By CompletionistMaster — Preliminary Review: Blasphemous 2 (Released Aug 24, 2023)
There’s a quiet that fell over the indie scene when the first Blasphemous arrived. It was a hush of respect after its brutal opening and haunting cathedral-lands. Blasphemous 2 returns to that hush, then slices it open again — familiar, sharper, and somehow larger. Released Aug 24, 2023, the sequel picks up from the Wounds of Eventide DLC. The Miracle has returned, the Penitent One is awake in strange lands, and the cycle of blood and atonement goes on. This review uses a completionist’s view — side quests, relics, and every secret counted — placing the game in both its legacy and the larger tradition of pixel-based, souls-like Metroidvanias.
Overview & Context
Blasphemous 2 continues the story and design of The Game Kitchen’s first game. It blends dense lore into a sprawling non-linear map. Combat is punishing but rewards patience and precision. Its style mixes pixel art with grotesque religious imagery. It isn’t a remake — it’s an evolution. The first game felt like a midnight mass for Metroidvania fans. The sequel feels like a full liturgy — longer, more ornate, and more demanding.
Story & Themes
Story in Blasphemous is more texture than plot. Myths drip from NPC dialogue, shrine inscriptions, and the architecture. This sequel extends the mythos from Wounds of Eventide: the Miracle’s return, a foretold miracle child, and the Penitent One pulled from his grave into strange lands. Themes of guilt, sacrifice, zeal, and repetition run through every moment. Players who enjoy piecing lore from fragments will find a slow but rich reward.
Gameplay Mechanics
Blasphemous 2 keeps its deliberate combat but adds new systems:
- Combat: More weapons with unique move-sets, brutal executions, and expanded combos. Attacks feel heavy, with focus on counters and timing. Parrying and spacing are rewarded; reckless play is punished.
- Customization: The Penitent One’s skills can be shaped in more ways. Offensive boosts, passive buffs, and weapon synergies broaden playstyles.
- Traversal & Map Design: Non-linear exploration remains the core. New movement tools and puzzles encourage route choice and discovery. The game often gates areas behind upgrades, making backtracking part of the design.
World & Level Design
The world is a love letter to labyrinthine Metroidvanias: interconnected regions dripping with atmosphere, hidden alcoves, and curses that make you think twice before sprinting into the unknown. The level design favors verticality and interlocking shortcuts, and the map rewards careful note-taking and exploration. While labyrinthian, the world rarely feels tacked together — each region has a distinct aesthetic and its own set of rules and hazards.
Bosses & Enemies
Boss fights are the meat of Blasphemous 2. They are large, inventive, and often cruel in all the right ways. From titanic, multi-phase spectacles to more intimate duels of choreography and timing, bosses test pattern recognition and adaptation. Regular enemies remain varied and threatening — groups can overwhelm if you’re complacent — and environmental hazards keep encounters dynamic.
Exploration, Collectibles & Endgame Content
For completionists, Blasphemous 2 is a feast. NPC quests are more numerous and intertwined with the world’s myths; side missions can alter endings and reveal critical lore. Collectibles unlock virtues, abilities, and narrative threads. Multiple endings make replays meaningful rather than repetitive, and the game’s achievement structure nudges thorough play without feeling like busywork.
Visuals & Art Direction
Visually, Blasphemous 2 is a procession of unsettling beauty. Pixel art runs deep here — not nostalgic pixelism but deliberate, expressive sprites and backgrounds that translate baroque horror into two-dimensional majesty. Animations are fluid and gruesome when they need to be, and environmental details reward close inspection. If you admired the original’s uncanny chapel-baroque aesthetic, the sequel expands it into a whole pantheon of grotesqueries.
Audio & Sound Design
The soundtrack and sound design underpin the game’s solemnity. Choral swells, industrial percussion, and ambient drones populate corridors and boss arenas. Footfalls, weapon strikes, and creature noises are crisp and satisfying — the audio often signals danger better than visuals in tense fights. Voicework is sparse but well-placed, preserving the game’s mythic tone.
Technical Performance
On release, most players report stable performance on modern hardware, but a subset of reviews note occasional frame dips, UI hiccups, and sparse bugs in quest tracking. These issues don’t generally break the experience, but they are noticeable for those hunting every secret or replaying boss gauntlets. Patches after launch have addressed many complaints, but some players’ first impressions were affected.
Community Reception & Review Summary
Steam user sentiment is strongly positive. At the time of writing:
- Recent Reviews: Very Positive — 85% (202 reviews)
- All Time: Very Positive — 91% (11,555 reviews)
- Official Rating: No aggregated numerical score (N/A), but user scores are consistently favorable.
What do these numbers reveal? Broadly, the community loves Blasphemous 2. The higher all-time percentage indicates continued goodwill from players who appreciate the series’ atmosphere and hardcore design. The slightly lower recent score hints at a subset of players raising concerns in early months post-launch.
What Reviews Praise
- Combat & Bosses: Many reviews highlight the improved combat toolkit and memorable boss encounters as high points.
- Art & Atmosphere: The distinctive visuals and oppressive, liturgical worldbuilding repeatedly draw praise.
- Content Density: Players appreciate the depth — numerous side quests, collectibles, and multiple endings give the game strong replayability.
Common Criticisms Found in Reviews
- Difficulty & Pacing: Some players find spikes that feel unfair, or a mid-game pace that can bog down exploration.
- Navigation & Backtracking: A few reviews call out the long corridors and gated areas that force repetitive backtracking, which can sap momentum.
- Technical Quibbles: Initial technical issues (frame stuttering, quest tracking bugs) appeared in early impressions and affected recent review scores until patched.
- Comparisons to Original: A small chorus of players felt the sequel sometimes loses the raw surprise of the original, leaning more into expansion than reinvention.
Legacy & Industry Impact
Blasphemous 2 arrives at a moment when indie Metroidvanias and souls-likes are flourishing. It cements The Game Kitchen’s place among studios that can blend challenging gameplay with unabashedly unique art direction. The sequel advances the case that pixel-based aesthetics can carry epic, modern design sensibilities — not as retro pastiche but as a medium for complex animation, mood, and storytelling. It also nudges other indies to invest in richer customization and more ambitious boss design in two-dimensional combat games.
Who Should Play This
- Fans of the original Blasphemous and players who relish difficult, deliberate combat.
- Explorers who enjoy lore scattered across NPCs, items, and world details.
- Players who appreciate meticulous pixel art and baroque horror themes.
Players looking for a casual stroll through a 2D map or a forgiving action-platformer may find Blasphemous 2 more demanding than desirable.
Final Thoughts & Recommendation
Blasphemous 2 is an ambitious sequel that preserves the soul of the original while expanding its ambitions — more weapons, more lore, more bosses, and a deeper progression system. It is reverent to the series’ roots while not afraid to add new rituals to its liturgy. The community reception is overwhelmingly positive (91% all-time), though early technical issues and design pacing nudged recent sentiment slightly lower (85% recent). These are caveats rather than condemnations: the core experience — the satisfaction of learning a boss, unlocking a secret path, and finally closing a chapter of the Penitent One’s penance — is potent.
If you love methodical, punishing 2D action with a rich web of secrets and a world that rewards obsessiveness, Blasphemous 2 is essential. Penance never ends, and neither does the draw of uncovering every last sacrament this game buries for you to find.
