Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night – Castlevania by any other name

The director of Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night has already earned more than $0.5 million for his unofficial homage Bloodstained.

Konami has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately, following its bizarre treatment of Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima and the cancellation of Silent Hills. But the rot had already started to set in last year, when Koji ‘IGA’ Igarashi left to form his own studio.

And if it wasn’t obvious before why he left, the fact that his first game is a high res 2D version of something that looks very much like Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night should make it perfectly clear.



For legal reasons, if nothing else, Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night is a completely separate game but shares a similar style of gothic artwork, exactly the same composer for the soundtrack, and the same sort of Metroidvania style gameplay which IGA himself helped to define.


Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night – a happy pile of secrets

Bloodstained is described as ‘an exploration-focused, side-scrolling platformer featuring role-playing and crafting elements’. But it has one thing Castlevania has always lacked: campaign co-op and player vs. player action.

The Kickstarter only went up yesterday evening, and yet within four hours it had already passed its $500,000 minimum goal and is now making its way up towards the maximum $850,000 stretch goal. And if it gets that far the project will see the addition of voice actor David Hayter, best known as the original voice of Solid Snake.

Since it’s already been funded the game will now definitely be appearing on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC, around about March 2017. A Nintendo version has also been hinted at, if the Kickstarter’s stretch goals are exceeded.

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