Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night Is Only 20 To 30 Percent Complete

Take your time, Iga.

No, seriously. I think this might be the straw that breaks the Kickstarter camel's back for many people if Bloodstained underdelivers as well.

Wouldn't be surprised if there's another delay at all, you've really gotta expect this kind of thing with Kickstarter. Patience is a virtue and if the game turns out good then it'll be worth it. 2018 isn't completely out of the question though, I'd say. It would certainly have a better shot if it was just coming out on one platform at first, though. Think a lot of KS projects hit the stumbling blocks because supporting so many platforms takes a lot of time.

@MarcelRguez I know what you mean, but there have been lots of successes on Kickstarter too. Torment: Tides of Numenara seems to have turned out really well. Agree that Igarashi needs to take his time though, no sense rushing it.

I hope it's not delayed. Really looking forward to this. This is the last kickstarter I will support. Getting sick of not getting what I was told I was getting or when.

I'm okay with this, but I gotta wonder what's taking so long? Like they spit these out almost yearly on the GBA and DS, and I feel like people would lose there minds if this was as good as Portrait of Ruin

As long as it turns out awesome, I don't mind a bit.

@Donutsavant reused assets are magic. A lot of the sprites were not only much simpler, but also reused from SotN (which itself reused many sprites from Rondo of Blood). Here they have to do everything from scratch and in a modern 3D engine.

Still, having at best 20% of the game done in a year is really slow.

I don't mind delayed, as long as it doesn't turn into Duke Nukem Forever.

Unlike MN9, Bloodstained's demo showed right off the bat that they are on the right track so I still have some faith in Iga. This may change if he screws up badly, but for now, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.

How did they ever intend for this to be on Wii U at one point?

When was this first announced? I feel it's way more than a year ago.

2 years have passed,they have $5.5 million of backers money,it's a 2D game from an industry veteran who has decades of experience with this style of game yet they still only have 20 to 30% of the game completed?What a joke! It seems these devs who turn to Kickstarter,take the funds and then the project they promise becomes a side project.

I will gladly pick up the game to play circa 2021 when it is finally released to critical acclaim instead of 2018 and being "a new 'Mighty Nº9'".

offtopic: Can you believe "Symphony of the Night" is 20 years old already? Golly!

@SegaBlueSky Sure, but people only remember the failures. You'd need a hundred Wasteland 2s to make up for a single Mighty No. 9, know what I mean?

@X-ite_SDF It's 2 years now since the Kickstarter ended.It ran between May and June 2015.At this rate the game won't be out before 2023.

@MarcelRguez True! Mighty No. 9 sure has a lot to answer for.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE They didn't, they just wanted Wii U owners - desperate for new games on the system - to give them money, so they claimed that they would make a version for the console.

It's a very successful and widely used tactic on Kickstarter.

I will gladly wait, just please don't disappoint. Though if the demo is anything to go by, then it won't

I think the problem here is that using kickstarter for big games means that everyone knows what the product will be years before it's ready VS. major companies that won't reveal a game in development until its near ready to keep a healthy hype. I think everyone is just tired now bc the hype of waiting so long has died off.

Hope it takes even longer and they get it right... comcept were feeling rushed towards the end of Mighty number 9 and look how that turned out.
Yes it's been two years since the KS finished but i'd imagine all the heavy work of level/story/character planning as well as creation of art assets and engine work has been finished. So whilst technically its 20% fin it's probably now in the considerably faster stage of bringing it all together. I doubt it will take another two year. Does anyone know what it's being built on? New engine?

Rather they take the time to do it right then rush it and the game turns out to be a mess

@Andyv01 Iga is saying Unreal 4.

I do think the downside to kickstarters is people get to experience the whole development cycle. It's longer than you think.

@Oorwullie Bloodstained is 2.5d, they're still using 3d models. Besides that, the game is going to be the biggest Igavania ever created. You really don't know what you're talking about.

Iga can take his time, I've played the beta and I'll gladly wait til it's done.

@C-Olimar another reason ill never back anything on kickstarter again

@MarcelRguez and knowing gamers, you BET it will underdeliver no matter what - like every other game out there did.

There certainly IS a silver lining to kickstarters in terms of helping complex fiction works happen within a lifetime, but making a potential audience your direct producer isn't the kind of trend I could easily bring myself to mourn the decline of.

In general, the more you wait the better the game. Can't understand people who stress the developer. He's on a tense deadline with a limited budget anyway. No-one wants an unpolished, unfinished, buggy, cutting-corners mess of a game. This already being seen as the Symphony of the Night successor is heavyweight enough.

