Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Ultimate Edition
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Ultimate Edition
Game
Game2019
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Developer ArtPlay
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a 2019 action role-playing game developed by indie studio ArtPlay and published by 505 Games. The game is considered a spiritual successor to the Castlevania series, and was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in June 2019, for Amazon Luna in October 2020, for Android and iOS in December 2020, and for Stadia in July 2021. ArtPlay, an independent… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
566 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon, Lemmy) · newest Nov 3, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
69
Fresh
225 positive · 103 negative
95% range 63–73%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 225 | 103 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 65 | 15 | 113 |
| Mastodon * | 7 | 1 | 20 |
| Lemmy * | 4 | 0 | 13 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Very Positive
15,364 of 16,638 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
65% recommend · 164 yes, 90 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 254 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Very Positive (38,911 of 41,820 positive).
Players praise it as a true spiritual successor to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. [1][2][3] Some reviewers note the game has deep, varied gameplay with many weapons and abilities. [4][5][6] A significant number of players criticize the forced addition of Epic Online Services, which broke the game for many. [7][8][9]
Liked
Representative posts
- [7]
Years after release the game now requires a connection to Epics cross-platform services. If you, like me, have blocked Epic entirely, you can not launch the game anymore. Absolutely scammy move from 505 games. It is the first and last game i bought from them.
- [9]
You can't play this without allowing Epic Games' spyware to run on your system. As somebody who bought the game when it first released in 2019 who is no longer able to play a game they purchased, I can't exactly recommend this title.
- [1]
I don't know what to say about this one. Is it the best Metroidvania ever made? Is it worth whatever price you find it at? Am I eagerly awaiting The Scarlet Engagement? The answer to all these questions is "Yes." Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night carries on the legacy of the Castlevania games, and is clearly the culmination of many years of experience and expertise. The mastermind behind it knows what makes the …
- [3]
This game is the closest thing to Castlevania Symphony of the Night. Even little details like having the fairy sing a song near the piano were clearly borrowed from SOTN. It also has multiple playable characters and the same exploration element that I love from the Castlevania series. If you like 2D Castlevania games you will probably like this one too.
- [17]
I had a love hate relationship with this game. On the plus side, there's a great variety of enemies, weapons, and abilities. Combat is fun, and there's plenty of biomes to play through. My greatest complaint is that this game intentionally wastes your time. There's lots of backtracking and searching for a needle in a haystack in a very large world. Progression constantly comes to a complete halt after defeating a …
Summarised from 34 of the 401 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 10, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
65% of the 254 Steam reviewers we collected recommend Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. The complaint that keeps coming up: forced Epic Online Services broke the game for many. Deal-breaker or nitpick?
Critics, per Wikipedia
According to review aggregator website Metacritic, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night received "generally favorable" reviews on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, and "mixed or average" reviews on Nintendo Switch. Writing for Game Informer, Suriel Vazquez concluded that the game's "journey is familiar, but the way it iterates and builds on that familiarity helps distinguish it from its lineage." Steve Watts of GameSpot agreed: "It's that sense of comfort in its own skin that makes Bloodstained such a treat. This isn't a bold modernization of the genre or a departure from its roots. It is exactly what it set out to be: a return to the style of a bygone era, with a few modern improvements."…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 566 · most liked firstI posted this sometime in early 2025.... And I think I finally reached my peak form Between playing more games with my kids and really drilling down into what I enjoy as an old man.. It's *Metroidvanias *Arcade style games *Rogue types 2026 I've beat Bloodstained and working on Ball x Pit now!
positive · AI labelView post →Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement Tokyo Game Show 2026 Trailer www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCnw...
neutral · AI labelView post →I’d wonder why Those Guys are calling the new Castlevania game woke for having a girl protag when literally the last game in this canon also did as well as Bloodstained which everyone loved but then I remember they don’t really care about the things they are complaining about
neutral · AI labelView post →This was my favorite State of Play in a long time. Not every game appeals to me, but it had more than a few really fun surprise announcements. Final Fantasy Tactics, Marvel Fighting Game, Nioh 3, a new game from Suda51 and a sequel to Bloodstained? Well done PlayStation!
