Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

Developers
	ArtPlay
	DICO
	Disruptive Games
	WayForward Technologies
Publishers
	505 Games
Engines
	Unreal Engine 4
Release dates
Windows	June 18, 2019
Reception
Metacritic	83
OpenCritic	83
IGDB	82
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Side view, Scrolling
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Metroidvania, Platform, RPG
Art styles	Anime
Themes	Europe, Industrial Age, Fantasy
Series	Bloodstained

Bloodstained
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon	2018
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night	2019
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2	2020

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a side view metroidvania game developed by ArtPlay, DICO, Disruptive Games, and WayForward Technologies, and published by 505 Games. Inti Creates was formally involved in the development of the game until their departure in 2018. It is the spiritual successor to the action-adventure installments in Castlevania series, and was developed using Unreal Engine 4.

The game was crowdfunded through Kickstarter with its campaign launching on May 11, 2015, which met its initial $500,000 funding goal after the first day of the campaign, and eventually raised $5,545,991 (plus extra donations from PayPal) after the campaign's end with version developed for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux among other consoles and handhelds. The game was originally planned to have a release window by 2017, but it was delayed to 2018 along with the cancelation of the Mac OS and Linux versions due to development difficulties of those operating systems. The title was then further delayed to 2019 along with the cancellation of the PlayStation Vita port due to Sony no longer supporting the system. The game was finally released on June 18, 2019 for PC and was successful. One of the game's stretch goals, the Roguelike Mode which challenged players in procedurally-generated dungeons, was scrapped and replaced with a Randomizer Mode due to compatibility in the game's code. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon was also developed as part of this game's Kickstarter stretch goals.

The game has been getting regular updates to implement features and content promised from the game's Kickstarter compaign as well as fixing bugs. A roadmap of the game's development can be found here. There is also a modding community creating various mods for the game. A number of issues, such as close-up dialogue and inventory screen character models rendering at 1080p maximum at higher resolutions, dialogue text clipping out of text boxes, other bugfixes and engine updates included in the 1.30 patch.

General information

Official forums

Official Discord server

GOG.com Community Discussions

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
GamersGate
GOG.com
Green Man Gaming
Humble Store
Microsoft Store
Steam		DRM-free when launched directly from executable.
Origin (unavailable)

Certain Kickstarter backers of the $60-tier or higher also receive a digital soundtrack via direct download from their Fangamer backer surveys in FLAC and MP3 formats.

DLC and expansion packs

Name	Notes
Iga's Back Pack	Adds an optional boss battle with Igarashi for those that missed the initial Kickstarter campaign, along with special rewards for defeating him.

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Delete or rename the video files
Go to <path-to-game>\BloodstainedRotN\Content\Movies\SPLASH_MOV\. Delete or rename BloodStained Shard Intro NEW Black BG.mp4 and BS_Shard_Intro_Ident_V3.mp4.

Game data

In-game general settings.

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%LOCALAPPDATA%\BloodstainedRotN\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\
Microsoft Store	%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\505GAMESS.P.A.BloodstainedRitualoftheNightPCGP_tefn33qh9azfc\LocalCache\Local\BloodstainedRotN\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/692850/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%LOCALAPPDATA%\BloodstainedRotN\Saved\SaveGames\
Microsoft Store	%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\505GAMESS.P.A.BloodstainedRitualoftheNightPCGP_tefn33qh9azfc\LocalCache\Local\BloodstainedRotN\Saved\SaveGames\
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/692850/pfx/

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Origin
Steam Cloud
Xbox Cloud

Video

In-game graphics settings.

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		16:10 resolutions are letterboxed, use the community mod to remove.
Multi-monitor		Use the community mod.
Ultra-widescreen		Use the community mod.
4K Ultra HD		Character models in dialogue sequences and inventory screen being rendered at a locked resolution of 1080p was addressed in Patch 1.30.
Field of view (FOV)		Use the community mod.
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		Unknown post-processing variation. See Anti-aliasing (AA) for supersampling.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		Framerate Smoothing is set to go up to 60 FPS, disable to uncap the framerate. Playing at 120 FPS can double the speed of the Play Time counter and at higher framerates it eventually stops it completely.[citation needed]
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the engine page to force native HDR output, or the glossary page for other alternatives.
Ray tracing (RT)

The game engine may allow for manual configuration of the game via its variables. See the Unreal Engine 4 page for more details.

