In a very interesting and odd turn of events, a Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Journey crossover has been announced. The release date for this update is set for August 23, 2022, and there are some new features that are worth noting.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a gothic-style Metroidvania game, where players traverse several different dungeons within towering castles. This sidescroller took everything fans of the Metroidvania genre and slammed it into one huge content-filled game that has had several DLCs released over the years. Taking that into consideration, it definitely struck the fans of the franchise as odd when the devs announced they would be introducing a new crossover area based on Journey.
For those who may not know, Journey features a more desert and earthy atmosphere with a beautiful style, while Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night showcases a more dark and demonic style atmosphere. So for the two to come together, is definitely out of the ordinary. While both games do focus on exploration, they are very different in terms of both gameplay and aesthetics, which is why the community was flabbergasted at this crossover announcement.
We knew that some form of crossover was coming thanks to the devs publishing a 2022 Roadmap for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, but at that time we weren't sure exactly what games would come together as one.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night's Journey crossover will feature a new section of the castle called The Tunnels, which will be hidden behind a secret entrance. For those who find this entrance, they must fight through the enemies and make their way to The Tunnels final chamber which is home to a new boss encounter. The devs state that this new area is quite large, and will take deep exploration and shard abilities to navigate. The reward for defeating the boss is a "special Journey-inspired equippable item".
To read the full announcement regarding this crossover, head over to Bloodstained's official website.