positive · AI labelView post →Years after release the game now requires a connection to Epics cross-platform services. If you, like me, have blocked Epic entirely, you can not launch the game anymore. Absolutely scammy move from 505 games. It is the first and last game i bought from them.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not recommended because the developers have updated the game and added a forced Epig account requirement and the game doesn't work anymore if you don't have one. If they can make these changes to a game I've purchased many years ago then I'm not going to get their new game when it releases as there's no guarantee they're not going to do the same with it. If you really want to play this game get it from GOG, that version of the game is unaffected.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →new bloodstained game announcement means i get one (1) free pass to post my miriam fanart #bloodstained #BloodstainedRitualOfTheNight #BloodstainedTheScarletEngagement
neutral · AI labelView post →Miriam from the game series Bloodstained. I was actually commissioned by a coworker to draw Miriam for them, so uhhh commission page soming soon? 👀 #pixelart #bloodstained #miriam
neutral · AI labelView post →Silly or not it's part of the overall feel. Bloodstained is a pretty good game but it irks me, genuinely, that I'm not chasing after Dracula. Also even beyond that Bravely isn't final fantasy. It's a spinoff, sure, but it's no mainline FF.
neutral · AI labelView post →Thank you, everyone! The response to the Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement news has been overwhelming! We are working diligently to make the game an amazing experience and are excited to share more with you in the coming months. Stay tuned! #TheScarletEngagement #PS5 #Xbox #videogame #steam
neutral · AI labelView post →You can't play this without allowing Epic Games' spyware to run on your system. As somebody who bought the game when it first released in 2019 who is no longer able to play a game they purchased, I can't exactly recommend this title.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I like Bloodstained a lot but that game would inarguably just be better if Dracula was in it
neutral · AI labelView post →Silently installing the Epic service and preventing the game from working offline, even though when I bought it never mentioned that an internet connection was required, was shady move. I don't know if everybody is noticing that, but it is become more and more common companies doing this move: changing the game that we already bought to putting features in their favor, without caring if it will ruin the gaming experience for us.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →titles leaving Game Pass in 2 weeks: -Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night -Tales of Arise -EA Sports UFC 3 -A Little to the Left -Indivisible -Merge & Blade -Return to Grace
neutral · AI labelView post →Bloodstained game director SHUTARO, who also worked on many games in the Castlevania franchise, died on February 10 from pancreatic cancer at 52.
neutral · AI labelView post →If you think this looks and sounds a lot like a Mystical Ninja/Goemon game... you'd be right, because it's from the same director. Bakeru is to Mystical Ninja as Bloodstained is to Castlevania.
neutral · AI labelView post →- NEW GRASSHOPPER/SUDA51 GAME - BLOODSTAINED SEQUEL - FINAL FANTASY TACTICS REMASTER - NIOH 3 - EVEN MORE FREE ASTRO BOT LEVELS - SEA OF REMNANTS (cool looking pirate RPG) - MARVEL VS CAPCOM MINUS CAPCOM BY ARCSYS there's more too but this is specifically the stuff that made me 👀👀👀
neutral · AI labelView post →505 Games' 2.5D gothic sidescroller "Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement" has been delayed from 2026 to 2027. Development of the game is currently in its final stages. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPII... #TheScarletEngagement
neutral · AI labelView post →The only one of those that's ever worked for me is Bloodstained. And even then that's me ignoring all the bad DLC and how ugly the game looked.
neutral · AI labelView post →You randomly update the game, no patch notes, now I can't even launch the game. What is this?
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So done for today, some thoughts. SoP was solid, probably the best in a while, lot of Knoebelcore stuff. Romeo is a Dead Man my game of the show. Nioh 3, FFT, Cairn, Bloodstained, SH F, Pragmata, Digimon, Sword of the Sea are all banger. Sceptical when it comes to Yotei and the Marvel game
positive · AI labelView post →OF COURSE THEY ANNOUNCE A NEW BLOODSTAINED JUST WHEN I THOUGHT I WAS OUT OF THE GAME THEY PULL ME THE FUCK BACK IN
positive · AI labelView post →Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement Tokyo Game Show 2026 Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCnw7JmIEHM
neutral · AI labelView post →Bloodstained is a pretty good video game
positive · AI labelView post →Forced Epic crap is not disclosed on Steam page and was added years after release.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I missed Epic's free game yesterday, which was Bloodstained God DAMN IT
neutral · AI labelView post →Shutaro Iida diagnosed with cancer. He's stepping down as Game Director for 'Bloodstained 2'. I hope he gets well soon. www.resetera.com/threads/shut...
