505 Games has announced Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night‘s post-launch DLC plans, which include quite a lot of free content and a $9.99 pack that allows players to take on Koji Igarashi himself, and unlock the Swordwhip weapon. Sale of the latter, called “Iga’s Back Pack,” has caused some controversy among Kickstarter backers as it was originally a backer-exclusive reward.
505’s Global Brand Manager, Roberto Angel-Corlux, penned a lengthy explanation for the move on Kickstarter, emphasizing that it wasn’t just about money. According to him, the publisher wanted to allow everyone to “legitimately” get the full experience and discourage piracy.
He wrote:
To try and be as transparent as possible, making this content available to everyone wasn’t just about making money. I mean obviously that’s a part of it, but the chief things I was considering was making sure everyone had a safe and legitimate way to get the full game experience no matter when they find out about Bloodstained, whether that’s 5 months ago or 5 years from now, and that we were being respectful of the price backers originally paid (hence the DLC pricing).
As someone who’s pirated games because of bull**** anti-consumer practices, or as a demo to try and then buy (something largely made obsolete by modern refund systems), I wanted to eliminate as many reasons to pirate Bloodstained as possible. All of the above = the “Iga’s Back Pack” DLC. Hope that makes sense. I understand that not everyone will be 100% happy with this decision, but hopefully this helps in understanding the reasoning behind it. And of course all backers entitled to this content will receive the DLC for free.
As expected, the update attracted a negative response from the community.
“I felt pressured into bitterly backing the game at a higher tier than I wanted to, and now I feel robbed,” wrote one backer. “I suggest you fix this ASAP or Bloodstained‘s only lasting legacy is gonna be how you guys ripped us off,” wrote another.
As far as free DLC is concerned, here’s what players can expect:
- Speedrun mode
- Pure Miriam outfit
- Boss Rush mode
- Online and local co-op and versus mode
- Roguelike mode
- Two extra playable characters
- Chaos mode
- Classic mode
- Boss Revenge mode
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night will release on June 18, 2019 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. A Nintendo Switch release will follow on June 25th.
[Source: Kickstarter, Bloodstained (official website)]
