Blasphemous is one of those "difficult" modern 2D action platformers that melds 16-bit era toughness with Soulslike brutality. We called it a "must-play" when we reviewed it back in 2019. Now it's getting what developer The Game Kitchen calls its "true ending" with the Wounds of Eventide DLC, which is set to release for free on December 9. 

The DLC was revealed during a Gamescom 2021 presentation, but perhaps juicier than the prospects of more Blasphemous putting us at risk of eternal damnation this winter is the news of a Blasphemous sequel coming in 2023. 

Details about Blasphemous 2 are nonexistent right now; only the Roman numeral II and "2023" were shown at the end of the Wounds of Eventide trailer. But we do know that it's in the works. Platforms haven't been announced, and The Game Kitchen understandably hasn't given a more pointed release window. 

The developers did say via a press release regarding the news that:

We’re so excited to finally announce that we’ve started work on a Blasphemous sequel. The community have shown so much love for the first game, and we can’t wait to share more when we can! New beginnings also mean new endings, and Wounds of Eventide is exactly that, it’s the final installment for the original Blasphemous, and we hope people love playing the new content as much as we loved creating it.

Wounds of Eventide will include new challenges for The Penitent One, including "new bosses, areas, and items." Stay tuned for more as we learn it. 

Blasphemous, the gory indie Souls-like from Team 17 and The Game Kitchen, is getting a physical release on PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch on June 29. Unsurprisingly, there will be no physical edition for PC (do they even release PC games physically anymore?). 

Dubbed the Blasphemous Deluxe Edition, the corporeal version of the game is being brought to life by Sold Out Games, who have also worked on Disjunction, Gestalt: Steam & Cinder, Wargroove, Zombie Army 4: Dead War, and many other notable titles.

This version will include a bloody handful of extra goodies, both digital and tangible, for fans who decide to pick it up, including: 

• A Blasphemous game disc
• 32-track Digital Soundtrack
• 195-page Digital Artbook
• Digital Comic
• ‘Alloy of Sin’ and ‘Golden Burden’ In-Game Character Skins
• Sticker Sheet
• 180 x 290mm Poster of Cvstodia

Blasphemous is a brutally difficult game, taking much of its inspiration from the Souls series, perhaps even more so than similar titles such as Dark Devotion and Salt & Sanctuary. It's not for the faint of heart and is chock full of unforgiving enemies and dastardly traps. It goes unsaid that, well, you'll die quite a bit. 

In our review, we said that Blasphemous excels in almost all the right ways, praising it for its "brutal and disgusting combat, delightfully sacrilegious and compellingly weird universe, and old-school" nature.

Since its 2019 release, the game's developers have steadily provided support for it, adding Mac and Linux support on PC alongside a number of other updates and DLC. Limited Run Games previously released physical copies of the game, though those are currently sold out. 

Carrion

Horror is a broad genre that doesn’t just mean having to be the hapless victim. Sometimes, you just want to be the monster. Carrion is the amazing game that lets you do it.

Imagine if the creature from the Thing had been captured and trapped in a massive underground lab, where scientists relentlessly experimented on it. Then imagine violently escaping, trying to find a way out, all the while growing stronger, evolving, and taking revenge on all those pesky humans who hurt you.

Carrion is a metroidvania-style game with distinctly 16-bit graphics, but thoroughly addicting in every way. The way the monster moves is a marvel of animation, the puzzles are great, and the violence is almost too satisfying. If you missed Carrion the first time around, don’t make that mistake twice.

That's the end of our horror game list, how do you feel about the lineup? Sound off in the comments below with some of your favorite horror titltes you can play on PS5.

Haunted Dungeons: Hyakki Castle

For something completely different, here’s a gem that merges horrific Japanese folklore monsters, classic grid-based first-person dungeon crawler gameplay, and some intriguingly creative mechanics.

The game allows the four-character party to split up to explore, solve puzzles, and even fight monsters. While it’s not by any stretch the most cutting edge game in our list, Hyakki Castle makes excellent use of its settings, lore, and especially wonderfully macabre collection of monsters and characters. It’s well worth playing for fans of classic RPGs who want something very different.

