E3 is just around the corner, and don’t for one second assume the world’s second largest gaming trade show is just for the big boys. Indeed, the little-indies-that-could get a seat at the table as well, and one of them is the Kickstarted Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.
Ahead of its E3 debut, the team, led by industry veteran Koji Igarashi, has released a few of the first in-game screenshots, as well as an all too brief gameplay video. The video only shows protagonist Miriam jumping through some kind of ship with music in the background, but it’s nice to see an actual game starting to come together.
“This is the game’s first stage,” Igarashi said, “where we find Miriam on a ship, the Galleon Minerva, headed toward the castle. It’s a setting filled with anticipation.”
Better news yet though, a playable demo will be provided to backers at the $60 tier. Not much is said about the contents of the demo, but I assume it’s more than just an empty level you can walk around in. The demo will also be playable at E3, which is the only way non-backers will be allowed to play this early snippet of the game.
As well as the usual bit of fan art in all of Bloodstained’s updates, there’s a semi-cryptic line from Iga himself. “Morte isn’t a full-fledged demon, and so doesn’t have a shard. This is important so I’ll say it again: Morte has no shard.” Whatever you say, boss.
It’s great to finally see some in-game art and design of the game. Up until now, all we’ve seen is Miriam’s design and some place-holder levels designed for testing animations and enemy placements. Now we finally get to see what the first level will look like, and get an idea for how the rest of the game will look and feel.
I must say I’m a big fan of it. Compared to another Japanese Kickstarter game, Mighty No. 9, Bloodstained’s art looks alive, beautiful, and vibrant. It looks like an artist laboriously struggled over each asset, as opposed to some computer heartlessly generating the art as is the case for that other game. I’m also happy to see it getting it’s time at E3. It might not be a true indie darling with Iga involved, but it’s great to see such a small studio and game with a presence at such a big show.
I wish I backed the game at the $60 tier now, so I can show all you lovely boys and girls the demo. Maybe if we contacted the developers, or a backer, I don’t know, accidentally on accident sent us an email -on accident of course – containing the Steam key?
Accidentally.
Maybe you should have read the update email…
“Wait, now I want the demo! How can I— Your survey links are still active! If you upgrade your tier through your survey before June 13, we’ll be sure to include you on the list. “
I saw that, might take them up on it too.
You still can back the game by going to igavania.com/back
I did back the campaign, there was just a miscommunication with my editor and me. Only gave five bucks though, so I might go ahead and throw in more.
[…] with some big crowdfunding news. Earlier this week Koji Igarashi and team released the most complete look at Castlevania successor Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night we’ve seen yet. The question for […]
[…] show in the world was Koji Igarashi’s Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Igarashi showed off the first in-game footage before the event, but what was shown at E3 marks the first look at actual […]
I just ran up a ton of time in the demo by hacking away at Mortes for at least an hour.
After that long with no Shard, I decided to do a search. And here I am, just now learning that I kinda wasted my time (only “kinda” because I levelled up once because of the grinding).