Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night‘s Kickstarter page revealed that the 2D action platformer is now coming out in 2019. The Castlevania spiritual successor was supposed to come out this year. Producer Koji “Iga” Igarashi also revealed that the Vita version of the game is no more.
Iga used to work at Konami, where he was producer for many of the non-linear Castlevania games (which helped create the Metroidvania term, which describes these kind of 2D, exploration-based platformers). Iga left Konami in 2014 to start Art Play, which received over $5.5 million in crowdfunding on Kickstarter for Bloodstained back in 2015.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night will come out for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC. Back when the Kickstarter campaign launched, the Vita was still a viable platform. But Sony has stopped supporting its portable, which makes the idea of releasing a Vita game in 2019 an unappealing one for most studios.
Backers who signed up for the Vita version will be able to choose a new platform or request a refund.
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In May, Bloodstained received a digital prequel with Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon. While Ritual of the Night is following in the footsteps of Castlevania games like Symphony of the Night, Curse of the Moon took its inspiration from the more linear, 8-bit entries in the series like Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. We loved its updated-yet-nostalgic take on classic Castlevania action.
But Ritual of the Night is a Metroidvania, a genre that has been having a great year thanks to games like Dead Cells and Yoku’s Island Express. Bloodstained could keep it going strong next year with its 2019 release.