White Day: A Labyrinth Named School

For a flair of Korean horror, White Day checks the boxes for the genre. A remake of a remake, the game has a long history. Originally released in 2001, in an admittedly very different form, the final version on PS4 is a first-person horror adventure that takes players into those most horrifying of all locations: high school.

A love-lorn boy sneaks into school after hours to leave his crush a present but instead finds himself trapped in a supernatural, angry ghost-addled nightmare. It’s cheesy and fun, with plenty of sneaking around, finding items, and solving puzzles.

Perception

A labor of love for the small team at the Deep End Games (led by former Irrational Game’s Bill Gardner), Perception is a short, but intriguing twist on the haunted house theme.

While the house itself is pretty garden-variety gothic horror, the protagonist is not. Cassie, our heroine, is blind and the game translates her use of echolocation and psychic visions into a visually fascinating low-fi wave of vibrations reflecting off the objects around her.

It’s a memorable and intense graphic solution for translating Cassie’s world and sense of ever-building dread. The story is well-written, Cassie is appealing, and Perception is a good example of an indie game that deserves a second chance at finding its audience.

Resident Evil 7

Resident Evil 7 marked such a huge departure from the traditions of the series that it almost seemed like a different game entirely. Switching from third to first-person perspective might appear to be a radical change, but the end result was nothing short of gory, horrific magic.

Bringing the series back to the roots of a mansion of madness actually ended up making it feel more in line with the original and that new perspective amped up the claustrophobia. There’s a lot going on as you work your way through each member of one of the most screwed up families in all of horror gaming, and after that, there’s plenty of additional DLC that branches the story out even further.

Given that the upcoming Resident Evil 8 seems to latch directly onto the end of this one, now is the perfect time to dive back in.

Amnesia: Rebirth

Amnesia started something in the horror game genre. Instead of standard survival horror games where ammunition and weapons were merely limited, here there’s none at all.

Hiding and evading the dread that walks these halls is the only means of survival, and it created a subgenre where tension and paranoia were essentially gameplay mechanics. The two games have been re-released twice now, but if you’ve never tried these slower-paced nerve-wracking tales of terror they are definitely worth adding to your hard drive. 

Blasphemous

One of two retro-inspired 2D metroidvanias on our list, Blasphemous plays with horror on a nearly unique level. Everything in this game’s world is horrible (or wonderful, depending on your point of view) to behold.

The thinly veiled inspiration of Dante’s Inferno concerns the obsession-driven quest of a unknown knight. He’s fighting demonic and godly forces that seem to have flown right up from the lowest circles of Biblical Hell, and the player is fighting a difficulty level to match.

Blasphemous is bizarre and clever in its deliverance of hefty piles of gore, horrific monsters, and absurdly violent means to dispatch them. Just don't expect an easy time here.

LIMBO

Both of developer Playdead’s catalog is expertly disturbing, fascinating, and worth playing, and their second game, Inside, is a gem too.

Limbo, however, is definitely the more horrific of the two. A side-scrolling puzzle platformer, the game hits its horror notes easily thanks to the fact that all the nightmarish situations, monsters, and absolutely brutal death sequences are all perpetrated against a young boy (probably don’t play the game with the kiddies around).

Limbo has been on a lot of platforms since its original release way back in 2010 and it’s nice to know it can continue to disturb more players on the new generation.

Until Dawn

In the relatively brief and recent resurgence of FMV-style games, Until Dawn remains noteworthy for the way it takes the tried and true slasher genre interactive while still managing to stay within the boundaries of its cinemative roots.

There hasn’t been any game since that manages so successfully to create an interactive horror movie experience. Admittedly, the emulation of slasher films works because it lets the cheesy acting and writing of Until Dawn to feel like a perfectly natural and even expected part of the fun.

Resident Evil 3

The remake of the third game in the original Resident Evil series continues the story fluidly forward, making it a natural progression after playing RE2. While it’s not the best of the series, Capcom’s eye for detail and successfully balancing between nostalgia and modern-day design sense makes it an excellent survival horror-meets-action endeavor.

