Blasphemous 2: "We are aware players weren't happy with the controls of the first game"

While last month we brought you a very exclusive hands-on preview of Blasphemous 2 after playing the game for the first time in Seville, now that the title has set in stone its release date on August 24 later this summer, you can now learn more about the project in our interview below.

In it, creative director Enrique Cabeza and producer David Erosa from The Game Kitchen discuss different aspects of a project that grew in both depth and possibilities thanks to the support of publisher Team17 and the great success of the 2M+ copy first entry.

"I think we can expect, again, a cryptic and mysterious story, but full of surprises and full of content that we hope players can discover little by little instead of right away," describes Cabeza speaking of the lore this time around, "because we prefer to take small steps in that direction. We think the game has a lot of lore, a lot of characters that will feel fresh, as fresh as the ones in Blasphemous 1, so we are very proud of them".

"We started to dig more and more into our own culture", the creative director continues, "and we find a lot of interesting things to put in the game. So we basically follow the steps from Blasphemous 1. We find even more cool things to do with all the culture we have here [in Seville]. It's a very honest thing to do from our side".

One of those clear references is the sculptor that helps you improve your character's abilities, "basically inspired by the actual Martinez Montañés sculptor. So it's a very big deal here. So it's like an homage to him".

In terms of how the game feels better controller in hand this time around, Erosa adds that "we were really, really aware that players weren't really happy with the controls of the first game at first, on release date, and we were really worried about that. We didn't want to make the same mistake. So we really focused on the feeling of the gameplay. We are so lucky to have a team which is really involved in how the game feels, and we want players to feel like it's a really better version than the first game".

The Penitent One will return on all major platforms on August 24, 2023 and we'll keep a close eye on it here at Gamereactor.