The video games industry has certainly seen its share of franchise crossovers, from The Witcher and Monster Hunter World, God of War and Shovel Knight, Mario + Rabbids, and several more. This latest collaboration, however, takes the cake as 2022’s weirdest so far. In an update shared to the Bloodstained website, Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night, an homage to the Castlevania games of yesteryear, developed by some of the creative brains behind those classics, has come together with ThatGameCompany’s indie classic, Journey, in a collaboration that will have to be seen to be believed.
The website reads: “Bloodstained’s castle is built on a foundation of magic and mystery. Just when you think you’ve explored it all, there’s always another discovery to be made. On August 23rd, the castle reveals its latest secret…a brand-new crossover boss area based on Journey, the award-winning videogame by ThatGameCompany! This new section of the castle, The Tunnels, is inspired by the imagery and level design of Journey, but with a Bloodstained twist. Hidden behind a secret entrance, the Tunnels are large and will require exploration and shard abilities to navigate. Once you find (and fight) your way through the cavernous maze, the final challenge awaits: a battle with the level’s guardian. Your reward for survival is a special Journey-inspired equippable item!” You can see that guardian below.
The post continues to highlight how this new addition will work alongside the existing content, rather than be embedded in it, therefore not impacting player’s completion rates or work towards trophies/achievements, “The entrance to The Tunnels will appear after you have freed Gebel and unlocked the Den of Behemoths. The room with the doorway will be marked on the castle map (no, it’s not IN the Den of Behemoths). Head to the highlighted area on the map and you’ll find the entrance inside. Because this is a new, hidden area, it does not affect map completion percentages or achievements.”
Alongside this new content addition, Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night is also getting a new update intended to make a few tweaks and fix a few bugs. Those details can be found below:
* New playable Area for Miriam to explore based on Journey, ThatGameCompany’s critically acclaimed game, with a unique boss fight and new item for Miriam to equip
* Fixed an issue with save and warp rooms randomizing when option was set to unchanged in Randomizer
* Fixed an issue with a timestamp error on Nintendo Switch version
* Fixed an issue where commands displayed is not updated for the custom controller configuration.
* General bug fixing
The collaboration with Journey is not as unusual when you consider that BloodStained: Ritual Of The Night also collaborated with Ubisoft’s Child Of Light earlier in the year to bring across the game’s protagonist, Aurora, in a similar fashion.
BloodStained: Ritual Of The Night is available on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC now.
