Inkbound 1.0 is now live, as Shiny Shoe’s tactical roguelike getting its next major update. In the new update, Rise of the Unbound, expect new questlines, new items, and a brand new final boss, The Unbound.
From the update’s title, you know The Unbound is a big deal. You will have to reach it by traveling and going further than you have before. Enter a new fully-voiced narrative questline to push your journey even more. The new quests need you to work out the mysteries of the Atheneum and its Inkbound to get to the final chapter of the Inkbound story that you’ve worked hard on so far. Of course, getting to this final boss is going to be the next step for the experienced player, but launching from Early Access into 1.0 means lots for new players to explore.
Even for those who want to dive into it all again. The 1.0 launch also features new (skippable) animated cutscenes, a reworked narrative throughout the game, with additional balance changes, faster progression, and more. Additionally, there is full controller support in this update, keyboard proximity interact options, and improvements to the Steam Deck experience, which adds full offline play to the online co-op experience. This update also adds localization in Chinese, French, German, and Japanese. There are quality of life updates, balance adjustments, editing passes to make sure that the text is consistent, which is particularly important now that the team has added support for several new languages.
Rise of the Unbound also adds challenge buffs on Villains and Guardians. Modifiers offer a new experience that will change the gameplay and offer variety as you progress and obtain higher ranks. Your choice of villain will tell you what the challenge buff will be so you can decide which one you want to take on. There are 25 new Vestiges in the update, which raises the number in total at launch to 242. There are also five new Vestige sets, bringing the set total to 37. In the launch notes, they note that there are eight trillion potential combinations you can make out of all of this.
The Shiny Shoe team is hosting Inkbound streams through the day on Twitch to answer questions and show off the new update.
