Almost a decade after it set crowdfunding records on Kickstarter, and five years after its release, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night’s developers have announced the final free update for the Castlevania: Symphony of the Night successor.
Update 1.50 is confirmed as being Bloodstained’s “final update” by developers ArtPlay – co-founded by Castlevania: Symphony of the Night legend Koji Igarashi – and brings with it two modes that were originally added as stretch goals during its 2015 Kickstarter campaign. Chaos mode and VS mode were both originally planned to arrive way back in 2020.
The former offers a solo or co-op randomiser mode that throws a series of rooms and bosses at the player(s) in an endurance challenge to see how long they can last, with challenges between the bosses unlocking more powerful upgrades.
VS mode, meanwhile, is what it sounds like: a PvP twist on Bloodstained’s combat that throws players into a new multiplayer arena filled with waves of demons. Killing demons earns souls, which can be spent on upgrades for your gear and ways to mess with your opponent – in the head-to-head Tetris vein of things, you can do things like obscure the screen with fog or reverse their controls for a while. Whichever player outlives the other, wins. It sounds pretty fun!
Alongside the two modes will be a set of cosmetic packs for Miriam – one of which will be free, the rest paid.
While update 1.50’s release on May 9th will finally complete the stretch goals promised as free updates for players, they won’t be the very last addition to the game. Following the free update will be a paid expansion featuring Classic Mode II, a variant of the retro-flavoured Classic Mode with a bigger map and original storyline – said to be canon to Bloodstained’s narrative. You’ll have to pay to get that, with no release date announced for now.
Beyond the last update for Ritual of the Night, there’s still that Bloodstained sequel presumably cooking away somewhere inside the studio – though we haven’t heard much about it in a while, maybe this last update will see it finally reappear.