Monster Sanctuary on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information

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Monster taming meets metroidvania. Collect, train and battle monsters in a lovely side-scroller pixel world.

Monster Sanctuary is a creature collector, pixel graphics and metroidvania game developed by moi rai games and published by Team17.
Released on December 08th 2020 is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux in 9 languages: English, French, German, Spanish - Spain, Russian, Italian, Simplified Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese - Brazil.

It has received 11,439 reviews of which 10,468 were positive and 971 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.9 out of 10. 😎

The game is currently priced at 7.49€ on Steam with a 75% discount, but you can find it for 0.81€ on Gamivo.


The Steam community has classified Monster Sanctuary into these genres:

Media & Screenshots

Get an in-depth look at Monster Sanctuary through various videos and screenshots.

System requirements

These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.

Windows
  • OS *: Windows 7
  • Processor: Dual-Core, 2.0 GHz
  • Memory: 2 GB RAM
  • Graphics: GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB, Radeon HD 4870 512 MB
  • DirectX: Version 10
  • Storage: 1 GB available space
  • Sound Card: Windows Compatible Sound Card
MacOS
  • OS: MacOS Mojave 10.14
  • Processor: 1.7 GHz Intel Core i5
  • Memory: 2 GB RAM
  • Graphics: Intel HD Graphic 4000 or Equivalent
  • Storage: 1 GB available space
Linux
  • OS: Ubuntu 14.04
  • Processor: Dual-Core, 2.0 GHz
  • Memory: 2 GB RAM
  • Graphics: GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB, Radeon HD 4870 512 MB
  • Storage: 1 GB available space
  • Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Card

User reviews & Ratings

Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.