The big hook in Resident Evil 3 is the continuation of the chase elements as characters Jill Valentine and Carlos Oliveira struggle both independently and together to survive against not just a constant onslaught of the dead, but the relentless pursuit of the mysterious and horrific Nemesis.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

Vikings have long been a favored subject in video games, but seldom has a game shown the utterly horrific effects of that much-lauded and glorified violence the people were known for. God of War showed it off, but also dug into it with fervor. Hellblade, however, shows the brutal truth of a lifetime of violence and abuse on an individual.

Senua is a broken warrior, laid low by years of torment from Viking conquerors. Her love was murdered by them, her mind is fractured, and her struggle seems never-ending.

Observer

Cyberpunk is never out of style, but one of the least used aspects of this sci-fi subgenre is how well it melds with dismal, oppressive horror.

Made by Blooper Team, who did the also fascinating Layers of Fear, Observer casts players Daniel Lazarski, a special brand of detective who can hack people’s minds as well as machines. Obsessed with finding his estranged missing son, Daniel finds himself trapped in a grungy run-down apartment complex that devolves into a techno layer of hell. The fact Daniel is modeled after and voice-acted by Rutger Hauer is icing on the cake.

The original PS4 is still an excellent and evocative trip, but for the shiniest (well, high-res grungiest) version, there's also Observer: System Redux specifically released on the PS5.

SOMA

Frictional Games doesn’t have a huge library of games, but their two key releases are Amnesia: Dark Descent (see below) and the brilliantly moody sci-fi horror, SOMA. Originally released on the PS4 in 2015, it could be argued this is a horror-tinged “walking simulator".

SOMA is wonderfully intelligent and harrowing interactive fiction. The emotional impact of the story hasn’t lessened in the intervening years, its presented conundrums over the nature of existence are hard to forget.

Resident Evil 2

Capcom’s Resident Evil series lands a few spots on this list, but with their complete remake of the second game, the company showed they still have a knack for horror. As with the original PlayStation game, you'll have to complete both Leon and Claire's campaigns to get the whole story.

The mix between survival horror and all-out action is damn near perfect. Capcom’s been good at remaking their old catalogs, but Resident Evil 2 is especially noteworthy. It has plenty to offer nostalgic gamers who loved the original but also makes a great choice even for those who never touched the series before.

Alien: Isolation

It’s hard to believe Alien: Isolation is old enough to have been released right at the transition between the PlayStation 3 and 4 (and released on both). It’s even harder to believe that Sega and developer, Creative Assembly, haven’t returned to the world of this incredible and, even now, distinctively intense survival horror title.

Isolation is a direct sequel to the original movie, where players take the role of Amanda Ripley, daughter of Sigourney Weaver’s famous Ellen Ripley character. 15 years after the events of Alien, Amanda is haunted by more than just the ghosts of her past as she finds herself in an Alien-infused nightmare aboard a space station. The retro-future set designs are stunning, but it’s the cat and mouse gameplay that makes Isolation remain one of the intense examples of its genre.

The PlayStation 5 might not have much of a native horror library just yet, but thanks to the system's backwards compatibility you're able to play any and every fright-filled PlayStation 4 title on Sony's newer system.

Luckily the PS4 library is extensive, and there's plenty for you to choose from between lower, more atmospheric horror games to those of the more blood-pumping variety. Let's get to the list.

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PlayStation 4 sales have become as regular as the console's noisy fan these days. And Sony is kicking off October with yet another set of digital bargains that includes a number of tent-pole titles. 

Fifty-two games are currently on sale until Wednesday, October 14 through the "Games of a Generation" promotion. Highlights include Ghost of Tsushima, Borderlands 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dying Light, Far Cry New Dawn, MGSV, and Wolfenstein: The New Colossus. 

Savings are between 25% off and 85% off for select titles. Some of the games on offer are bundles as well, increasing the savings even further. 

Here's a full, alphabetical list of what you can find over on the PlayStation Store. 

Games on Sale

Add-Ons/DLC on Sale

That's everything on sale during Sony's Games of a Generation promotion. As if there wasn't already enough to play — and even more on the horizon in October and November — this promotion gives fans yet another chance to nab the games and DLCs they've missed out on. 

If the past is any indication, there will be plenty more sales in the future, though, for those setting money aside for a PlayStation 5. Stay tuned for new on those future sales as we learn about them. 

