Bloodstained Loses Roguelike Mode, but Gains a Randomizer

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, the spiritual successor to Castlevania by original creator Koji Igarashi, was first announced on Kickstarter five years ago. Since then, it's been through controversies, remakes, and of course, an actual release, where it got the noteworthy acclaim of being one of the few "90's revival" games that lived up to the hype, unlike Mighty No. Nine and Yooka-Laylee.

Well, despite being released a while ago, the game is still getting updated with new modes and stuff promised in the Kickstarter. However, earlier this week, ol' Igarashi announced that one of the most hotly anticipated new modes for the game, a "Roguelike" mode, is no more.

One of the promised stretch goals for the game was Roguelike. Unfortunately, the code that was created early in the game's development is not currently compatible with this type of gameplay (especially a procedurally generated castle). Due to this, we regret to announce that we will not be developing Roguelike as part of the project's planned stretch goals.

We know this is a mode that many of you were eagerly anticipating, and we apologize that we will not be able to make it happen as planned.

We don't want to leave a hole in the roster, so we have developed a new game mode called "Randomizer" to take its place.

Development is hard, and coding games is harder, so it's sad but not surprising that this might wind up happening. But the mode replacing it, Randomizer, has its charms; basically, it's the story mode, but you can "randomize" eight different parameters, from item drops to the objectives to shop locations. But it's got safeguards to ensure that the stuff you need to complete the game is still obtainable.

I can see this mode being desirable to YouTubers and speedrunners, but I still understand why people would mourn the loss of the Roguelike mode.

The Randomizer mode will be released, free to all players, soon.