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I'm not very good at Blighted, I quickly determine while darting through a mountainous region in a co-op session during GDC 2026. I mistime more than half my dodges, and it takes what feels like a long time to reach the boss in large part because I keep getting my head kicked in by various enemies we – me and one of the developers – encounter across the psychedelic landscape. And yet it still draws me in, making me want to keep going rather than throw in the towel.
"Blighted is a Metroidvania action RPG," says Graham Smith, co-founder of Drinkbox Studios and one of the producers on Blighted. "It's actually a mishmash of a lot of different things, and plus some new things that we're trying to introduce. So it's got Soulslike combat with an emphasis on parrying, and it's got Metroidvania-style exploration. As you're defeating bosses, you're getting new abilities that allow you to slowly open up the world."
Cannibal saves the world
That's largely previous systems and mechanics recombined into something new, but Blighted also features a new twist on old tricks: the Frenzy system. Basically, if you're fighting well, you're building up Frenzy. The more Frenzy you have, the more difficult enemies will get. The worse you're fighting, the more you're getting hit, the lower your Frenzy – and the easier enemies are.
"The idea is that as you're re-exploring old areas, as you do in a Metroidvania, you'll be meeting the same enemies, but you'll know how to deal with them better," says Smith. "You fought a bunch of them; you're getting a lot of practice. You'll be more effective against them, but they'll also be more effective against you. So you have to learn how to deal with new attacks or more simultaneous attacks."
High Frenzy isn't entirely about making your life a living hell. There are benefits as well, though it's hard to say whether I was able to experience them for myself during my brief jaunt. For example, high Frenzy means you don't take damage immediately and it instead becomes provisional health that you can earn back, almost Bloodborne-style. "We know that it's more difficult," admits Smith, "you might be making more mistakes, but we give you ways to get back your health."
That's just the mechanical parts of Blighted. Did I mention the cannibalism? The premise of Blighted sees you, as the last member of your village, attempting to defeat the villain known as Sorcisto. You see, it used to be that the dead were buried with seeds in their brains that then grew into trees with fruit that contained the memories of the dead. Eat the fruit, gain those memories.
Sorcisto cut out the middle… tree, and just started eating raw brains to accumulate power. He ate your village, cut down the trees, and basically turned the world to ruin. In order to defeat him, you eat the brains of defeated bosses to overpower him. Just a whole lot of brain eating, honestly, which is pretty far afield from what Drinkbox has done previously like action-platformer Guacamelee or the form-changing RPG Nobody Saves the World.
"Each time we make a new game, it's usually quite different from the previous game," says Smith when I ask why make a cannibalism Soulslike Metroidvania action RPG. "The team doesn't like to just do the same thing; we always want to try and do something different and challenge ourselves. So with Blighted, it's the first time we're doing a 3D game, and that's been a challenge, too."
Soulshype
While we're playing, Smith asks whether I like Soulslike games, and I somewhat sheepishly admit that I maybe hate them. The idea of failing over and over again to succeed doesn't appeal much; I'm not getting any younger. Later, I ask him what is it about Soulslikes that appeal to people – as it certainly looks like it's going to be sticking around.
"I used to be like you," says Smith. "I tried a bunch of times to play Bloodborne. That was the one. I thought, 'That's the one that's gonna get me.' And I bounced off it like twice. And then I'm like, 'Maybe I'll try something different.' And I tried Sekiro, and something about Sekiro stuck with me, like I managed to get deep enough into the game where I started to feel like, 'I understand now why people like these games.'"
In the end, Smith went back and played the whole FromSoftware catalog, though he notes RedCandleGames' Nine Sols is one of his favorite Soulslikes: "It's like a 2D Metroidvania with parry-heavy mechanics." Ultimately, he came to love the genre.
So, why, then? What is it about Soulslikes? "I think the reason is that there's just like a huge adrenaline rush when you beat one of those bosses and also, I mean, the epicness of the bosses and everything like that those games have," he says. "You feel like you're a hero when you take one of these things down and, you know, you just have a controller in your hands. You're no hero, but it's really like overcoming the challenge, I think, is what really pulls people towards those games."
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Blighted is set to release for PC and Nintendo Switch 2 in Fall 2026. If you just can't wait, you can always check out our ranking of the best Metroidvania games you can play right now.