Sept. 2025
Monster Sanctuary might be the best monster taming RPG that currently exists. It is both accessible beginners while also having enough depth so hardcore players can min-max their builds towards perfection. In Monster Sanctuary you play as a new Monster Keeper, a faction that protects a nature reseve called the "Sanctuary" which is inhabitated by all kinds of wild monsters. The Keepers raise their own monsters as companions. However, another faction called the Alchemists are endangering the Sanctuary and everyone who lives in it which forces to Keepers to act. The game takes aspects of a Metroidvania, you have a big world which starts out linear but opens up more once you have progressed the game enough. Everywhere int he world you can find monsters that will fight you if you touch them. Combat is turn-based and usually 3 vs 3. Your monsters can act in any turn order you want and you always act before the enemy. This allows the player to setup important buffs and debuffs on the first turn before the enemy can act. Defeating monsters gives various rewards, usually money and some items. Your performance in battle is ranked with up to five stars which improves combat rewards and increases the chance to get monster eggs. Monster eggs can be hatched to get the same type of monster you just fought. This means players don't have to get the monsters on low Hp and try to catch it, a mechanic I always found counterproductive in these kind of games. Hatched monsters will have a level relatively similiar to your current team which means you don't havbe to worry too much about grinding levels. You can carry up to six monsters with you on your team from which you pick three to fight for battles but there is no limit on how many monsters you can have in general. If you have too many monsters you can give them away to the Keepers which nets you some basic rewards depending on the power of the creatures you gave away. This is great if you get too many eggs that you don't need. The best part about the game however is that each monster has their own individual skill tree. These skill trees have 5 columns and 4 rows, with the colums representing different skills and their upgrades while the rows divide the skills into level limits that your monster must reach. These skill trees are unique for each type of monster and this is what defines the monsters and gives them their roles in combat. Here are a few examples. Catzerker is a crit-based attacker who has very little utility or support but does massive damage thanks to his high crit chance and damage and also adds extra effects if he lands crits. Magmapillar is a mix between a support, tank and damage dealer. His main damage comes from burning enemies and he wants to burn as many enemies as possible because burning enemies gives him and his allies extra shield. G'rulu is a strong debuffer. He does not deal much damage but he will apply absolute every debuff that exists in the game on enemies while also making sure that they don't get any buffs. He also can heal his own allies and cleanse some debuffs from them, giving you an unfair advantage in combat. Because of the wide variety of skills and monsters you can create insane builds with strong synergies between your monsters. There are many fun ways to play this game and I wish I could show them all. Besides the skill trees you will also at some point in the game unlock "shifting". This allows you to shift a monster to either a dark or light form which changes the bas estats of the monster and also giving it another passive effect. This means that of every monster int he game exists three variants! The game does not have traditonal monster evolution, there are only a handful of monsters in the game that can evolve and only if you have a very specific item unique to that monster and go to a specific spot on the map. The reason for this is because the evolved monster is technically a new monster with a new skill tree, so it's not worth constantly evolving monsters which would could ruin your strategy. The game also has PvP although I've never tried it out, so I don't exactly know how it works. But if you are the kind of person who loves to create strong teams and send them against other players, this game has that stuff. Overall I think this game is phenomenal. I love RPGs with tons of different builds and lots of theorycrafting and this game provides this massively. The amount of depth and care that went into this game can be felt at every corner and I think anyone who loves these types of games will be happy to play this.
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Sept. 2025
This game combined two of my favorite Genres, Metroidvanias, and the combat and party crafting of JRPGs. I can't put it down. It's now one of my favorite games of all time, despite it's flaws. Be warned: it's 85% JRPG (turn based party combat, building characters from their skill trees, choosing equipment, etc), and 15% metroidvania; exploration, gaining new navigation abilities over time, etc. So if you're in it for the metroidvania, and not keen on the JRPG, maybe try something else. As for me, I love it to bits.
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July 2025
I do really like the game. It's got such a great artstyle, the mechanics work great, and the plot is (while nothing super special) pretty good. I picked it up thinking it was an old flash type game,and instantly lost 10+ hours on the first time I booted it up. The areas, exploration, the movement etc was all really engaging, and I felt like I constantly ended up stumbling into somewhere new with a selection of even cooler new guys. I did a no wiki run until about level 30. And this is my one complaint. To be clear, this is more about my own expectations than what the game actually promises. I was struggling to find evolution materials for all my little guys. I'd been training up some downright terrible monsters, hoping for the big payoff, when I could finally evolve them. However, what the game doesn't tell you is that not every monster can be evolved. In fact, by level 30, I had only managed to evolve 4. Out of all the monsters in the game, only around 13 can evolve. The rest are stuck in their base forms the entire playthrough. While evolutions aren't always a strict upgrade in this game, more a change of focus, there are some which are just a straight upgrade despite what the games says. Sure, some of their abilities change, the fire bug becoems less defensive when it evolves, but the fire moth seems just superior in 90 percent of ways. And this is more clear with others. Minitaur to Megataur, the slimes etc. What's more, so many of those evolutions are truly late game content, which means you won't see them until the very end, and only if you've decided to carry their weak prior stage all that way. Some of them you won't EVER see, because they're locked behind Reward boxes, and the rewards from those are completely random. One or two of them require HEAVY grinding, as well. Which kinda goes onto my second complaint. You get a LOT of monsters in this game, you've constantly finding eggs. However, you can only train 6 at once. The ones in your bag don't gain XP. If you want to swap out a teammate for say, a water level, because they won't be that much use, they're going to be maybe 4 or 5 levels behind the rest of your team. And while you COULD grind them back up, this isn't a good game for grinding experience. Instead, you are incentivized to just go grab a new guy, and send your old buddy to the farm to tend rabbits or something. This is because when you hatch an egg, it hatches at the level of your party. So you're never really rewarded for training your favourite team of lil guys who you've bonded to, because there's likely their equal (or better equivalent) just a teleport back home. All as a reward for beating up a few of them in the wild. Also, if you use one of your coveted rare evolution items on a guy who's falling behind your team? It's better to grind for a new item and egg, than training him back up. I really didn't like this. On top of how I had trained up critters from level 1, swapping and changing them out to fight difficult threats, only to finally check the wiki and see it was basically for nothing? It didn't feel great. At a certain point I didn't want to hatch new eggs anymore, because I won't be able to fit them on my team, and I might need to hatch them at a higher level which never comes. So whereas when I started I was basically collecting a living dex of monsters (and each of them I absolutely adored, the monsters in this game are great), by around the halfway mark I just had a bag full of eggs I couldn't justify hatching, and a preschool of low level monsters in the background that are about 25 levels behind the rest, and basically unusable. Their only purpose is being traded for gold and resources at that point, and it just feels... bad? Like, this particular monster carried me through the early game, nicknamed, he's got signature gear etc etc, and he's now become unusable. So the effecient thing to do is simply sacrifice him, and go hatch another and name him "Pikachu the 2nd". Idk, it just didn't feel like the monster rearing and bonding that the NPCs mention. Sure, you CAN get great monsters that don't need to evolve. These are typically the bosses of the area, which you can use too! Except that to get them, you need to beat the boss on 5 stars. These things have massively inflated health pools, and are basically impossible to do at a 5 star level until you're about 15 levels ahead. This leaves even more cool monsters locked behind the late/post game, and is pretty frustrating. The game is REALLY good, and that's why I'm leaving a positive review. But for future players, please don't go into this with the comparison to a certain other monster collecting and fighting series. It isn't that. Where the game thrives is its exploration and artstyle. The monsters are a big add-on to that, but I don't feel like the system for raising them works well enough for it compared to the games other strengths.
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June 2025
I haven't played creature collectors since Red / Yellow, but I grabbed this on a whim since it looked cool. It's a metroidvania with a million gimmicks. Creatures have skilltrees, equipment, food and shifts so there is a lot of experimenting you can do. Very addicting. Music is also great.
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May 2025
I recommend this game to those who enjoy the ability to synergize their teams. Contrary to Pokemon, this game heavily relies on stacking a ton of passives onto assigned roles for their monsters. A good example is one attacker, one combo builder, one healer/shielder/buffer. It can be frustrating in late game when boss fights, the legendary keeper fights, or 6 starring champion monster fights, where they each have their own unique team recommendation, spending money into upgrading different equipment for each individual team for each individual purpose. I came out with one team for specialising in defeating champions, another for the legendary keepers, another for story, and another for the infinity arena. The most challenging aspect I found when playing is not knowing if a team will reliably work or not, due to the RNG of the buffs/debuffs. For the legendary keeper fights, it felt like they stacked one too many debuffs enough for me to survive long enough to dispel them all, and yet somehow I could never reliably apply that many onto them myself. So I had to change my teams, spend more hours into figuring out who is good with what. I didn't like when the team would work out after redoing the same fight multiple times, taking out different monsters, due to the RNG aspect. Overall 7/10 game, the 3 points are for how specific the fights must be. I wish they were a little more laxed. You either demolish a team, or get demolished and have to adapt to that fight, just to adapt somewhere else down the line, unless the team was built for that purpose.
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Frequently Asked Questions

