Bloodstained aims for a Staggered Content Release!

I've already posted several times in this thread, but I might as well contribute once again with what I think will be in the Base Game vs. the "Staggered" Content that will come later via free updates.

I'm certain that some among you will disagree with a few of my predictions for Staggered Content. All under "BASE GAME" (except for the last three) are considered typical for Igavania games.


BASE GAME (or "vanilla", alternatively)

- Main Story (c'mon! None of you really think the whole story campaign won't be in the base-game, do you?)

- 2nd & 3rd Playable Characters (None of us really have a clue yet as to whether they'll function as typical "bonus" characters, or perhaps like Miriam, they may have full-fledged Story campaigns with access to a full pause menu.)

- Nightmare Difficulty Mode (probably locked until you've completed the Main Story once)

- Boss Rush Mode

- Sound Test

- Speed Run Mode (should be simple enough to implement)

- Local Co-Op (IF this is in the base-game, I wouldn't imagine to the extent of actually playing through the whole castle in the Main Story. )

- Cheat Codes

STAGGERED CONTENT/FREE UPDATES (for backers; may or may not be DLC otherwise)

- Classic Mode

- Retro Level

- Asynchronous Online Multiplayer

- Online Challenge Mode

- Prequel Mini-Game

- Roguelike Dungeon

- Boss Revenge Mode (I can easily see the developers taking their time to decide exactly which Bosses will be playable, and how exactly they can be controlled.)

1. I don't think tell somebody "go f**k himself" is a proper way to express your disappointment publicly, swearing doesn't make your opinion sound any better than others and it's not welcomed here. Read the community guideline.
2. Make the game data onto a read-only media doesn't make the game incomplete forever, game devs could publish updates / patches on the games official website, it happens all the time. I don't see the point why it has to have everything on disc, nor I'm worried about the physical release, btw I also have a physical copy on my tier.

20 years from now, the game is digital (with all its stuff no matter what) on the next-next generations of PC and consoles, perhaps even on Linux and Mac.

I see no issue with the "time".

If we get the whole game, and then they patch bugfix and glitches, these would get lost in 20 years? Would the game be broken and not playable? I think not.. I am having a hard time seeing even physical copies being a thing in 20 years.

If Steam would die, then all the games there would become candy for GoG.

Physical ones are already dying, what I've heard from collectors all around the YouTube that want the box, manuals and the game on their shelves.

The problem with this logic, though, is that a physical version of Shovel Knight exists that will never be 'complete either. If you're going to claim that Igarashi is just pulling a shameless money grab if a staggered release happens then you have to level it at Yacht Club Games, too.

And it is.  Instead of delivering on the content that they promised, Yacht Club Games took three years creating this content, instead, opting to port Shovel Knight to every single console available and release an incomplete retail copy of the game to get that return as soon as possible instead of first delivering on the content they promised.  Difference with Shovel Knight and Bloodstained is that Shovel Knight's Kickstarter didn't have a tier that promised a physical release while Bloodstained does.  If you're promoting a physical tier during your beggary, you best deliver everything you promise on that physical disc.  

As for standard retail releases.  The difference between other games that have patches and updates that add additional free content is that these publishers and devs are using their own money to create the game, not begging us for a handout so that they're able to create the game and then wanting to use these promised features as extra exposure from future sales as free content.  The game wouldn't even be created if not for the people who funded it in the first place.  These people should be first and foremost, not your future profits. 

I'm going to try tackling some of this.


This staggered content release still hasn't been confirmed, they are still only "thinking" about doing it, per interviews from E3. I do think it's likely for some of the extra modes, because I see no other way he can even do the darn things otherwise, and all of said things exist outside of a standard IGA Castlevania game anyways.

Part of what has to be considered here is that so many of these stretch goals were mere ideas during brainstorming sessions mere minutes before they were pushed to the Kickstarter out of desperation to keep up with how fast the funding was going. It's too humble of an estimate, for sure, but IGA only expected only around $500-800k. To think IGA would have had the time to, as you're putting it, deviously concoct a huge road map of money grab schemes is at most to me instead saying "you should have considered how much of miracle completing this in a reasonable timeframe would be".

Most of the fans and myself just want an IGA Castlevania game. That just means an awesome main game, 1 extra playable character, one extra mode (usually boss rush) and all the great usually components of art, music, an expansive castle to explore and such. The important thing to deliver, the true promised product, is just this very thing - and ideally in 2-3 years, but we would mostly be flexible to allow a bit more time.

To say he has to finish this, his original intended game, as well as the extra work in the same span of time so that it can be placed on physical media is very demanding. Even a huge development company would struggle with that, let alone one man with his vision +a new company we're just now hearing about. Heaven help us if they did manage to "finish" all of that content and we get it rife with bugs and issues...existing with just enough work done to be technically classified as they modes they are labeled as. I don't want that.

