vast, sprawling plains. There are six areas in Nahantu. Four of them are jungle themed, and two of them are red-rock canyon-themed but each one of them has their own unique identity.

When you first enter Nahantu, you arrive at a place named Lingering Hatred. A high-treetops canopies where you are almost walking amongst the branches high above the jungle floor and the sunlight is barely poking through.

The whole area has been infected by this thing called the Hollows infestation. The Hollows are a new enemy that is associated with Mephisto — made of a tar-like substance like the one leaking out of Mephisto’s soulstone in the Vessel of Hatred cinematic.

There is a sickness to the area itself. Humans have ventured into this deep part of the jungle where all these poisonous plants and flora have blossomed. The Dregs started experimenting with eating these hallucinogens that put them into this aggressive psycho rage that empowers them.

The Teganze Plateau is the area with the red-rock canyons. You can find Khazra, Lacunai, and Nangari (serpent people) here.

The Lacunai are a new enemy type with two castes: the brute force and the caster. They are the apex predator of the Teganze Plateau. There is a little area known as the Skittering Earth where players will find a bug-infested habitat with spiders, and wasps, They have destroyed the jungle and made it barren.

The Field of Giants is filled with the corpses of giant dead demons. Humans have begun to mine away these giant corpses for their resources. These giant demons existed over a thousand years ago.

DARK CITADEL

The Dark Citadel is a new endgame co-op feature coming to Vessel of Hatred. All the mechanics there require party members to solve the challenges and face the first Khazra hordes within.

One of the outcomes of the Mage Clan Wars is this giant crater and all the souls that were lost during the wars. This original Khazra are using the powers of the Dark Citadel to experiment to try and bring back their dark god. People who venture into these lands are never seen again. The player arrives at a time when their plan is about to come to fruition.

The co-op mechanics come at play during the boss encounter. Sometimes the boss will channel an attack. One of the players must pick an item from the ground and reflect the boss’ attack. Each player must master the timing of that move and requires coordinating as a team.

Each class can earn an Armor set exclusively from the Dark Citadel.

There is a Citadel Vendor that sells scrolls (consumables). You can spawn Health potions for your team, or Treasure Goblins. The UI shows 8 scrolls, but there are more. Most ranging from 200-1000 gold each. The Citadel Vendor also sells custom cosmetics that are unique to the Citadel.

You can play the Dark Citadel dungeon with two players, but the ideal experience is to play with 4-players. In order to do this, the developers have built a Party-Finder feature within the Social tab that allows you to search for other players for Boss Fights, Dungeons, Seasonal Events, Open World Exploration, the Citadel, Other, or Any.

Curiously, there is a submenu bar when you select the Citadel option which allows you to choose Any or Wing A. This suggests there might be plans in the future to add more content that has more than one wing for which you can queue in the Party-Finder.

Each week, the rewards will be different upon completing the Citadel. One of those rewards is Scroll of Re-Tempering. No more bricked items. Just complete Citadel dungeons to get this scroll.