Monster Sanctuary is currently priced at 7.49€ on Steam.

Monster Sanctuary is currently available at a 75% discount. You can purchase it for 7.49€ on Steam.

Monster Sanctuary received 10,468 positive votes out of a total of 11,439 achieving a rating of 8.90.
😎

Monster Sanctuary was developed by moi rai games and published by Team17.

Monster Sanctuary is playable and fully supported on Windows.

Monster Sanctuary is playable and fully supported on MacOS.

Monster Sanctuary is playable and fully supported on Linux.

Monster Sanctuary offers both single-player and multi-player modes.

Monster Sanctuary offers both Co-op and PvP modes.

There are 2 DLCs available for Monster Sanctuary. Explore additional content available for Monster Sanctuary on Steam.

Monster Sanctuary does not support mods via Steam Workshop.

Monster Sanctuary supports Remote Play on Phone and Remote Play on Tablet. Discover more about Steam Remote Play.

Monster Sanctuary is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.

You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Monster Sanctuary.

Data sources

The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.

Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.

Last Updates
Steam data 24 April 2026 11:05
SteamSpy data 28 April 2026 18:01
Steam price 29 April 2026 12:40
Steam reviews 28 April 2026 08:08

If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Monster Sanctuary, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.

  • SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Monster Sanctuary
  • SteamCharts - Analysis of Monster Sanctuary concurrent players on Steam
  • ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Monster Sanctuary compatibility
Monster Sanctuary
Rating
8.9
10,468
971
Game modes
Multiplayer
Features
Online players
96
Developer
moi rai games
Publisher
Team17
Release 08 Dec 2020
Platforms
Remote Play
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