The PlayStation Store is launching yet another sale today: a PS4 games under $20 sale. As you can imagine, everything on the list is under $20, and it includes a good mix of old and new classics too, ranging from Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair and My Time at Portia to Dragon Age: Inquisition's massive DLC bundle, and Star Wars Battlefront 2: Celebration Edition.

Here's some of what's on offer. The sale is live now through May 13.

That's just a portion of the PS4 games under $20 sale going on now. You can check out the full list over on the PlayStation Blog, and the sale page is on the PlayStation Store.

If nothing here piques your interest, remember the second Big in Japan/Golden Week sale is still live as well. Stay tuned to GameSkinny for more video game sales as they pop up.

Who needs SNES games on the Switch when there's a wealth of old-school pixel platformers steadily arriving from new developers? This resurgence of classic art styles and mechanics from the Golden Age of gaming is truly a beautiful sight for the 30+ demographic.

From crowd-funded retro RPGs to Metroidvanias that will bring '90s-kids to tears, what's old is truly new again.

It's that latter genre-mash that strongly shines through with Blasphemous, a new action-platformer from The Game Kitchen. Although, "shines" may be the wrong term here since this is a very dark and disturbing game.

Seriously, What Did I Just See?!?

 Just killed a giant warden of sorrow, so it's a good time to
fill my helmet with blood before moving on!

Some decades back, I remember seeing the boss made of screaming dead bodies in Symphony Of The Night and thinking I had just witnessed the pinnacle of video game darkness. Surely, nothing could top that. 

Fast forward and The Game Kitchen shows up to prove tweenage me wildly wrong with Blasphemous.

Everything about the game careens into the seriously messed up, all to a deliciously devilish degree. Think of something like Inner Chains or the ill-fated Scorn but in a hyper-religious grimdark fantasy setting.

Ever wanted to fight a murderous crown-of-thorns-wearing Jesus baby? Well, you will in Blasphemous. It's certainly not a game for the squeamish or religious. 

In terms of gameplay, Blasphemous is most closely approximated in both style and substance to Dark Devotion, but thankfully, without the Souls stamina mechanic adding an artificial element of difficulty.

Let me be clear: Blasphemous is still hard (often brutally so), but this isn't the kind of pointlessly, unfairly difficult nonsense developers have injected into games since From Software popularized that particular pedantry.

The launch version of the game is much, much more akin to Demon's Crest meets Castlevania than the previous demo release would indicate, as that brief taste of the game really highlighted the title's Dark Souls elements.

Oddly (and refreshingly!) that's not the only way in which the demo didn't quite put its best foot forward, as Blasphemous has significantly more going on with its story than the demo indicated, and the voice acting is leagues ahead of what we heard in that brief snippet.

On the atmospheric front, Blasphemous fires on all cylinders, from deviously anti-religious enemies to truly unique NPC creatures. This small development team didn't skimp on the music either, as the soundtrack will bring to mind Grim Dawn — particularly the majorly depressing stuff in the Ashes Of Malmouth expansion — offering a low key, dark fantasy soundscape.

Platformin' Till the Sun Goes Down

There's a lot of what you'd expect from a 16-bit style platformer here — huge, epic bosses, lots of perfectly-timed jumps to avoid projectiles, and the like — but with some wonderfully gross additions that will keep you staring in slack-jawed amazement.

Simply put, the execution animations are just flat out amazing, and I couldn't get enough of watching the brutality. Chainsawing locust in Gears 5 doesn't have anything on Blasphemous, that's for sure!

While there's sadly not a lot of variety in the game's weaponry, there is plenty of variety in the enemy types and the game's overall level design.

Flying bishops try to skewer you with pitchforks, frozen damned souls leap up from the snow, exploding poison-filled priests try to kill you, and even a giant using a dead stag carcass with bleeding antlers will assail. These, thankfully, require different tactics to overtake.

Although there's no stamina system, there's still an exactly right and wrong time to dodge or parry, which is where the game's main difficulty resides. Couple that with environmental hazards like acid falling from the sky, drowned corpses reaching up from the water below, or rusted spikes shooting out from any given surface and things can get difficult quickly. 

