With the new release of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, fans have been eager to delve deep into the new Metroidvania made by former Castlevania producer Koji Igarashi. Unfortunately for some of those fans, however, a nasty glitch may have turned their playthrough into a nightmare scenario, though a recent patch hopefully fixes it for new players.
The bug goes like this: as you journey through the game, you occasionally come across treasure chests. These chests sometimes include items you might need for progression, as you do in a Metroidvania game. If you have been affected by the bug, some of these chests will be open already and their items inaccessible, preventing you from making progress. If you have been hit with this bug already, there’s nothing you can do, your save file is already forfeit.
“We investigated a number of options to address this issue and each fix requires a new game to be started. Despite our efforts to provide a fix that preserves pre-1.02 progress, this is the best solution to avoid future issues,” publisher 505 Games said in a statement. “Xbox One players will also be affected by this when the 1.02 patch is delivered next week. Switch players who have a physical copy should download the 1.02 patch before playing.”
So, download the patch, then restart your save. It’s a nasty solution, though one I imagine they had no choice but to use. Switch owners are only affected with this insofar as they will need to download the patch if they buy the physical cart, but if you own the Xbox One or PS4 versions and haven’t started yet, download the patch first and then start.
You also might not be affected by the bug, but it could theoretically be better to start over now than run into it much later down the line.
Bloodstained is currently available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, and is releasing on Switch on June 25.