Solo Leveling: KARMA shows off the 27-year Monarch War

Netmarble has finally shown Solo Leveling: KARMA properly. As Tokyo Game Show 2026 opened at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, the publisher pushed out two new videos for its roguelite action RPG on the game's own channel: a cinematic trailer at midday Japan time on 17 September, and a TGS 2026 game overview video an hour later. An English-subtitled cut of the Day 1 media showcase followed on 18 September. It is the clearest look yet at the game Netmarble is building around the 27-year Monarch War — the untold chapter of Chugong's story, and the chapter the publisher insists is being told here for the first time.

What Tokyo Game Show actually got

Two videos, one hour apart, both on the game's official channel rather than buried in a press kit: a cinematic trailer and a proper walkthrough of how the thing plays. The Day 1 media showcase highlights and the subtitled stage broadcast arrived the next morning, which means the presentation Netmarble gave in Chiba is now watchable by anyone with a browser. The publisher's Tokyo Game Show portal leads its line-up with KARMA, alongside Shangri-La Frontier: The Seven Colossi and Pearl in Blue, and the booth is built out of the licence rather than a logo on a wall.

The untold 27 years

KARMA is not a retread of the anime. Netmarble's own description of the game promises the untold story behind the 27-year Monarch War, revealed for the first time, and the premise has Sung Jinwoo winding time back to before the gates appeared, fighting the Monarchs alone in the space between dimensions with the people he lost as the thing at stake. To keep that thread warm, the official channel has spent the past fortnight running an epilogue series following the Monarch of Shadows' daily life.

A roguelite, not another live-service grind

The combat is quarter-view hack-and-slash, and Netmarble has spent the past month posting weapon introductions — dagger, broadsword, gauntlets, bow — because swapping what Jinwoo holds changes the whole style of your action rather than nudging a number. Shadows come when you summon them with the Shadow Monarch's authority, and the Monarch power you pick during a run changes both your skills and the effects on screen between attempts. Bosses are pitched as fights with patterns and gimmicks to learn. That is a very different proposition from Solo Leveling: ARISE and ARISE Overdrive, which run as ongoing services complete with patch notes, paid DLC and a Steam Market.

Pre-registration is open, the release date is not

Pre-registration is live on iOS and Android through the store listings, with a Monarch of Shadows halo decoration, a Monarch chest and a hunter chest as the sign-up rewards, the last of those unlocking at launch. There is still no release date. The Japanese App Store listing, published by Netmarble Corporation, carries a placeholder date rather than a confirmed one, and the game has now headlined Netmarble's show appearances at G-STAR 2025 and Tokyo Game Show 2026 without committing to a month.

Our opinion

The trailers are the easy part; the format is the interesting bit. Netmarble already runs two Solo Leveling games as services with patch cycles and shop rotations, and KARMA is the first one built to be finished — a run-based roguelite covering the exact stretch of the story the rest of the licence skips past. Putting that at the centre of your biggest booth of the year is either admirable nerve or a confession that the free-to-play grind has run out of runway, and only the first hour of hands-on time will settle it. The 27-year war suits a loop that kills you and sends you back, though, in a way it never suited another roster to collect. The real risk is expectation: this licence has trained its players to log in daily, and a game with no date on it has to be worth repeating on day one to survive that. Show us a month and a run worth replaying, and this becomes the Solo Leveling game actually worth waiting for.