At the end of each year, Famitsu conducts brief interviews with a huge number of Japanese developers about their ambitions and aspirations for the year ahead. It’s a great chance to get some insights into what a wide array of developers are up to, or even just what’s on their mind. One such developer is ArtPlay’s Koji Igarashi, the man behind many Castlevania games and the spiritual successor franchise, Bloodstained. [Thanks, Famitsu!]
It’s perhaps little surprise to see that Igarashi has one goal foremost in his thoughts: releasing his next game. The wildly successful Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night finally wound down its active development in 2024, five years after its initial release. All extra content and modes have been implemented, and virtually ever backer promise has been fulfilled. If ever there was a time to hear what’s coming and when, this is it.
To that end, Igarashi states that his goal is to release a new game in 2025. ArtPlay announced a sequel to Bloodstained was in development back in June 2021, but has since said little about it. Igarashi states that his year has been rather busy, and he has not been able to make as much progress as he had hoped to. He mentions the illness of director Shutaro Iida, who recently announced that he was battling cancer, as being a shocking event. Nevertheless, he resolves to move forward while hoping for his colleague’s recovery.
Since his departure from Konami in 2014, Igarashi has primarily worked on the Bloodstained franchise of games. It seems likely that his next title is the aforementioned sequel, but time will have to tell on that one. At the very least, we know Igarashi wants to release something soon, and that’s good news for fans of his work.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is currently available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam.
Published: Dec 31, 2024 02:30 pm