How to Play INKWAVE

INKWAVE is a 4v4 turf-war shooter. Two teams of four fight for three minutes, painting the arena with ink; the team holding more turf when the clock runs out wins. You can play against bots, in a private online room with up to eight players, or as one squad against HULLBREAKER in a co-op Boss Battle.

Key facts

Teams of four, Alpha against Bravo, on one arena
Three-minute matches by default, with 90-second matches available
Private online rooms for up to eight players, joined with a five-character code
Boss Battle: a squad of up to eight against HULLBREAKER, offline or online
One sub weapon (Splat Bomb) and one of two specials per kit
Squid form lets you swim, refill and climb your own ink
Bots play at three difficulty levels: Chill, Fresh and Fierce

The goal: control more turf

Your weapon paints the ground wherever its ink lands, and the arena is scored by area, not by splats. Every square meter of ground you paint is a point of turf. When the match ends, the team with the larger painted area wins; the game resolves an exact tie itself.

Splatting an opponent does not score directly, but it sends them back to spawn for 5.5 seconds and buys your team room to paint. The best players paint constantly and fight only when it wins ground.

Modes

Turf War is the standard mode. Play it offline against bots, or online in a private room. Four stages support it: Tidewater Plaza, Kelpline Terminal, Halyard Marina and Cargo Terminal. Cargo Terminal is online only: it needs at least two players, never fills with bots, and cannot run a Boss Battle.

The two other modes are the co-op Boss Battle and private online rooms.

Boss Battle: HULLBREAKER

Boss Battle is a co-op mode in public beta. Everyone in the room joins one squad, team Alpha, and fights a single giant enemy: HULLBREAKER, an armoured hermit crab in a shipping container. It works offline with bots and online with friends, and any stage can host it except Cargo Terminal. The crab fights in three phases with telegraphed attacks and glowing weak points; the match lasts four minutes by default.

Read the full HULLBREAKER guide for every attack, its telegraph and its counterplay, the health scaling and squad tactics.

Online rooms

Online rooms are private. From the main menu choose Online, then Create a room, and the game gives you a five-character code. Send the code to your friends; they choose Join a room and type it in. A room holds up to eight players, four to a team. The host picks the stage, the time of day, the match length and whether bots fill the empty slots; everyone else picks a team, a weapon and a look, then readies up.

Read the online multiplayer guide for joining, room settings, emotes, what happens when a player or the host drops, and fixes for common errors.

Controls

Action	Keyboard / mouse	Gamepad
Move	W A S D	Left stick
Aim	Mouse	Right stick
Fire	Left click	RT
Squid form	Shift	LT
Jump / dodge roll	Space	A
Sub weapon (bomb)	Right click / E	RB
Special	F	Y
Map + Super Jump	Hold Tab or M, then 1–4 or click a pin	View
Pause	Esc	Start

Keyboard and mouse is the default. Gamepads work on the hosted (HTTPS) version of the game; browsers block the Gamepad API on plain HTTP addresses.

Squid form and ink

Hold Shift (or LT) to dive into your own ink. In squid form you swim at 11.8 meters per second, climb inked walls, refill your ink tank and regenerate health. You cannot fire while swimming, but you can jump out of ink and shoot in the same motion.

Ink is ammunition and territory at once. Your tank holds 100 units; every weapon spends ink with each shot, and you refill slowly in kid form and quickly while swimming. Enemy ink is hostile ground: it slows you to a crawl and deals damage over time until you paint over it or leave. Inking the floor before you fight is the core habit of the game.

Weapons

Seven primary weapons cover different ranges and play styles: the Spritzer, Swell Roller, Glint Charger, Popper Blaster, Twinfin Dualies, Tidebucket Slosher and Gyre Splatling. Every kit also carries Splat Bombs and one of two specials.

Read the weapon guide for numbers and tactics.

Sub weapon and specials

Every kit carries Splat Bombs, the sub weapon, and charges one of two specials. Tidal Slam launches a leaping slam with damage reduction on the way in; Ink Tempest hurls a drifting cloud that soaks an area with your ink. The gauge fills as you paint and halves when you are splatted.

Read the specials guide for ink costs, damage, timings and when to spend each one.

Super jumping

Hold Tab or M to open the tilt-shift map of the live arena. Press1–4 or click a pin to super-jump: after a short charge you fly to that teammate (or your base) and land in your ink. You are invulnerable in flight, which makes super jumps the fastest way back into a fight.

Winning a match

In Turf War, paint more turf than the other team before the clock reaches zero.
In a Boss Battle, drop HULLBREAKER's health to zero before time runs out.
Splat opponents to send them back to spawn and take their ground.
Bots come in three difficulties: Chill, Fresh and Fierce.
Each kit is allowed on every stage; there are no locked loadouts.

Tips for new players

Ink the floor first, then take the fight on your own colour.
Retreat in squid form when a fight goes wrong; you are faster and harder to hit.
Throw a Splat Bomb before entering a room; it paints and pressures at the same time.
Charge your special on uncontested turf, then spend it on a push.
Watch the score bar, not just the kill feed. Turf decides the match.
Against HULLBREAKER, spread out: the barrage and the sweep punish a tight squad.

Read the strategy guide for the numbers behind ink and movement, weapon matchups and stage control.

Keep reading

Play INKWAVE — start a match now
Guides — boss, online, locker, specials and strategy in depth
Weapons — every kit in detail
Maps — layouts and tactics for all four stages
FAQ — short answers to common questions