Blasphemous "is not actually a metroidvania"

The buzz surrounding Blasphemous is building, this after the game ended with 666% of its Kickstarter goal last year. That being the case, we caught up with CEO Mauricio García and art director Enrique Cabeza in Bilbao where the pair had plenty to tell us about the title, including a little correction with regards to the way we've been describing it.

"Blasphemous is not actually a metroidvania," Enrique Cabeza pointed out. "It has some things from that genre, but we want to make something new [...] We wanted to not base the exploration on abilities for the player, but something different, something more poetic, or weird."

We also discussed the influences behind the game, including Goya and Semana Santa (Easter Week), with the artist and religious events not necessarily as well-known outside of their country of origin.

"A lot of people outside of Spain don't know this artist and this folklore but they find these elements in the game very interesting and curious, and bizarre maybe, and fun, and they wanted to know more about the game," Mauricio García explained when talking about the feedback they've gotten for the game so far.

The Game Kitchen is based in Sevilla, which also had a bearing on its design and themes, as García explained to us.

"It's a place which is a particularly very religious place. We have a lot of traditions. We were the headquarters for the Spanish Inquisition back then, for many years. And we have a lot of creepy old stories that we can use for our game. So this game is actually very personal for us because it's about making something cool with all this ancient heritage we have in terms of legends and iconography and cultural things."

Blasphemous should see release in 2019 on Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and PC, and you can find out more about the game by watching the full interview below.