neutral · AI labelView post →Not only does it now get stuck trying to download a fresh install with the very first "Busy" red circle of death I've ever seen on Steam, but after having had this game for years and been generally happy and supportive of it ... the game is locked out of me being able to access the thing I paid for and played for years because of Epic / 505 forcing more 3rd party malware nonsense onto an offline singleplayer game. I'll never get to enjoy this game again, F Epic / 505.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Portrait of Miriam. I still love this game so much! I'm replaying it definitely with the new Castlevania game on the horizon and excited for The Scarlet Engagement as well! #Bloodstained #BloodstainedROTN #Miriam
positive · AI labelView post →👎 The [url=https://steamdb.info/patchnotes/20844919/]2025-12-23 update added Epic Online Services to the game in a way which is poorly implemented, as choosing not to login with it can cause stability issues or problems such as having to wait tens of minutes to even get to the main menu. While some of these problems can be fixed (disabling cross-play fixes the delay in accessing the main menu), and some folks who already have an EOS token left on their machine from another game may not even…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Miriam from Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night! Happy 6 year anniversary to @playbloodstained.bsky.social !!! 🥰 LOVE this game, and I'm so excited for the next one!!!
positive · AI labelView post →---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☑ Beautiful ☐ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS (No pixelate anymore like the Cursed of the moon series😂, the characters and the enviroment well detailed!) ---{ Gameplay }--- ☐ Masterpiece ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't (One of the best metroid and most unique i've ever played! Based on my experience, just in this game we could flip the entire map (with skill) and walk…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →All this talk about the upcoming Castlevania game on the timeline got me to finally give Bloodstained another whirl. It is clicking so much this time. Got the double jump and perfected the backstep dash tech, really solid so far.
positive · AI labelView post →Miriam character designs from Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. More art from the game: www.creativeuncut.com/art_bloodsta...
neutral · AI labelView post →I don't know what to say about this one. Is it the best Metroidvania ever made? Is it worth whatever price you find it at? Am I eagerly awaiting The Scarlet Engagement? The answer to all these questions is "Yes." Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night carries on the legacy of the Castlevania games, and is clearly the culmination of many years of experience and expertise. The mastermind behind it knows what makes the genre work, and blends it all together in a package here that has more content…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The Metroidvania game Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement has been announced for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC!
neutral · AI labelView post →Since the latest update it asks me to log into EGS, forcibly getting opened in a browers and the game is stuck in an infinite loading screen even after closing the game. When I reopen it, it starts doing it again without even asking me if I want to enable crossplay with EGS anymore and just opens the login page and stays in the loading screen. Rendering the game literally unplayble. Workaround for now is launching the game directly through the exe in the installation folder. 505 told me they…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Added Epic online services in a stealth update right before Christmas that is causing many people to have trouble starting the game. You cannot disable this.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Requires Epic Online Services to play when game was started up. Did not say on store page. Can't refund because it was in the backlog.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →10 Video Games to get to know me - Contra: OG - Bloodstained: Classic 2 - Spidersaurs - Goosebumps: The Game - Adventure Time: SotNK - Silent Hill Downpour - Silent Hill Shattered Memories - Steambot Chronicles - Digital Devil Saga (eng) - Mythri
neutral · AI labelView post →Meet Star Victoria Power (aka Slide20XX), a vibrant force in game music! Their work spans Bloodstained: Dominique’s Curse, Calico, Steven Universe PSAs, and the jazzy chaos of Penny Larceny. She has just launched the Rising Star Patronage Project, a fundraiser for marginalized video game composers.
neutral · AI labelView post →Looks interesting... ...but you should know the guy who made the Castlevania games left Konami a while ago. He makes the Bloodstained games with a different publisher. So it's a new IP but it's basically the same thing. And they have a new one coming out. The first one, Ritual of the Night, was a spiritual successor to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. They also made a handful of 8-bit games in the IP to satisfy the old-school crowd. So there are basically no…
neutral · AI labelView post →Don't miss today's free Epic Store game! Bloodstained was created by Koji Igarashi, the chief designer behind the Metroid-style Castlevania games. And it lives up to its pedigree with a great castle to explore and fun powers to acquire! If you haven't already played it, you really should!
