Nuclear Throne’s twelfth update is now available and with it comes a host of updates, tweaks, and a brand new character – the Rebel.

Rebel has the ability to spawn other rebels to help him out, at the cost of his own health of course. He also has a defensive ability that triggers each time he is hit. With the addition of Rebel comes the initial implementation of the character unlock system. Character unlocks are tied to level progress for now, but eventually there will be various triggers to unlock other characters.

You can view the full list of updates, additions, and tweaks below:

• A brand new playable character, Rebel. Rebel can spawn allies at the cost of some health, and has a defensive ability that triggers each time it is hit.
• The basic system for character unlocks is now in place! The unlocks are tied to level progress for now, but there’ll be more specific ways to unlock characters.
• Most mutations now have their own sound effects, courtesy of Joonas.
• Paul created beautiful new icons for the mutations in game.
• Fire-based weapons, such as the flamethrower.Balancing
• Enemies now spawn a bit further away from the player, and no longer directly besides, above or beneath the player. This is an experiment, as we want to see if and how this influences the fairness of spawns.
• Fish now has a completely new Throne Butt, called Water Boost.Fixes
• The Crown of Destiny no longer gives you infinite mutations, just one.
• You can no longer select characters hidden under buttons in the menu.Misc
• Extra Stomach has been renamed Second Stomach.
• There’s a little (!) on characters indicating you haven’t played as those yet.
• The debris flying through portals has been tweaked a little bit and should look a bit better now.
• More hints related to weapons while loading.
• The Radiation Canisters now have proper perspective.
• The Super Frogs now have their own death sound.
• A subtle sound effect plays when there’s only one enemy left.
• Lil’ Hunter now screams at you when he’s at 50% health.
• New sounds for the portals.
• New sounds for the Proto Statues.

As with the progress of any Vlambeer game, the development of the game will be livestreamed on the coming Tuesday and Thursday, mostly showing off the new additions and changes with update 12.

If you haven’t played Nuclear Throne yet, the game is available via Steam Early Access for $12.99, you can view the game’s store page here.