When it comes to old school Metroidvania games, few capture the essence of the genre like Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. A spiritual successor to the Castlevania games that gave the genre half its name, it is still being updated to fix lingering issues and add new content.
Despite its origins being rooted in previous titles like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night very much brings its own flavor to gameplay and aesthetics. Part of how it accomplishes this is with the addition of new modes and characters in addition to the main story, and now it looks like it's adding even more in that department.
There is a new playable character coming to Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. While it is confirmed that the character is not part of the Bloodstained universe and is coming as a crossover character, as of this article it is not known who they are. The only clues are that they belong to a "well-known partner" to bring the character "and a friend" into the game. This deviates from the roadmap revealed earlier when it was confirmed that a new Bloodstained game is in development.
This is not the first time a new playable character has been added to the game, so the formula for how they work is already well established. Previous additions began with Zangetsu, a boss and playable character from a previous title. Retaining many of his moves from his boss battle, he can explore the entire game and level up as he defeats enemies. Shaking up the formula a bit, Bloodless was added to Bloodstained as another boss turned playable character. She must unlock abilities as the game goes on before she can explore the entire map.
This new character can, much like Bloodless, explore the entire map but only after certain abilities are unlocked. Whether or not this includes the Kingdom: Twin Crowns crossover zone is unknown as of this article. On that note, the crossover character may be a Monarch from Twin Crowns, since the two games have had a lot of overlap. Perhaps the "friend" could refer to their horse or dog.
It's also possible the new character is Shovel Knight alongside Shield Knight, since the Shovel Armor enemy is already based off Shovel Knight. Whatever the case, players will soon be figuring out all the ins and outs of the new character and seeing if they can be used to break Bloodstained's secret hard mode.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is available now on PC, Mobile, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
Source: Bloodstained Home Site