Into the Restless Ruins is a roguelike deckbuilder developed by Ant Workshop and published by Wales Interactive. While Ant Workshop have presumably done most of the heavy lifting here (like, fifty times their body weight, right?) it’s an interesting publisher to see attached to such a game. It’s a far cry from what I typically associate with Wales Interactive: while they do have some games that stray from their usual titles, they’re more established as co-developers and publishers of a wealth of FMV (full motion video) games. The better-known of those include Late Shift, The Complex, Five Dates, and The Shapeshifting Detective… and the slightly-less-better-known of them include Doctor-bloody-Who (Paul McGann) playing some sort of nefarious gangster trying to kill you and steal the hidden pirate treasure buried deep beneath the bar you’re employed at. As fascinated as I’ve become with Mia and the Dragon Princess over the past few days, it’s a subject for another time, as I’ve got a lot to say about Into the Restless Ruins.

Developer: Ant Workshop
Publisher: Wales Interactive
Release: 15 May 2025
Retail Price (Steam): 14,99€/$14.99/£12.99

So, first things first: there’s no escaping from the fact that this game is yet another roguelike deckbuilder. While I’m rapidly getting to the point where I’d politely ask developers thinking of approaching the genre to make literally anything else, I will say that Into the Restless Ruins proves that there’s still something new that can be eked out of it: that there’s still some uncharted territory there.

On the subject of uncharted territory, that’s exactly what you're presented with upon starting up a level: you start at your entrance portal, you can see where the dungeon’s boss is, and you’ve a hell of a lot of space between yourself and them. Clearly, though, this isn’t your usual roguelike deckbuilder set-up: you’re not going to make your way to the boss by clicking pips on a map and plotting a route through encounters, and the cards you’re putting into your deck aren’t attacks or spells but room and corridors. That might sound familiar – I’m not going to pretend a roguelike where your cards are rooms is something I’ve never seen before – it’s been done by, for example, the rather niche Tilemancer Dungeon, which is worth checking out (but not, to note, by Blue Prince, which as we all know is not a roguelike).

In the first of the game’s two phases, you’ll place a few of those rooms down in your dungeon with the aim of working towards the boss, or, as they’re called in the Restless Ruins, the Warden. Some rooms will provide added benefits as soon as you place them; the Armoury will give a small buff to your damage, the Faded Grove to your health. Others – hallways and passageways – mightn’t give an explicit benefit but will help you reach your destinations that little bit quicker. It’s not only the Warden you’re trying to get to: at the start of the game there are some rooms already placed, shrouded in fog which hides useful traders and powerful resources, only to be revealed once you’ve worked your way towards them. Most importantly, in each area one these rooms contain a seal (the symbol-y type, not the aquatic mammal) which needs breaking in order to access the next section of the dungeon.

Once you’ve placed your rooms for a night, it’s time to start exploring. You’ll dive into the dungeon, torch and sword in-hand, and start wandering through your creation, ready to slay all manner of celtic beasties. Combat isn’t done by spam-clicking on enemies or hitting hotkeys but instead handled automatically – I’m not sure if we’ve settled on ‘survivors-like’ or ‘bullet heaven’ (please no) for the name of those, but if having Slay the Spire/Balatro’s genre wasn’t enough, Ant Workshop have also thrown in a healthy amount of Vampire Survivors’ for good measure. That is by no means a criticism, and while it might be sacrilege to say, I prefer the way it plays in Restless Ruins to Vampire Survivors.

In the latter, and the majority of the games inspired in its wake, I think it’s fair to say that players can find themselves wandering around relatively aimlessly – moving towards or away from enemies, sure, but not really trying to get anywhere fast. Into the Restless Ruins instills purpose and direction – you’re still trying to kill as many mobs as possible, as they drop Glimour, which earns you new cards – but with the added challenge of reaching various points in the ruins. That might be the aforementioned Warden or those foggy rooms, but can also be those you’ve placed yourself: not only are there rooms which provide buffs when you add them to your dungeon, but also those which you can interact with while exploring. Some of these are the same: that Faded Grove that increased your max health when you placed it will give you a small heal, the Armoury a small damage buff for the rest of the night, More impactful are those which had no immediate benefit when you placed them, but have powerful buffs when you head to them in the ruins: a training room which gives you permanent stat buffs, or the star player, the Iron Forge, which allows you to build more rooms the next night. Typically these stronger rooms require the player to stay in them for a few seconds while a bar charges up, trying their best to get there before the ever-present waves of enemies reach them.

It might sound like waiting a few seconds is no big deal, but it’s at odds with the game’s final key mechanic: the torch. Throughout the night, your torch will burn out, and once it’s completely gone you’ll start taking incremental damage until you leave the ruins via the exit, or via death. In a wonderful piece of game design, the amount of torchlight you have left also affects how far you can see: you’ll start with a relatively large view distance, and slowly but surely will have that circle decrease until you can barely see what’s a step or two in front of you.