Due to the pixel art nature of larger enemies, you have to learn where the hit and dodge boxes are positioned, and that can occasionally lead to some trial and error with some bosses and, admittedly, some frustration. 

Sometimes it seems like you should be able to dodge through an enemy's leg, for instance, but your character, The Penitent One, will actually stop partway through and take damage. It's certainly not a negative aspect in a game like this, yet more of tactical limitation to the gameplay. 

Aside from enemy variety, there's also a satisfying amount of environmental diversity to be found within the world map. On your journey of guilt and repentance, you'll explore a plagued village, a decrepit old castle, an underground sewer, an alternate dimension turned to salt, snowy cliffs (the slide mechanic here will very much bring you back to the glory days of Mega Man), a steep mountain area, and more. 

There's plenty to do that will have you re-exploring old areas as well, like tracking down various saint bones or unlocking an item that causes previously hidden platforms to appear. Playing through the game's early demo, I was concerned there would be too much backtracking involved, but eventually, a fast travel system is worked in as you beat bosses.

Even if you don't utilize those fast travel portals, though, going through the same areas over and over isn't pointless because both the experience and money systems use the same currency. Adding in an RPG style element, currency is accrued by defeating enemies, so if you want new skills and more items from the game's vendor, you'll need to slice and dice your way across the landscape.

Heresy Detected

As you might expect from an indie game, there's some rough edges in Blasphemous, too.

I found a few bugs in my playthrough, some of which are already slated to be ironed out with a Day 1 patch, but others weren't specifically mentioned in the developer update. For instance, you can make the game completely wig out and crash if you open the inventory menu as you leave a room.

For all its profane and impious weirdness, there are a handful of areas that just aren't executed perfectly. The enemies in the mountain area, for instance, aren't as notably vile or eye-catching as enemies in previous sections. While they do have a classic NES platformer vibe, the eagles and bull-headed shamen aren't as inspired as monsters found elsewhere.

Those issues aside, my biggest complaint is that I thought the game would be longer.

Like the classic Symphony Of The Night, getting to 100% doesn't actually mean you've completed the game, but it is still a shorter overall experience than you might expect. To give you an idea of your potential time investment, there's an achievement for completing the first main half of the game in under three hours.

The Bottom Line

Pros: 

• Brutal and disgusting combat
• Delightfully sacrilegious and compellingly weird universe
• Old-school and challenging without being unfairly difficult

Cons: 

• A few bugs to still be ironed out
• Lack of variety in weapons and combat styles

If my primary problem is that I wanted to play more, that's a pretty good sign you've got a great game on your hands.

Blasphemous may not have the huge budget of a AAA title, but it doesn't need one — this is a title that revels in its old-school nature, with perfect pixel art and challenging platforming gameplay. If you like your games on the sacrilegious side, do yourself a favor and pick this one up.

[Note: A copy of Blasphemous was provided by Team 17 for the purpose of this review.]

Exploring a somewhat similar style to both last year's Death's Gambit and this year's Dark Devotion, Blasphemous delves even further into subversive religious inversion, providing a truly disturbing and deliciously evil retro platforming experience.

While all three games clearly spring from the same basic influence, multiple entries in this retro style is a good thing, giving players choice if one title or another doesn't suit their fancy. 

Although we've only played the recent limited-time demo for the game, here's what we think of Blasphemous so far. 

Dark Style & Bloody Substance

While exploring twisted dungeons and crumbling castles, The Penitent One hacks and slashes his way through a horde of religiously-themed enemies.

What exactly does he need penance for and what the hell kind of messed up world do these characters live in? Don't expect any straightforward answers; this seems like the kind of game where atmosphere and level design are more important than steady story beats.

Clearly, the name should tip you off to what this game is all about. But in case it didn't, your mileage with Blasphemous may vary based on personal religiosity. There is a lot of, well, blasphemous content here. 

If you see a bloody guy carrying a giant cross and your brain thinks "torture porn" before it thinks "Jesus," you'll be at home here.

Aside from that, one of the biggest draws for Blasphemous is its devilishly dark pixel art style, complete with insanely bloody animations and crazy execution moves like beheading, dismembering, disemboweling, running through with fiery candelabras, and more.

