Relic Abyss

A well-dressed entry in a crowded genre

Relic Abyss, developed by Reverse Loop and published by Mameshiba Games, entered Early Access on April 13, 2026, after nearly a year of public demos and Next Fest appearances. It arrives into one of Steam's most saturated categories, the "bullet heaven" survivors-like popularized by Vampire Survivors, and its pitch is that it can stand out through presentation and narrative ambition rather than mechanical reinvention. The launch has landed well: 100 reviews and a Very Positive rating, with reviewers across English, Chinese, Japanese, and several European languages converging on the same read, a lovely, promising game still working through Early Access growing pains.

A genuinely enormous cast

The single most-praised element across the review sample is scale. Up to 20 uniquely designed adventurers are playable, each with their own skill kit drawn from a pool of more than 134 unique abilities, and reviewers repeatedly single out how differently each character actually plays rather than feeling like reskins of a shared kit. One reviewer describes the variety as "a lot more depth than I was expecting," and several note that finding a favorite character and building around their specific kit is where the game's hooks sink in deepest. For a bullet heaven title, where genre fatigue is a real risk, this breadth is doing genuine work to keep runs feeling distinct.

Story in a genre that rarely bothers with one

Unusually for the genre, Relic Abyss wraps its roguelite loop in an actual story, one with interconnected character arcs, dialogue between runs, and plot threads that reviewers describe as surprisingly engaging for a bullet heaven game. Multiple reviewers explicitly call this out as the first game in the genre they've played that gave them a reason to care about the fiction, not just the build. That said, it's not universally beloved, a few reviewers describe the narrative pacing as padded with filler dialogue, and the Chinese-language reviews in particular flag confusing quest triggers, with players getting stuck on story beats that require exiting to the title screen and re-selecting a character to progress, an obtuse piece of interface design that has left at least a couple of players stuck mid-story with no obvious next step.

Art and sound carrying real weight

The hand-drawn, chibi-anime art style and its "moody 90s RPG soundtrack," as one reviewer puts it, are called out constantly as a highlight, cute character and monster designs paired with a subdued color palette that several reviewers say undersells just how intense the combat gets once a run ramps up. The Made in Abyss influence, name-checked directly by at least one reviewer, is visible in the tonal contrast between adorable designs and genuinely oppressive stakes, and it's a combination the review sample consistently responds to warmly.

The inventory problem

If there's one complaint that surfaces across nearly every language in the sample, it's storage. The inventory and equipment stash are described as far too small for the volume of loot the game generates, forcing players into constant on-the-fly triage of what to keep, what to forge, and what to discard, with no bulk-sort or auto-stack tools to ease the burden. Traditional Chinese and Japanese reviewers in particular list this as their single biggest quality-of-life ask, alongside requests for a one-click sort-by-rarity function and automatic stacking for common junk items like crafting stones and cards. It's the kind of friction that doesn't break the game but visibly wears on players over long sessions.

Early Access bugs, some more serious than others

The bug list runs from cosmetic to genuinely run-ending. Several reviewers describe menus stacking on top of each other mid-combat, freezing input at the worst possible moment, and at least one reviewer attributes every one of their failed runs directly to this specific bug. Others report the dodge ability's invincibility frames failing to trigger reliably, leaving players taking damage through what should be a safe dodge window, and a couple of reports describe stat displays, like critical hit chance, not matching actual in-run behavior. None of these appear universal, but they're frequent enough, and specific enough, to represent real Early Access rough edges rather than isolated one-off reports.

A split in how the launch itself was received

Worth noting: not every complaint is about bugs. A vocal minority, concentrated in the Chinese-language reviews, frame the move from free demo to paid Early Access release as underwhelming, arguing the shift from demo to paid build didn't feel substantial enough to justify a purchase, with one describing the transition as leaving them not wanting to touch the paid release. This is a smaller and more pointed complaint than the broader bug and inventory issues, but it does suggest the game's marketing, heavily built around its long, well-received demo period, created expectations for the Early Access build that not everyone feels were met.

Where it lands next to the genre's leaders

Against the bullet heaven genre's best-known names, Relic Abyss doesn't try to out-mechanic Vampire Survivors' minimalist elegance, and it shouldn't; its case for existing is the character roster, the art, and the story layered on top of a familiar core loop. That's a reasonable niche to claim, and on the evidence of this review sample, it's mostly succeeding at it. What it hasn't yet solved is the unglamorous Early Access work, inventory management, input reliability, quest clarity, that separates a promising demo from a polished release, and reviewers who came in expecting the latter are the ones most likely to walk away frustrated right now.

Should you buy in now or wait

For players who enjoy watching an Early Access title develop and who value character variety and story over interface polish, the current build already delivers a lot of the game's eventual appeal, and the developer's visible, frequent patch cadence is a genuinely reassuring sign for where this is headed. Players who are bug-averse, or who specifically want a game that respects their inventory management time, are better served waiting for a few more content and quality-of-life patches before buying in.

The verdict

Relic Abyss is a bullet heaven roguelite with real ambition: a huge cast, real story stakes, and gorgeous presentation set it apart from a genre that usually settles for one gimmick and a leaderboard. It's held back right now by a cramped inventory, a handful of genuinely run-ending bugs, and interface choices that need more polish, the kind of Early Access growing pains that a dedicated, responsive dev team can plausibly fix, but that keep this from being an easy recommendation in its current state.