Anti-aliasing (AA)

Use Unreal 4 resolution scale

Navigate to configuration file location. Open Engine.ini with preferred text editor. At the end of the file, add the following and add two new lines (press ↵ Enter twice) after it: [ConsoleVariables] r.ScreenPercentage=100 Change 100 to your desired value. 200 means double the dimensions from resolution selected in settings menu. Save the changes and start the game. Notes As things like UI and menus are untouched, avoids unwanted blurring effects on these which could happen with driver solutions like Nvidia DSR. Does not improve model resolution in dialogue scenes or inventory.

Gamma correction

Add Display Gamma to Engine.ini

Navigate to configuration file location. Open Engine.ini with preferred text editor. At the end of the file, add the following and add two Enters after it: [/Script/Engine.Engine] DisplayGamma=2.0 Change 2.0 to your desired value. The default gamma setting is 2.0. Save the changes and start the game. Notes Adjusting the in-game Brightness setting can help balance the newly adjusted gamma levels. However, it is advised to not go below gamma values of 1.0 or the game will become too dark to see.

Post-processing

Toggles for cel shading, bloom, HUD, damage numbers, and black screen transitions.

Use Bloodstained ROTN 3D Vision fix

Input

Input mapping menu.

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus		Mouse is usable to navigate through menus, but does not provide a cursor, simply working like a controller.
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support		Entering a name to alter the preset one for save files and shortcut sets requires keyboard.
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts		Xbox One variant.
Impulse Trigger vibration

DualShock 4 controllers		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.

Generic/other controllers		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

DualShock 4 button prompts

Install DualShock 4 Prompts mod
Download the mod file. Navigate to <path-to-game>\BloodstainedRotN\Content\Paks\~mods\ If the ~mods folder does not exist, create it. Move downloaded DS4_Buttons.pak into this folder. Start the game.

Switch button prompts

Install Switch Prompts mod
Download the mod file. Navigate to <path-to-game>\BloodstainedRotN\Content\Paks\~mods\ If the ~mods folder does not exist, create it. Move downloaded SWX_Buttons.pak into this folder. Start the game.

Audio

In-game audio settings.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Master, Music, Ambient Sound, Sound Effects, Voices
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Latin American Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Notes
Local play		Will be added in upcoming free DLC.
LAN play
Online play		Will be added in upcoming free DLC.

VR support

3D modes	State	Notes
Nvidia 3D Vision		See Helix Mod: Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	11

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Physics	PhysX

Unlocking Hard & Nightmare Modes

Start a new game called "NIGHTMARE"
Start a new game. Enter NIGHTMARE as the name for the new save file.

Playing as "Bloodless" Character

Start a new game called "BLOODLESS"
Start a new game. Enter BLOODLESS as the name for the new save file.

1986 Mode

Enter the Konami Code
From the main menu, select Extra Mode. Select Classic Mode. On the Classic Mode launch screen, enter the following code: ↑↑↓↓←→←→X B (for Xbox controllers) When the code is entered successfully, "1986 Mode" will appear at the bottom of the screen, and Miriam will start the game with a red outfit.

Modifications

• Bloodless Shading Fix - Corrects some shading issues on Bloodless's model.
• Make Miriam's Face Like Artwork - Adjusts Miriam's facial features to resemble her official artworks from Ayami Kojima.
• Miriam's Appearance Improved - Redesigns and enhances Miriam's default appearance to resemble her conceptual artwork by Mana Ikeda.
• Chroma Wheel Hair 'Fix' - Changes the base colors of alternate hair colors after the Chroma Wheel update.
• Blonde Hair for Pure Miriam - Restores the original Valkyrie hairstyle's blonde hair color after the Chroma Wheel update.
• Red Map Marker - Changes the original light blue colored map markers to red to standout against the map background.
• Loading Screen Upscale - Upscales the loading screen glyph to higher resolutions by using A.I. Gigapixel upscaling.

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	7, 8.1, 10
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core i5-4460 AMD FX-4350	Intel Core i5-4590 AMD FX-6300
System memory (RAM)	4 GB	8 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	10 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 AMD Radeon R9 280X	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti AMD Radeon R9 290

A 64-bit operating system is required.