Sad news for fans of Metroidvanias and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. The game’s main man will not be working on the next mothership entry of the series.

Shutaro Ida, the director of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and various Castlevania games like Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin and Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, will be stepping away from making the Bloodstained sequel due to cancer. He will be offloading some of his responsibilities to the rest of the team at ArtPlay so that he can start his battle against cancer.

“I, SHUTARO, also known as Curry Boy and Curry Sage, have been diagnosed with cancer and have begun my battle with the disease. I have already started talking about the sequel to Bloodstained, and have ideas for the game and such. From now on, the responsibility [for game direction] will be shared. Thank you for your support.”

He’s the one in the blue shirt in the team picture below, right of Koji Igarashi (the man with the cowboy hat)

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— ????? (@CurryHermit) October 1, 2024

ArtPlay president Koji Igarashi, and longtime Castlevania producer, also remarked on the recent news, stating that Ida has been instrumental to the series.

“Up until now, the DS [Castlevania] series and Bloodstained have essentially been produced primarily by Director SHUTARO. It can truly be called his work. It is a great blow to have him step away from the project, but we will do our best not to be defeated by it. I hope that you will recover quickly enough to work with us again.”

For more on Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, check out our review of the game.