BLASPHEMOUS 2

An expansive sequel embraces its inner Castlevania

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We wake up in a dark chamber, surrounded by corpses and rubble, and quickly find ourselves locked in combat with a gigantic monster. You could be forgiven for raising an eyebrow: the opening moments of Blasphemous 2 mirror its predecessor almost beat for beat. As we duke it out with the tutorial boss, a jester-like figure wielding a spiked cartwheel, we sink back into the first game’s Dark Souls-inspired combat loop: dodge telegraphed attacks, carefully time swigs from your healing flasks to stay alive, memorise animation timings and launch counters. Just as in FromSoftware’s action-RPG series, your progression through the harsh world of Cvstodia is measured by unlocking shortcuts and reaching checkpoints, here represented by elaborate prie-dieux. Yet if Blasphemous 2 starts out in familiar territory, it soon spreads its wings. And, as we find out, its foundations have surprisingly little in common with its predecessor.

“We threw the codebase [of Blasphemous] into the trash,” Mauricio García, CEO and studio director of The Game Kitchen, says bluntly. The Seville-based indie studio doubled its headcount thanks to the success of the first game, allowing the team to spend 18 months rebuilding its tools from scratch. “This time around, our focus was: ‘How high can we go now that we have way more resources, and way more experience?’”