But there's a long way to go if the game is only 20% to 30% finished after 2 years. Hopefully the supporting studios (that I never heard of) can help speeding up development without impacting the quality of the title.

It's kinda sad how kickstarter has essentially been slowly killed off by just lazy developers.

Well, I still have several Castlevanias of my favourite kind to play (including even Symphony of the Night - this franchise is one of my most messed-up archive binges XD). But a similar game will be welcome in my eyes regardless of release date - especially if it's on a platform I can actually play it on.

tbh I think kickstarter money makes a lot of devs lazy because there's essentially no pressure as they would feel from a real investor/publisher who's really watching their progress and can always threaten to cancel the project.

Mighty No. 9 all over again???

I don't expect this game to be completed until 2019. I hope I'm wrong. I've been literally salivating thinking about this game... but I don't think we're going to get it next year.

@nhSnork knowing gamers
Yup, two shining examples here: @manu0 @Dezzy

While you're not wrong about the donors-acting-as-producers part, I think the fault is misplaced. Utopically speaking, there would be nothing wrong with this production model if people (backers included) were more familiar with game development and budget management. Besides that, people have to realize it's called "donating" (or backing, whatever) for a reason. You're supposed to be fine with not getting anything in return if things go south.

Hype culture in general needs to suffer a slow and painful death.

This will be as much a failure as Mighty no 9, mark my words!

Take your time. This guy is doing this right. He updates you once a month-ish and is very genuine. Enjoy your work, Iga.

@MarcelRguez tiny Metal is a kickstarter as well, plus yooka laylee was not an overall failure.

@BinaryFragger Welcome to Cynictendo life
Where the cynics and nintendoomers come to tell us that the switch will die in a months time,.....SINCE MARCH!

Nintendo is still top dog even in April, May may see a decline, it may not, as both Zelda and Mario kart plus minecraft switch are very strong price indicators.

In April Nintendo stole 1st and 2nd with the nes mini,

Meanwhile xbone hit new low with 4th place.

@HSuzumiyaVI Yes and yes. What's your point, exactly?

Lel, I remember when they wanted it to release on WiiU.

@MarcelRguez meanwhile destiny 2 tries to overhype its game that fails to hit 60fps (Splatoon did that @720p) on wii u,

Plus worringly was the admission that Dedicated server access was "not in the budget"

@MarcelRguez kickstarter has not failed us the gamers yet,
Personally i prefer tbis over Steam early access and Greenlight

@BlueKnight07 - "I do think the downside to kickstarters is people get to experience the whole development cycle. It's longer than you think."

Well made point.

@BinaryFragger Welcome to a Dying industry that prioritizes more pixels than a modern 4k set has.

Concept art looked great. but the in-game graphics look *** poor.

@Blister UNDOUBTEDLY, the procedure gets simplier but the amount of work to polish a game never decreases.

After all these years with Kickstarter projects draggin out, it can hardly come as a surprise to backers that games take a long time to make. Particularly for newly assembled and/or inexperienced teams.

@Eddyson i hear the demo is satisfactory whats an issue is that release is in 2018 but games less than 50% done,

However FfVIIR was only polishing the parts in the gameplay trailer last time we got a update.

@HSuzumiyaVI About the Destiny thing, I'm not getting how that's related to the topic at hand, or to my posts.

About Kickstarter, it's not exactly in the best of places right now. Lots of soured backers or people burnt by campaigns that never delivered. High-profile disappointments contribute to this (terribly skewed) perception hugely. Considering Iga's portfolio, Bloodstained definitely qualifies as a high-profile project.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE
They probably just intended for Wii U owners to back them.

@Pod i really don't understand why developers want to push out a AA quality game with no budget or set platform.

Most indie vets should decide where the audience is then work from there.

Yooka laylee should have been developed on a Nintendo platform FIRST rather than wait till E3.

@MarcelRguez it was About hype in GAMING in general,

As for igas case, he should have had engaged with Nintendo as konami needed some motivation to ressurrect bomberman.

@BinaryFragger one problem with your example, Nintendo had hundreds of developers working on breath of the wild

@RupeeClock I mean, there's still pre-development stuff fully out of the way. Games can be announced at the start of the year "20%-30% done" and release just fine close to the end of the next year. If this is targeting a Fall/Winter 2018 release, then I don't think there's much to worry about.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Because they knew there would demand for it and weren't privy to the Switch yet.

@Firehawke I enjoyed duke nukem forever!... This game looks interesting I just hope it comes out sooner rather than​ later

Hasn't it been over a year? Better be worth the wait...