The proposed alternative seems to be a delay, and to the majority of outsiders "another" delay. The thing with that is, you're disappointing a larger group of fans, the ones that just want the game they tossed their apparently very meaningful $28-60 towards, from the viewpoint here. The want for all of the modes and content physically on release supersedes the common fan just wanting the game here. Which looks worse to the public, fans and not fans here? The game is/could be done, but they have to delay another 2 years to fully complete all stretch goals to make an unknown percentage of fans with a certain ideal happy.

A lot of backers/fans and definitely the press would run ArtPlay into the ground for that. Even a mild criticism would likely be "hah, sounds like more "BS" to me all right, and I don't mean Bloodstained...". They shouldn't take a hit to their goodwill and initial game promise to keep kicking the ball farther down the years. The backers, their investors, them as a company needing to stay in business, all of this rests on their ability to within a reasonable amount of time give people "a game". To whom much is given, much is expected certainly, yet 4-5 years rather than 2-3 with "no game" is a much worse situation than the certain dislike that could be garnered from not getting all of the promised stuff all at once. If this were Konami or Square we were talking about, they could at least potentially do this delayed game, all the while gathering returns from their other concurrent franchises to keep development moving. ArtPlay doesn't have luxuries like that.

And to the point regarding the expectations of a video game as a medium, I think that's a bit unreasonable too, besides. In 20 years, I expect very little of anything I own to still work, much less when it comes to electronic things. Yes, I think my NES and SNES games would still work if I still had them, but I (as the majority of people) could not manage or justify keeping around that stuff for so long. Almost all of those old games now exist digitally however, though, or I can find and re-buy them locally at a collector's store or on eBay, so that's fine. Most all of the good ones, too, have moved on to newer hardware, as I expect will continue to be a trend. Surely 10 or more years later, people can find it within themselves to spend another $30 (or whatever discount it is at that point) for another copy of something they cared enough to feel this strongly about? We're not exactly talking about a $30,000 car here.

The logic above may not be your own, but you probably know that most people think that way. For the game's model/plan to change to something like you want instead, you would have to allow it and other people to suffer for that purpose, to a point that less are happy and the game is looked at poorly within its industry as well, such as "yeah, definitely glad we as publishers passed on that nonsense - so much dev time for so little return" (I'm referring to how many publishers wouldn't take Bloodstained). Could 505 themselves justify sticking around for Bloodstained 2 in 2020 once the fully complete Ritual of the Night releases? Probably a strained relationship at that point, I would imagine. Bloodstained sucked up resources for 4-5 years and is just now becoming a thing that can be profitable for them. Sure, 5.6 million is a lot of money, but I imagine most if not all of that has already gone at this point (2 years later) to contracting people, paying salaries, adding DICO/Monobit and so on.


The Wii U version had to be dropped because of Nintendo's own decisions and just how things are (not knocking said decisions, mind), but besides that, it would have been objectively an extremely poor decision to release to the Wii U after the proposed finished content delay. Considering the extra porting work on top of it that Armature was going to have to do, sales to the Wii U a few years further down the road would have likely been something like in the hundreds I guess, mostly -just- hardcore collectors for value or novelty with the overwhelming majority of Nintendo fans wondering why we hadn't just given them a Switch version. "Just should have done both" adds even more to their plate unnecessarily. All of this is purely hypothetical though, since the Wii U is no longer supported by Nintendo. Even if they would have somehow been able to push for it to release commercially so far down the line, I'm not sure if online features would still be able to function, be patched, have any further things added/fixed, etc. It would be certainly amusing to see retail spaces have Wii U shelf space just for Bloodstained, though.

One last thing to add to this is something I touched on recently in another thread. Some look at this in a manner rather like "people gave you a lot of money for this, so you need to give us exactly the product we want", but just as many (and I think more) people and backers for this project specifically instead threw in because of emotional attachment and donation support above and beyond just an equated monetary value being delivered to them. I'm trusting him to deliver his ideal game and experience, not mine. It's not so much a system of pre-ordering something to people like me, but instead helping a guy realize his vision of making one of his games again after so many years of not being able to, and us not being able to get one. That idea in and of itself is worth more to me than any video game could be. So when you look at numbers (the money he got), you have to factor people like me in to that. I want and expect a good product still, but more than that, I specifically want and expect this guy to do what he does. It helped and saved me in tough times, beyond just giving me good games.

A complete game to me is finishing the main plot and not being concerned with what comes afterwards. Everything else is bonus content.

2017 or 1987, it doesn't matter. Everyone defines "complete game" differently. There is no standard or consensus on what a "complete game" should be.