• Price: $24.99 USD
• Developer: Leap Studio
• Publisher: 4Divinity
• Release Date: May 26, 2026

A review code was kindly provided by Mark Allen PR on behalf of Leap Studio and 4Divinity. We thank them for allowing us to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

Content warning: rated T for “Blood, Suggestive Themes, and Violence.” Mentions of mutilation

A post showing a cute pet that fights by your side was my first exposure to Realm of Ink, and I sure love cute critters – both in real life and in games. The gorgeous “Chinese ink-wash art,” a story inspired by Chinese folklore, and the roguelite action gameplay were other elements that…“drew” my attention and really made me want to play this game.

I don’t think there was much of an introduction to the story, as the game opens with our character, swordswoman Red, in a clearing where enemies will appear. A mysterious voice says that one of those enemies is the fox demon who attacked Red’s village. You’re then given a tutorial on the basic aspects of combat.

Naturally you’ll have a light attack and a heavy attack option. But your special abilities will depend on the randomly generated “Ink Relics” you acquire in each run. You can equip up to 2 Ink Relics, which each offer unique active skills and passive abilities. I was always happy to get one with a Shield perk.

Once you’ve obtained 2 Ink Relics, their “Five-Elements” combination will influence your trusty Ink Pet’s transformation into one of 15+ possible forms. Momo’s appearance and abilities change again if you swap out Ink Relics at any point.

There are 4 chapters plus the final boss in each run. The first 4 chapters have you clear several “rooms”/screens of enemies, who often drop new Ink Relics as well as “Curios” and Elixirs that give you additional advantages for that run only. When you go on to the next room you get to choose between a safer option or occasionally one with more risk and better rewards.

You don’t level up Red or anything, and you generally don’t get healing items unless you luck out when you destroy pots in a room. However, just before you fight one of the two bosses in each chapter you’ll reach a safe zone where you can interact with some characters who sell helpful items and upgrades.

When a new Ink Relic drops you have to decide if you want to replace one of your current relics. Regardless of your choice you can deconstruct the relic you won’t use, which converts it into Inkstones to use to upgrade your Ink Relics once you reach a safe zone.

There’s also a merchant who sells different Curios, and I like that we can pay to reset the available options if the ones on offer don’t suit our needs. Additionally, a cheery food stall owner cooks up some delicious meals with great perks, and all at a great low price! 😂

When you’ve made more progress in the game another character may appear in the safe zone to trade with you. Eventually some characters start showing up in the dungeon areas after you clear the room to offer you something useful in exchange for some of your coins or your HP.

You probably won’t be able to buy a ton of items, but once you’ve prepared the best you can it’s time to face the boss. Boss characters have dialogue and say new things in each run that contribute to the plot. I think it’s the second boss in each chapter that has 2 stages.

In my first attempt at clearing the dungeon I thought it was all pretty easy. But there’s a mandatory event that occurs and sends you straight to the Spirit Fox Inn, which is where you can unlock a ton of permanent upgrades and new features.

The inn’s facilities don’t all become available at once, and unlock with each cleared run of the dungeon. One of the most important features would be giving Red permanent upgrades that do everything from increasing her attack to upping the chances of items dropping.

You earn a certain amount of “Fox Blood” with each attempt at clearing the dungeon, and use that to unlock as many permanent upgrades as you’d like (or not). It seems that players can even reset the upgrades for a clean slate if they want more of a challenge.

I’m just okay at action combat, which is why I prefer games that have you level up (or at least include unlocks that make you more powerful like in Realm of Ink). The game starts at the same difficulty level for everyone, and you can only change it after the first run. Personally I didn’t think the default difficulty level was that hard. It’s possible that more experienced players may find this too easy on most levels.

One issue I had with the game was that once you make it through all the bosses and clear the dungeon, when you go through it all again for story purposes you only get to fight through the same set of bosses. And it didn’t seem like they got any harder with subsequent runs either. Perhaps they could have made things a bit more interesting by randomizing the order of the different rooms and bosses for each run.

You can at least try out different builds each time you go through the dungeon. And you can unlock new character “skins” courtesy of a rather creepy character (see content warning above); these skins have different appearances and weapon types.

Usually when I play games with action combat I just stick with one character whose combat style suits me the best. Something I really appreciate about Realm of Ink is the wide variety of character (skin) options we can unlock, because I felt like a lot more options were usable for me. I enjoyed experimenting with the different combat styles in each run here.

In addition to improving your character, you can also upgrade Momo the Ink Pet at the “Pet’s Playground” back at the inn. Momo gets different skins as well, and apparently there are also different stages of whatever form they turn into based on the Ink Relics you equip.

When you and Momo head into battle together, there are some hiccups technically. Unfortunately the game has a tendency to crash a lot. (There are some rare frame rate drops as well.)

The good news is that there is excellent auto save system that makes it so you only have to restart the room you were in – you DON’T start a completely new run. I did appreciate how quick and smooth loading was between screens.

I thought that Red was pretty small on the screen (in handheld mode, at least), and the text size and font could make it hard to read for some people. Overall the story was decent enough. There are technically 6 “endings,” which you view each time you clear the dungeon successfully. After clearing it a seventh time you get to view the True Ending.

I liked that the story and characters were inspired by Chinese folklore, and they managed to give the characters personality. The game has a compendium that contains the lore you’ve unlocked. As you continue to play through the game you’ll unlock more parts of a character’s story. In my opinion their stories were well-written, although I wanted to know what happened to them afterwards.

The art direction in this game was absolutely “INK-credible.” The storyboard art was so lovely, and the details in the environment of each room showcased the Asian architecture and imagery. I also liked the character portraits, which are animated to a certain extent. The soundtrack suited the themes as well, and voice acting tells the story in either English or Chinese.

Realm of Ink has a few “ink stains” that slightly detract from the experience, but I enjoyed playing it. Players who like games with multiple difficulty levels, different play styles, and a lot of unlockable content may want to give this a try.