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?’”
Denne historien er fra August 2023-utgaven av Edge UK.
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Denne historien er fra August 2023-utgaven av Edge UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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BONAPARTE: A MECHANIZED REVOLUTION
No sooner have we stepped into the boots of royal guard Bonaparte than we’re faced with a life-altering decision.
TOWERS OF AGHASBA
Watch Towers Of Aghasba in action and it feels vast. Given your activities range from deepwater dives to climbing up cliffs or lumbering beasts, and from nurturing plants or building settlements to pinging arrows at the undead, it’s hard to get a bead on the game’s limits.
THE STONE OF MADNESS
The makers of Blasphemous return to religion and insanity
Vampire Survivors
As Vampire Survivors expanded through early access and then its two first DLCs, it gained arenas, characters and weapons, but the formula remained unchanged.
Devil May Cry
The Resident Evil 4 that never was, and the Soulslike precursor we never saw coming
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
With Dragon Age: The Veilguard, BioWare has made a deeply self-conscious game, visibly inspired by some of the best-loved ideas from Dragon Age and Mass Effect.
SKATE STORY
Hades is a halfpipe
SID MEIER'S CIVILIZATION VII
Firaxis rethinks who makes history, and how it unfolds
FINAL FANTASY VII: REBIRTH
Remaking an iconic game was daunting enough then the developers faced the difficult second entry
THUNDER LOTUS
How Spirit farer's developer tripled in size without tearing itself apart