Blasphemous 2

Answers your prayers

Did you see Mad Max?” asks Juan Miguel López, the concept artist behind this metroidvania’s dark and brooding world.  “Well, Mad Max 2 was kind of the same but with money.” An oldfashioned sequel where almost everything that worked in the original has been enhanced, Blasphemous 2 certainly shows how a little extra budget can go a long way.

During our time with it, one of the most obvious upgrades is in the new approach to storytelling: lavish hand-drawn animated cutscenes have replaced the somewhat lifeless still images used in its predecessor. Despite this change, the wider narrative framing remains almost the same and the focus is still very much on crafting a sombre atmosphere shaped by esoteric lore. Once again you are tasked with stepping into the sabatons of The Penitent One, a nameless knight destined to embark on a never-ending crusade through a dark and dangerous land, decked out in purple robes and a striking pointy helmet reminiscent of Catholic penitential headwear.

Every aspect of the labyrinthine setting is gothic in the extreme – Blasphemous 2 wears its Spanish influences on its sleeve. (Seville is where the devs are based, and where we sit down to get sacrilegious with an early build.) Packed with crumbling villages and enough impossibly complex cathedrals to give even Dark Souls II a run for its money, everything aside from the cutscenes is rendered in elaborate pixel art that makes what we’ve seen of the world so far a consistent visual treat.

A NEW WORLD