Shantae dev WayForward signs on to help finish Koji Igarashi's Bloodstained

The team behind Kickstarted Castlevania: Symphony of the Night spiritual successor Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night today announced that veteran dev WayForward has signed on to help finish up the game's development.

It's a notable team-up given WayForward's experience developing 2D action games (including The Mummy Demastered and the Shantae series), though it's unclear what the studio will be doing beyond general bug-squashing.

"As you may already know, they are top-tier when it comes to side-scrolling action games. There is even a staff member who previously worked on one of my projects, which is incredibly encouraging," reads a Bloodstained Kickstarter update attributed to project frontman Koji "IGA" Igarashi. "With WayForward's help, [the Bloodstained dev team] have been busy helping to improve the game and fix any bugs that pop up."

Successfully crowdfunded in 2015 to the tune of $5.5 million, Bloodstained is still slated to ship sometime in 2019. Earlier this year collaborator Inti Creates released a spinoff demake, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, that seemed to sell quite well -- especially on the Nintendo Switch.