Monster Train Developer Announces Inkbound, A Co-Op Mishmash Of ARPGs, Tactics, And Roguelikes

gameinformer.com:

Developer Shiny Shoe, the indie team behind 2020’s Monster Train, has announced its next game and it’s called Inkbound. 

Revealed today with a fancy new trailer that showcases gameplay and cinematics from the game, Shiny Shoe describes Inkbound as a mixture of action RPGs, tactics games, and roguelikes. It looks great, too, and you can check it out for yourself in the announcement trailer below: 

“Inkbound takes players on a journey through procedurally generated storybook worlds, battling monsters that are set on unraveling the nature of reality itself,” a press release reads. “Players can dive in solo or party up via online co-oop in hybrid real-time/turn-based encounters. All the while, heroes become more powerful the deeper they progress in each roguelike run.”

The game is set to hit Steam Early Access sometime in 2023. It takes place in an area known as The Atheneum, which Shiny Shoes says is a “world that contains all the stories that have ever been written.” There, anything that’s written in Ink can become real. This includes nightmare carnivals, ancient ruins accompanied by volcanic annihilation, and more. Players will take on the roles of Binders, who are characters charged with maintaining these stories, and they can go anywhere at any time so long as it has been written before in Ink. 

The developer says the combat system blends the brawls of ARPGs with the deep strategy of a tactics game, and you can probably already see how The Atheneum sets the game up nicely as a roguelike. Combat turns are “snappy and quick, but players can slow down and take time to fully evaluate their current threats,” choosing optimal times to either rush enemies for big melee strikes or better position themselves for ranged attacks.