Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 Is Out Now, And a Boss Rush Mode Is On the Way

Take your best demon-hunting katana down from its special place above the hearth, because it's time to put it back to work. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 is here for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC. A boss rush mode is arriving next week, too.

We're all used to waiting months, even years, between a game's announcement and its arrival. By contrast, Curse of the Moon 2 was announced on June 23, giving us a waiting period of a mere [counts on fingers] 17 days. Curse of the Moon 2 looks, sounds, and plays a good deal like its 2018 predecessor, and it's also developed by the 2D side-scrolling masters at Inti Creates.

Also like its predecessor, Curse of the Moon 2 has some crazy-cool boss fights that will undoubtedly wind up as hearty sustenance for speedrunners and challenge fiends. Inti Creates is already setting up the buffet with a Boss Rush mode, which we can expect with patch 1.2.0 on July 16. With it, you can take on Curse of the Moon 2's ghastly menagerie with its long character line-up: six humans and one corgi.

The Steam release of Curse of the Moon 2 already received one update. Early reviews for the game indicate there were problems with the game stuttering, but the most recent reviews suggest Inti Creates' emergency patch fixed the problem.

If you enjoy the original Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon—and there's little reason not to, it's a brisk platformer that builds on the classic Castlevania 3 for the NES—that's justification enough for picking up Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2. The upcoming boss rush mode is the blood icing on the pulsating flesh cake.