Red Candle Games, the developer behind critically acclaimed horror outings Detention and Devotion, has – following a bit of an animated tease earlier this year – formally announced its latest title, an action-platformer loosely inspired by From Software’s superb Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice that’s currently going by the name of Nine Sols.
Details are extremely limited right now, but Red Candle describes Nine Sols (a working title at present) as a “lore rich hand-drawn 2D platformer with Sekiro-inspired deflection-focused combat”. The developer has also shared a wonderfully evocative bit of promo art that – while a significant aesthetic departure from its previous games – does suggest, with its mangled limbs and pools of blood, that we’re not exactly in family friendly territory here.
“Embark on a journey of Asian fantasy, explore the land once home to an ancient alien race and follow a vengeful hero’s quest to slay nine Sols, rulers of a forsaken realm,” Red Candle teases in its announcement on Twitter.
Nine Sols will be Red Candle Games’ third title, following on from 2017’s acclaimed Detention – a horror-tinged exploration of 1960s Taiwan under martial law that went on to inspire a Netflix animated series – and its 2019 follow-up, Devotion. The latter, an impressive first-person psychological horror unfolding across seven years in a cramped apartment in 1980s Taiwan, drew significant praise on its release but proved controversial.