Editor’s Note: Prior to publication, Realm of Ink was unexpectedly pulled from Steam’s store, without word to the developers as to why. While they continued to provide updates until the end of January 2025, the game is still unavailable to purchase. It is still accessible to those who had it before it’s removal. We will continue to monitor the situation and update our coverage accordingly. In the meantime, please enjoy both our written review and playthroughs on our YouTube channel.

So many people have wanted to find themselves in a fantasy world that the Isekai trope has become a full genre of its own. But have you ever given thought to the characters who want nothing more than to escape their story?

Welcome to the Realm of Ink, from Leap Studio and 663 Games! Headquartered in China, these independent developers have done a phenomenal job with their first title. Realm of Ink takes you into a world of Wuxia, where ink fuels everything and your story is dictated to you by a force beyond imagining. 

Realm of Ink is an action roguelike, with many ways to cultivate your strength. Hack and slash your way to victory, and see if you can break the cycle of endless rebirth. I should note that Realm of Ink is still in Early Access on Steam, so there are a number of story and gameplay optimizations still in the works. The core gameplay, however, is riveting already.  

Keep Your Enemies Close

There’s a bit of a confusing leap, as you jump into the tutorial section of the game. Your hero, Red, follows the guidance of the narrator, who eggs her on to fight these fox demons. The narrator claims that they were the ones who burned her village, but without any context the emotional hook absolutely falls flat. Red feels that something is off too, and she decides ‘screw the narrator, I’ll find my own path.’ The narrator doesn’t take kindly to this, to say the least.

With this, Red breaks into the first “Realm” of the main game – the Snowy Sanctuary. Monkey soldiers, snow puffs, and exploding kettles throw themselves at you on every level, while you gather Ink Gems, perks, elixirs, and silver.  All of these things serve to enhance Red one way or another, and you need every advantage you can get. The troops give way to mini-bosses and Realm Bosses in every Realm and at some point, you’re inevitably going to die.

Thankfully a helpful fox spirit named Miss Ching nabs your body and soul, taking you back to the Spirit Fox Inn. She gives Red a godly gift – the Fox Blood Ink. It makes you immortal, able to die and be returned to the inn at the age and physical condition you obtained the Ink. It also marks you as an enemy of the Book Spirit, the god-like being that controls the fates of those trapped within the Realms. Miss Ching wants what you want – to defeat the Book Spirit and escape beyond this Realm of Ink.

And Your Friends Closer

The Realms that you need to fight through consist of the Snowy Sanctuary, Animitta Mountain, the Eerie Garden, and the Mythic Graves. These Realms lay outside the direct control of fate and destiny, and are instead protected by the Realm Bosses chosen by the Book Spirit. While formidable enemies, the more you encounter them the more of their stories you uncover. It’s the same for all the characters you encounter, but there’s something tragic in the desperation that Bosses like Monk Jin and the Peony Demon face you with.

You also have a number of allies that either live in the Spirit Fox Inn or travel with you through the Realms. Almost all of them have a specific function. Grace, for instance, will trade Ink Stones that you gather for Ink Gem upgrades that significantly empower you. Her brother Golda trades you perks for your silver, letting you further customize and strengthen your combat style. It definitely pays to talk with each of them, at least until their dialogue starts cycling too much. By deepening your relationships with the other characters, you’ll learn some pretty surprising lore.

Realm of Ink has been given the Dating Sim tag on Steam, and while I haven’t seen that aspect in the game as it stands currently, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was added in the full release. What can I say? There’s a number of pretty ladies I wouldn’t mind getting to know more. Not as many men, sadly, but with Leap Studio’s plan to introduce more storylines and chapter levels there’s room for more characters in the future.

War Never Changes, But Modes of Combat Do

As an action roguelike, Realm of Ink naturally puts a lot of focus on the replayability of its combat. Almost every choice you make will alter your fighting style or even the mechanics that you’re working with. It can be a bit overwhelming at first, but once you get the hang of it it’s very fun to mix and match different styles and strategies. To illustrate what I mean by that, I want to explain my two favorite metas that I came up with while playing – the Dash Meta and the Momo Meta.

Dashing Around at the Speed of Sound

My first run of Realm of Ink, I had your base character Red. She fights with light sword strikes, fast and straight-forward. I ignored her heavy attacks and strengthened the light attacks with elixirs as much as possible. Then, I also picked up the Blaze and Flash Ink Gems. You can have 2 out of 25 Ink Gems, each of which are of different elements and come with different abilities. Sun and Flash have Q and E abilities that turn your dashes into attacks, and give you an extra dash charge. That’s super helpful, since dashing can mean completely dodging attacks and negating damage. 

