The spiritual successor to Castlevania will now be published by one of indie gaming's most renowned companies.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Koji Igarashi's spiritual successor to the Castlevania series, now has a publisher.
As revealed on the game's official Kickstarter campaign, developer Inti Creates has announced that Bloodstained will be published by 505 Games. The team even released a YouTube video to help celebrate this partnership as well as explain some of the specifics of the arrangement.
505 Games is an Italy-based publishing company that has previously published games such as Payday 2, Sniper Elite III, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, and Virginia. In 2015, they even won the Best Indie Games Label award at the MCV Awards.
This arrangement is a bit unexpected in a couple of ways. On developer Init Creates' end, it initially seems odd that they would seek a publisher considering that Bloodstained is one of the most well-funded Kickstarter projects of all-time ($5,545,991 raised off a $500,000 goal). For publisher 505 Games, it's strange that they have decided to publish this game when they noted earlier this year that they plan on focusing on game development rather than game publishing moving forward.
As the announcement video touches upon, however, this arrangement is mutually beneficial. For Inti Creates, it allows them to focus solely on the development of the game as well as expand their advertising reach. After all, we've seen what happens when Kickstarter devs try to do it all themselves. For 505 Games, it gives them the opportunity to publish a game that is already a pretty big hit in several key ways, which is far too tempting of a proposition to pass up regardless of the current company directive.
Sadly, this partnership likely won't expedite the release of Bloodstained as the game is still currently set to release for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Wii U, and PC sometime in the first quarter of 2018.