neutral · AI labelView post →I’m so glad we’re getting a Bloodstained sequel 😭 since Konami forgot how to make a new Castlevania game this is all we have man, and Bloodstained 1 was freakin’ GOOD
positive · AI labelView post →Imagine if Castlevania wasn't dead/condemned to pachinko hell and we got a new game like Metroid Dread. Sigh. At least we have Bloodstained.
positive · AI labelView post →This was the second time i bought this game. I had it on an old GOG account. Rebought on here after i lost access to that email/account (my own fault) I bought this awhile back hoping to replay it. THERE IS A NEW UPDATE TODAY THAT FORCES AN EPIC ACCOUNT. DO NOT BUY THIS ON THIS PLATFORM if that matters to you. They give it away free on epic and force steam users to sign up for the pleasure. Sail the seas for this one chaps. Adding DRM to a seven year old singleplayer game wtf.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I tried my best to like this game. After all, I'm usually fond of metroidvanias, and this one was made by Koji Igarashi, the creator of Symphony of the Night, which is one of the genre's greats. However, as I forced myself through the early parts of Bloodstained, I became more and more certain that Igarashi doesn't understand what made SoTN so beloved in the first place. They tried making the game great because of things that SoTN was great in spite of. First of all, the great-grandfather of…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game is great so far, but I have to play it outside of Steam by running the .exe directly, so my playtime isn't reflected. Opening the game normally gets me stuck at a prompt telling me to log into my Epic Games account. I don't have one, I'm not making one, the store never said I needed one. If you have an account already, then you'll have a great time. If not, you can still play it and it's still good, but you'll have to make one of Steam's features in it. I can't bring myself to recommend…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Please do yourselves a favor and read the patch notes for the most recent update before you go through with it. Epic Online Services has plagued this game and made it unplayable. I used to love this game. After this ridiculous move, I'm not only uninstalling the game, but, I'm avoiding their future installments if this is any indicator of what to expect from them going forward. A sequel will more than likely have this same issue. Don't reward them for this malicious move.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Updated the game to force the Epic game launcher. ♥♥♥♥ off Epic.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →They literally broke the game to add Epic online on Steam version. You cannot start the game after latest update because it gets stuck on main screen. There is no easy fix for this unless they issue update or go back to remove Epic crap. Absolute negligence and incompetence. We paid for Steam version not Epic. There is no reason for this and no one asked for it. Many users are affected by this problem. Check the community forums.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fantastic offline single-player game. I played all the way through, got all the achievements, bought the new DLC that added more achievements, haven't played that yet and now won't get the opportunity to. Like many Steam users I have Epic Game Store and all of their ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ blocked on my PC. Now when I try to launch Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night after the Christmas "up"date it hangs indefinitely on the starting screen, apparently trying desperately to contact servers it has no business…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Well if it turns out to be a rougelike, at least we got a new Bloodstained game on the way as well.
neutral · AI labelView post →I'm so happy Iga's free from Bloodstained 1 like, incredibly good game, arguably his best but holy shit dude those kickstarter goals had that man imprisoned on one game for years
positive · AI labelView post →I played the Castlevania Belmont’s Curse demo and boy I sure wish the art style and music were different. The backgrounds are cool and the game feels good enough, but this doesnt feel like a Castlevania game at all. Bloodstained is far more of a Castlevania game than this However imma still buy it
positive · AI labelView post →Illustrations from Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night by artists Ayami Kojima, Yoshitaka Amano, and Mana Ikeda. More art from the game: www.creativeuncut.com/art_bloodsta...
neutral · AI labelView post →This game is made for a very specific audience. They went too far trying to emulate Simon's Quest, which leads to slow, clunky controls, and lots of backtracking and busywork. Outdated and Archaic design decisions lead to an experience that heavily wastes your time. And some people are gonna see these things as a plus, but I can't recommend it for most.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's game time Hoppers! Get in here! We 100% Bloodstained Curse of the moon TONIGHT! www.twitch.tv #vtuber #vsky
neutral · AI labelView post →Thanks to a wildly overambitious list of Kickstarter stretch goals, Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night only stopped development this year, adding online PvP and PvE multiplayer and an 'expansion' that's a *whole new game* - a Castlevania 2 tribute, specifically store.steampowered.com/app/2380803/...
neutral · AI labelView post →The gameplay for Bloodstained is fun but honestly speaking the character designs and art direction is what kept me from really starting the game seriously for the longest time
neutral · AI labelView post →
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