Planned Release Date: 2027

About This Game

Since the Severance of Heaven and Earth, the gods have remained silent and aberrant beasts roam unchecked.

The Lord presides over rites; the King wages war. She seeks answers from Heaven through ritual; he takes up arms and sets out on campaign.

Play as the King of ancient Shu, bound by your oath to the Lord, and set out to knock once more at the old gate to Heaven.

Play also as the Lord, who remains in Shu to ward off calamity and pray for rain, summoning the Spirit-Essences gathered on the King's journey to defend the realm.

Rituals & War: Shan Hai is a turn-based tactical card game with deckbuilding and hand-painted ink-wash art. Before each round, arrange your actions into a sequence. Once the exchange begins, your choices are final: both sides carry out their sequences along a shared timeline until the round ends.

Consider how to close the distance, when to strike, and at which step to evade — all before the first move is made.

I | Pre-set Commands · Simultaneous Resolution

Arrange your action cards to plan the round's advances, retreats, and strikes. Both sides then act along the same timeline. The order of your actions, and the distance your Stepwork opens or closes, both affect how later techniques play out.

You can use Stepwork to adjust your distance before following up with an attack. Or time a strike with the same Speed as your opponent's to trigger a Clash, canceling both attacks.
Choose each technique's place in the sequence with the enemy's intentions in mind.

II | Discernment and Communion

Your enemy does not reveal their intentions easily.

The King uses Discernment to reveal hidden enemy action cards; the Lord uses Communion to examine the opponent's card piles. Your strength relative to your opponent's determines how many cards you can reveal and how much information you can uncover.

Build your plan around what you have discovered. As for the cards still face down — how much room will you leave for the unexpected, and how much are you willing to risk?

III | Strike at the Six Pivots

Each enemy has six Parts that hold Qi — the Six Pivots — divided into Upper and Lower sections. Choose where to direct each strike. Breaking a Part with a Weak Point early can greatly weaken your opponent.

Each sword technique has its own reach. Choosing the Part is not enough: judge the distance at the moment of attack, or your blade will never find its mark.

IV | Yang Qi · Stance · Circulate Qi

Yang Qi: Chain techniques to stir your inner breath and convert Yin Qi into Yang Qi. Plan ahead so you have enough Yang Qi for a powerful technique at the moment you need it.

Stance: Your Stance grants bonuses, but you lose it when you become Qi-Severed. Restoring it takes up part of your action sequence, so you must find an opening amid the enemy's attacks.

Circulate Qi: Make room between attacks to circulate Qi through your Qi-Nodes and gain a bonus at the end of the path.

V | Build Your Thought-Stream

Sword techniques take the form of cards called Thoughts. Combine them into the Thought-Stream you bring into battle.

The four clans of ancient Shu each pass down a distinct sword tradition and a unique Stance: the Tsan's Toll, the Tsong's Cleave, the Yu's Skim, and the Fu's Thrust. As you unlock higher Stages, technique variants, and Clan Secrets, experiment with combinations of techniques and Stances to develop your own style of swordsmanship.

The two protagonists have distinct gifts, yet share a single fate.

The True Name talent tree deepens the King's mastery of Qi and the Lord's mastery of Form.

The Spirit-Essences the King gathers from the creatures he slays in Shan Hai pass to the Lord through Dream-Bestowal. With her Willow-Leaf Rite Blades, she summons them into battle.

VI | Fragments of the Truth

Broken slips of writing found among the ruins, cracks in tortoise shells, and strange tales told in the wilderness all hold clues to the distant past. Some come from mortals, some from beasts, and some from the silence of "Above."

The accounts are incomplete and often contradictory. All the clues you gather are recorded in the Codex, where you can revisit and compare them to piece together the truth. As your journey unfolds, words you have read before may take on new meaning.

Why were Heaven and Earth severed? And why, of all times, is the Blight rising now?

The way to Heaven is severed. Where shall our hearts turn?

Development Status

Rituals & War: Shan Hai is in development, with release planned for 2027. A demo will be available before launch. The interface and in-game text support English, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.

Add the game to your wishlist, and we'll let you know when the demo is available.

Mature Content Description

The developers describe the content like this:

This game contains frequent fantasy combat and weapon violence, with small amounts of stylized black-and-red blood. A cutscene depicts a fantastical creature having one of its limbs severed by an energy blade. The visuals use an ink-wash art style. There is no sexual content or nudity.