That's ok (in modern gaming terms). Just sell the game in sections (dlc) like the rest of these devs. You know it's going to happen anyway...

"Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night Is Only 20 To 30 Percent Complete"

This is probably a good thing, because it only looked about 20 to 30 percent complete to me the last time I saw it.

Well, as a backer it's disappointing to hear that. On the other hand, with a ginormous backlog and some other truly excellent Metroidvanias available, i think I can wait.

@OorWullie Remember that they're doing assets completely from scratch in 3D for everything. No reused sprites or library of enemies to pull back from. This is significantly more work than putting out another CV sequel.

2025 release date confirmed. Launch game for the Switch 2.

I think the biggest problem with Kickstarter is too much transparency. Some people like myself don't fully understand development.

My interest in anything Castlevania related will either excite or die with this game.

good backer here,
this isnt necessarily a bad thing.
in the end the quality shall show.
thats why i beat all his other games one after the other to ready myself for this.

Typically I avoid these kinds of indie games; harking back to a specific game, appealing only to that One demographic of people who enjoyed the original.
However, after watching a video essay on Hyper Light Drifter's success, I will say this to Igarashi
"Best of luck, and take your time"
P.S.
Don't take jabs at the anime community like No 9's marketing did.

Frustrating to hear, though this is a game that has an actual publisher. So if the publisher is in for it, then there's still someone holding them to task for output, so it's not as severe as random self-published indies delaying things forever. If it's behind schedule, it's the same as any other commercially published game like BotW being delayed.

OTOH, these indie devs (and even some of the corporate ones) really need to get on task and give REALISTIC timelines on development. Too many give 1-2 hear turnaround times for HD games and launch a Kickstarter, and by the time they're done it's 4-7 years before release. Did they actually think they'd get it done in 2 years? Or did they just tell everyone that because "please pay me now for a product you'll see sometime in the next decade" is not likely to bring results while "only 24 months away!" is. And the same is true for publishers. Nobody in management wants to hear long duration measured in many years, and wants to hear exact explanations for what will take so long. IF devs don't know where the bottlenecks will be there's endless pressure to just give a good sounding answer and hope for the best. Wasn't Rime supposed to be out in 2012/2013? 4-5 years later, here it is?

Bottom line: If a game says 2 years....assume 4 minimum. I don't see any hope this thing, years in development and only 20-30% done has any hope of a 2018 release date unless it's rushed out the door half finished. 2019 at the absolute earliest, 2020 possible. It will still be a great game when it releases, but it's a game best forgotten for a few years still.

I have personally pledged money to 4 games, 1 in 2013, 2 in 2014 and this in 2015. I have yet to see a single one of my games come out yet. It's a bit disheartening every single one definitely underestimated the timeframe to finish their products all 4 are being worked on. The most frustrating one is Reven from 2014 where the guy making that made a completely separate game to help fund the game we gave him money for. He didn't get enough money in the first place and undershot the money he was thinking he'd need, and overall hasn't done much on the game itself. Lots of games giving kickstarter a bad name, I'd be interested to see if they've seen a decrease in pledging for stuff video game wise just because this problem seems to keep coming up. I still have hopes my 4 games i pledged for will come out. Timespinners I think will actually get a release this year and does look like it's going to be good at least, and at least with Camelot Unchained MMO I pledged to I think they are slowly getting close to a beta. I'm more willing to accept the time it's taking on that one than the others because I want that one to get it right the most. Anyways just my personal experience with Kickstarter so far. I just wish we saw more kickstarter successes than fails.

If it keeps going at 10-20% a year that's 4-7 more years before it is finished. I'm all for taking your time to make the best game possible but he still needs to pick up the pace as that would be a ridiculous wait.

They better not screw this up

@MarcelRguez We still have Toejam and Earl!!!!!

Lol, I see the Mighty No. 9 posts in full effect!
On that note, I won't repeat what's been said already. I will say that, at 20-30% complete, and about 7 months before 2018 is here (time flies!), "can" they make the window is not the question, but will the game be "good" if they clock-watch. No one likes to hear the word "delay" in gaming, but I have to be real about it-- If this game needs more polish and has to be delayed, then just be honest with us gamers and take your time to produce a fine product. We've seen good kickstarters (Shovelknight) and we've seen bad kickstarters (Mighty No. 9... oops! I mentioned it!), so it's really up to Iga to follow the correct path. Good luck, Iga!

I'm seeing far too many people here saying that taking their time will make the game better.

