Relief

Relief, developed by Billiontail and released June 22, 2026, is a deckbuilding roguelike set after the events of Journey to the West, in a world where deities have grown corrupt and urban legends have taken on strange weight. The player takes the role of the awakened heir of the Green Bull Demon, fighting through five acts structured around a repeating 14-day in-game cycle.

Each run pairs the protagonist with one of five spirits—Lu Wei, Cui Beibei, the Chechi Rocket Team, A.Lian, and Mrs. Luo—each bringing a distinct card pool and mechanical identity. Lu Wei converts junk status cards into randomly modified wildcards; Cui Beibei builds around summoned feline spirits; the Chechi Rocket Team lets you switch between three captains mid-battle; A.Lian uses a Tribute fusion system where Blessing cards gain extra effects based on hand position; Mrs. Luo chains three elemental forces into compound reactions. Between combat runs the town phase offers a Shop, Hot Springs, and Shrine where players spend gold and Incense earned from Roc quests. Incense can be offered at shrines to stamp random affixes onto individual cards, one of twelve possible modifiers that can transform middling cards into build anchors or push already strong cards into game-breaking territory.

The Roc also presents a pivotal choice at the midpoint of each of the first three acts, selecting from 24 Aid Powers with wildly asymmetric risk profiles—Glass Cannon cuts your maximum HP to ten percent while tripling damage output; Rebuild strips the entire deck and replaces it with an equivalent number of card choices; Less Is More subsidizes deck thinning. These decisions redirect deck direction as sharply as any card draft. The breadth of the pool—over a thousand cards and three hundred artifacts—means builds rarely repeat, and the card-affix and Blessing systems (fourteen Blessings including Combo and Overdraw) add a further combinatorial layer. The game is firmly on the punishing end: high-variance Aid Powers and the HP-depleting Overdraw Blessing demand deliberate sequencing rather than improvised play.

• Five spirits, each with a unique card set and combat mechanic
• Shrine affix system stamps one of twelve random modifiers onto individual cards
• 24 Roc Aid Powers offering high-risk, high-reward run-altering effects mid-act
• 14-day town cycle with Shop, Hot Springs, and Shrine preparation phases
• Over 50 random events drawn from Chinese folklore and urban legend
• More than 1,000 cards and 300 artifacts across character-specific, general, and Black Market pools

Billiontail ran a demo through a January 2026 offline update period before opening a playtest in April 2026. The game participated in Steam Next Fest in June 2026 with an updated demo, launched June 22, and received daily or near-daily patches through the end of that month. Update activity continued into July 2026, indicating active post-launch support shortly after release.