Not being able to see exacerbates something which might frustrate some players, though which I’m already prepared to defend Into the Restless Ruins to the hilt over: it’s lack of minimap. If you’re not careful, the ruins can grow into a sprawling mess that are difficult to navigate at the best of times, let alone when you’re rendered half-blind by the lack of light. The decision to not add a minimap is, along with that torch mechanic applying constant time pressure, one of my favourite design choices in the game. It adds a level of challenge, particularly when placing rooms, without which the game would arguably feel much flatter. There are a few things players can do to help themselves stay on-track – placing signpost rooms to point them in the right direction or fairy shrines that will lead them back to the exit – but none more impactful than simply planning a ruin that is easy to navigate. That can come at the expense of placing more powerful rooms, which, by intention, tend to have the side-effect of making the dungeon more winding and complex.

The only time I found it to have a negative impact on my experience was when I got taken out of the game for a short while, and needed to re-find my bearings in an incomplete ruin. I’d recommend setting aside enough time for a full run whenever booting up the game; getting into that flow is really important, and being taken out of it can really stifle a run.

Some things do feel a little unbalanced on occasion: the area I notice it most is in the game’s cantrips — modifications that you can make to a run to change up the game in meaningful ways. These can be either positive or negative and all come with a ‘dread’ value to offset how much they help or hinder you. Something that makes your run easier – like adding an arrow which points to the exit – might have a dread value of -3, something that makes it more difficult – like increasing enemies movement speed – has a dread value of +4. That dread translates to a multiplier at the end of the run: the more dread you have, the more experience you earn, and the closer you get to levelling up and unlocking more cards. I’m almost hesitant to mention it for fear of Ant Workshop taking my baby away, but a cantrip like the aptly-named “More Redraws,” which gives you two extra rerolls each night, allowing you to massively increase your hand consistency, comes at the relatively meagre cost of -2 dread — that made it a must-have for a lot of my later runs. Arguably it doesn’t hugely matter: it’s a single player game and people should be able to enjoy it however they like, but if your primary aim is to win and make significant progress, I imagine there are a handful of cantrips you’d pick over and over again to facilitate that.

Randomness can play a big factor in roguelikes, but for me the only instance of RNG feeling really important came with acquiring appropriate weaponry. You have a primary, melee, weapon, but can also find secondary weapons which deal with enemies at a distance. Having one of these feels like it can make or break a run; I’m not sure whether I’d have been able to defeat some of the game’s more challenging Wardens if I’d needed to get up close and personal with them. I’ve definitely completed runs without them (and for what it’s worth, lost runs with them) but it feels a hell of a lot more dicey when you’re relying on only a sword to take your enemies down. An argument could also be made that the runs where you don’t find one of the important vendors are a little too punishing, but you can typically adapt to that, and, while it might make things more difficult, it won’t kill a run dead as can happen in other roguelikes when things don’t go your way.

While we’re on the topic of the issues I have with many other roguelikes, at the forefront is being unable to shake the feeling that, ultimately, there’s nothing all that different happening from session to session. Again, Into the Restless Ruins has performed exceptionally well in that regard. I’ve still plenty more to unlock, but each time I have, it’s offered me something new to experiment with. In your tradition deckbuilding roguelike, it feels like you’re usually given cards that are just another way to deal damage, but many of the rooms you unlock in the Restless Ruins fundamentally change the way you can approach the game. I’d rather leave those for you to discover yourself, but so far, whenever I’ve unlocked a new room, I’ve always felt excited to dive back in to try and implement it in my next run. Rather than clicking through that roguelike endgame screen where you’re thrown a load of new cards without caring about them or having much of an idea of how you’d like to use them, you’re offered some clear options to try out next time you play.

While the game’s mastery system is relatively simple (win a run having played a card or cantrip to ‘master’ it, which provides no functional change to the cards) I did find it gave me that little bit of extra motivation to experiment with different strategies. A quick note to anyone who wants to play an easier run to master as many cards as possible: make sure your dread multiplier isn’t negative, as I had to learn the hard way that it wouldn’t count towards mastering my rarely-used corridors. A warning message before starting that run might’ve been nice to prevent some wasted time, but when that’s perhaps the biggest flaw I can pick with the game, you know it’s been a positive experience.

A very quick one on the theme, as I don’t want to step away from Restless Ruins without mentioning it: it’s fantastic. I do have a bias, but it feels like celtic folklore and mythology are tremendously untapped in not only games, but media in general. The rest of the art direction ties in wonderfully alongside it, and is complemented by an excellent OST from Russell Nash that hits just right each time you start up a night (and indeed the game.)

You might be able to tell, but it’s my favourite deckbuilding roguelike in a long, long while, and I really hope it gets the attention it deserves in a somewhat bloated field. What might sound like too many mechanics on paper (and there are a handful more that I didn’t mention in this review, so I can at least pretend I tried to keep it trimmed down) all work together seamlessly, such that players are never overwhelmed or confused. The game always kept me engaged with enough new things to explore and keep me going back for more. Into the Restless Ruins is awarded an 8.5 by IndieLoupe.com.

The reviewed product was provided by the publisher.

Video review: IndieLoupe.com

Review: Into the Restless Ruins

Into the Restless Ruins

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