By the end I had four or five dash charges and a number of extra perks activating on a dash. I had one that cast lighting at the nearest enemy, and one that left a poison circle behind. I also took an extra risk and accepted a curse from Emerald, which turned out really lucky for me. This particular curse gave me 500 shield points, which was over 300 my regular HP, but halved my HP. It also didn’t replenish over time, so if I lost the shield I’d be at a major disadvantage. With the Dash Meta, however, I managed to save most of my protection until I was fighting the end bosses, so it worked out.

I don’t think I was supposed to have won my first go-round after gaining access to the Spirit Fox Inn. Literally, I beat the Book Spirit, and the characters refused to react to it until the next time I died. Pretty confusing, but a little funny to come back from a major defeat to a whole lot of praise. This run is on our Nevermore Niche Youtube channel, so you can check it out there.

Momo mo Momo mo mo

One character I’ve failed to mention to this point is Momo. Momo is just this cute lil’ guy that follows you around from floor to floor. Characters call him an Ink Pet, and Momo’s special because he can resonate with the Ink Gems you carry. Once you have two of them, he’ll transform based on their element types. I definitely have a bias for certain forms, but somehow I always end up with Wood and Earth combos.

I also should mention another NPC called Violetta. She’s a demon that hangs out in the Spirit Fox Inn that constantly asks to have your “beautiful skin”. She’s very creepy, but very useful as you can take on the forms of other characters in her shop. You don’t fully transform, but it’s like a… reskinning, as much as I hate to use the term here.

I wasn’t intending to do the Momo meta when I started this particular run. I just picked out Dr. Suen’s form ‘cause it made me look like a phoenix. Then I got to check out the abilities that alter your light and heavy attacks. You get one at the start of every round, and one had a chance of spawning a mini-Momo every time you throw a feather, for up to five minis. I couldn’t resist! And then I got a Momo Ink Gem that summons a full extra Momo and that was it. I spent my elixirs upgrading my Ink Pets’ powers, a perk that gave them part of my own strength and sat back slinging feathers while they did all the hard work. It really helps that they don’t have a health bar, so you never have to worry about Momo dying in combat.

 Unlimited Cosmic Power!

There’s one more run I want to talk about, since I have speculations regarding a mechanic that came up in it. In this particular run, I used Six’s form. Six is a gambler turned dog-meme that pops up occasionally to let you gamble with either silver or your own HP. Each round costs more, so you have to think about how much you want to risk for an uncertain reward.

Six’s form throws coins and dice as its attacks, and I was struggling to find a meta I liked. Then, Dr. Pu showed up and offered Primordial Ink in exchange for 70% of my then-current HP. By trading two rare quality Ink Gems with Grace, she unlocks the essence of the form you chose. The powers are immense, but it means that you can’t use other Ink Gems at all. Instead, you get to trade your Ink Stones for more elixirs to massively boost your base stats.

What interested me more than that, though, was the fact that Six started showing up on almost every floor after I unlocked his essence. He had unique dialogue, opening up parts of his past I don’t think he would have spoken about otherwise. He even showed up in the final area to talk before I faced the Book Spirit. It was very touching. 

Everyone reacts the first time they see you wearing their form, but no one followed my journey like Six did. I thought it was because of the essence. However, I won the game with other forms and their essences, and they didn’t do that. The enemies you can emulate didn’t react to you looking like them at all. That was sad, since I was really looking forward to Monk Jin’s reaction. That being said, again, Realm of Ink is still in Early Access. I think that there’s a lot of story elements that have yet to be implemented while they’re fine-tuning the mechanics. I really do hope they expand on this element more, since it genuinely touched me to have Six along for the ride.

Graphics

Realm of Ink derives its style from 10th and 11th century Chinese scroll paintings, mixed with anime stylings. You can see the influence of artists like Fan Kuan and Xu Daoning in the moments you switch Realms, particularly. The sweeping tall mountain ranges evoke scroll paintings like Counterlight’s Peculiars: The Inexhaustible Song Dynasty, based in monochrome watercolors but filled with more modern high-saturated colors we’re used to seeing in media today. 

The characters’ dress also seems to be based in Song Chinese styles. While stylized and occasionally sexualized in the women’s case, the base of the hanfu and cheongsam are the same. The men’s outfits, like Dr. Pu and  Dr. Lau in particular, are reminiscent of what you would see in the art at the time. The deviations from the traditional stylings are what you’d see in Chinese donghua, which is their word for Chinese anime and cartoons. Look up shows like Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation or Heavenly Official’s Blessing, and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. The style is gorgeous, and very well implemented in Realm of Ink.

Overall

While not a full release yet, and though some of the story elements feel as though they are missing, the core gameplay is addictive and enthralling. There are so many ways to customize combat, scaling difficulties, engaging characters. I am absolutely in love with the visuals. Originally, the developers were planning to release Realm of Ink in January 2025. However, they have since decided to delay the full release to March 2025. They have exceeded their initial roadmap plans, and inspired by the reception so far, they’re significantly expanding the scope of the 1.0 release. I am very certain that the full release will be a 5/5 stars, so look forward to it in the future!