While that may be true in many aspects, I can't help but be reminded of the numerous delays Mighty No. 9 experienced and how, at the very end, it was still a very poorly delivered product. With that said, I do think there should still be caution.

Rushing a game out never helped anyone. He should take all the time he needs and this is coming from a backer. I fully expected this from day 1, anyway.

@HSuzumiyaVI I'm just a bit cautious as the only crowdfunded game who delivers on their promises so far is yacht Club/Shovel knight.

Others have too, but pale (in my mind) in comparison.
The game play demo at conventions last year was a bit of a let down as the concept art looked great but the game didn't. Just like a certain mighty number.

Hmm, I'm not going to throw them under the bus for this one yet. I was expecting around 45 percent but dev work can be a hard beast to tame. In the meantime I have a backlog the size of mount Olympus to play.

Well at least backers are getting their money's worth.

No way Igarashi! Take your time. Anything worth doing is worth doing right. As much as I do like Mighty, it has problems. Don't send out a glitchy mess. Gamers need to learn to be more patient and need to realize that making a game is more like making a big holiday meal and less like tossing a hot pocket in the microwave.

I have faith in IGA - I miss his style of games, so it's better that he takes the time he needs instead of releasing a turd.
Plus, it gives me confidence how open IGA has been with the backers, and willing to give updates.

Wow. Someone needs to put a torch under his butt if the game is only 20-30 percent complete! Their Kickstarter finished quite a while ago!

they just wanted Wii U owners - desperate for new games on the system - to give them money, so they claimed that they would make a version for the console. It's a very successful and widely used tactic on Kickstarter.

And yet it's DLC that is considered the biggest rip-offs by the gaming community. I'll buy Ritual of the Night but won't contribute to Kickstarter.

I'm debating canceling my order now ... by the time this comes out I might not even be alive.

@Switch81tch how was Yooka Laylee a letdown? Have you actually played it? Pretty much every negative review complained it was "too much like Banjo Kazooie"... which is EXACTLY what they advertised from the start, so if making exactly what they said they'd make is a letdown, then why would you be interested in the game in the first place?

2 years in, 20-30 percent done... that puts development time at about 7-10 years. Really? Yes, 2 years is a bit short for a high quality game, but 7-10 years is unacceptable. Especially considering... well, do some research on games that were in development for around that length of time. They actually have a low quality and success rate because of so much technology change in that rate, changes of focus for the project, etc. they either become vapor ware or... we'll look at Duke Nukem Forever, Spore, etc. This is NOT a good sign that they're "taking their time". Games can be in development too long for their own good. Hopefully they do pick up the pace, otherwise... well, don't expect a quality product if this game doesn't come out until after 2020.

Not sure, either way I will be picking it up, would rather them release in early 2019 and have it be the game it can be then rush and have it be crap

I have faith in Iga. The E3 demo from a year ago looked better than all of Mighty Number 9. We haven't had a true Igavania since Order of Ecclesia, almost a whole decade ago. It is going to take a lot for my trust in this game to die. I've loved every single Iga Castlevania game I've played and I know this one won't be any different.

In other words, the Wii U version was abandoned for a similar reason as Yooka-Laylee: the Wii U's inability to effectively utilize modern API's and middleware.

And no, he doesn't need to hurry up, he needs to take his time to make sure he gets it right. If it slips to a 2019/2020 release date, that's okay. Just let your backers know what's going on every step of the way, and no reasonable complaints will surface.

Noooo!!!! I wanted to play this since it looks really good. Hope is for the best this delay.

Take your time, Iga! A rushed, sloppy game will forever be just that. So polish this gem as long as you need to.

It's hard to project how long it will take. On one hand the work so far included building the team and the development environment they need. So by now they can focus on content creation which might speed things up.

On the other hand the last 20% of most projects take as much work as the first 80%.

No

He really needs to pick up the pace if the game's only 20 to 30% done after two years worth of development.

@Switch81tch I am? I'm not even getting this.

Oy vey.

I would rather wait and have it end up a well made game instead of rushing it and having it turn out into a piece or crap.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Armature was going to port UE4 to the Vita and Wii U, and had plans to publish the code for the port so that other developers could benefit. It's probably for the best that they dropped the Wii U, both because the Switch with native UE4 will be a much simpler port, and because Armature is far more experienced with the Vita than the Wii U.

@C-Olimar Wii U owners were offered a full refund or the chance to switch to any other platform. This was hardly a bait-and-switch.

@Andyv01 UE4

@ShadJV You assume that the development cycle is linear.