Enemy types and weaponry are extremely on-brand, as it seems like everyone is carrying some sort of religious guilt that gets turned into a means to kill. 

However, Blasphemous isn't quite as devastatingly hard as the other two recent titles in this style. That's primarily because the developers ditched the Souls-style stamina meter. There is a recovery period after dodging, so you still have to time things properly, but it's not as prominent a mechanic as with other such titles.

If you take the time to learn enemy patterns, it isn't hard to get through any given section in terms of combat. The real challenge arrives when there are multiple enemies on the screen and traps in a hallway all working in tandem.

Taking out one flying pope with a trident isn't that difficult, but when you're also dodging flying projectiles and trying not to get skewered by spikes or knocked off a ledge into oblivion, you've got a challenge on your hands. 

While the demo only featured a single boss, the giant level-ending enemies already show quite a bit of promise. Notably, boss attacks get more powerful and cover more of the screen when they are low on health, it seems, making these lengthy fights extremely tense.

Metroidvania For The Next Gen

Besides ditching the stamina meter, Blasphemous is a little more Castlevania and less Dark Souls than recent games in this style, too. There are, among other things, hidden castle walls to break and limited item shops to be found.

The game is also a bit more forgiving if you screw up a single dodge or combo, and you get two health potions to use before you die and the enemies respawn.

That being said, Blasphemous is still more deadly than something like Symphony Of The Night. In terms of gameplay, this is old-school platforming to the max, where you have to time jumps perfectly and strategize ladder climbs to avoid projectiles, enemy attacks, and an ever-more devious number of traps.

A skill tree offers up abilities to unlock that have that proper old-school SNES feel, and some will bring to mind the glory days of platformers like Mega Man X. In my playthrough, I was partial to an ability that lets The Penitent One get in an attack at the end of a dodge roll. Since you're going to dodge roll like mad anyway, you might as well get a kill out of the deal. 

While the platforming style is workable with a keyboard (I played the demo the whole way through that way), a controller would probably feel smoother and more intuitive. 

The Retro Bottom Line

Between its pixel graphics, platforming level design, and animated cut scenes, Blasphemous is a game banking on your nostalgia before utterly disgusting you with an insane level of wonderfully heretical violence.

If I have one major complaint with the demo it's that the voice acting is rather poor, as its very noticeably low budget. 

However, since we've seen a small portion of the game so far, there are also still some question marks about the full version, like how much backtracking is going to be involved while exploring the map. 

An answer to that question will be here sooner than later, though, as Blasphemous is slated for a September 10 release, which makes it unlikely there will be any major changes based on feedback from the demo.

If this style strikes your fancy, you can wish list the game or join in the discussions about the demo over on Steam.

The retro 2D action platformer renaissance continues, as it looks like both Dark Devotion and Death's Gambit are about to get some serious competition from a new Metroidvania offering.

Blasphemous — another bleak and beautifully pixelated excursion into hardcore action platforming — is now slated to land next month on PC and consoles for $24.99.

If the game's title didn't tip you off, the new screenshot below seems to indicate things are about to get even more messed up than either of those aforementioned bleak Souls-like 2D games.

 ...that little tyke isn't messing around!

Developed by Spanish team The Game Kitchen and published through Team17 (known for launching The Escapists, Overcooked 2, and various Worms titles), Blasphemous offers up a seriously twisted pixel hellscape where players take on the role of The Penitent One on a quest to defeat The Miracle.

As The Penitent One, players will wield the mystical Mea Culpa sword, which can be upgraded to unlock brutal new attacks against a horde of bloodthirsty and demonic force.

The Game Kitchen's Chief Executive Officer Mauricio García also issued this statement to fans who have been following the game's development:

As we put the final finishing touches to what will be an unrelenting experience for players, we’re really proud to be in a position to confirm the September 10 release date for Blasphemous.

We know the game has been highly anticipated for some time, and we can’t wait to unleash The Penitent One on their perilous journey in just a few weeks’ time.

Blasphemous is due to drop as a digital download for the Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and PC on September 10.

You can follow the latest on the game on Facebook, and be sure to check out a freshly launched teaser trailer showcasing the Blasphemous visual aesthetic and gameplay style below.