Salt and Sanctuary
Developer(s)	Ska Studios
Publisher(s)	Ska Studios
Designer(s)	James Silva Michelle Silva
Programmer(s)	James Silva
Artist(s)	Michelle Silva
Composer(s)	James Silva Michelle Silva
Platform(s)	PlayStation 4 Microsoft Windows macOS Linux PlayStation Vita
Release	PlayStation 4 WW: March 15, 2016 Microsoft Windows WW: May 17, 2016 macOS WW: July 8, 2016 Linux WW: July 8, 2016 PlayStation Vita TBA
Genre(s)	Action role-playing, platformer, Metroidvania[1][2][3]
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Salt and Sanctuary is a 2D action role-playing video game developed and published by Ska Studios. The game was released on March 15, 2016, for the PlayStation 4, with later releases for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux and the PlayStation Vita.^[4][5][6][7] It is heavily inspired by the Souls series by Japanese developer FromSoftware.^[8][9] The game received positive reviews from critics, who praised its graphical style, gameplay, and lore.

Gameplay[edit]

The game features 2D hand drawn visuals, as well as gameplay mechanics similar to the Souls series. There are 600 items players may use, and the several weapon categories have special movesets including air attacks. Players can wield two handed weapons for additional power, and shields to defend and parry. Magic and ranged attacks can also be performed.^[4] The game implements RPG concepts such as origins, classes and stat development, as well as an extensive skill tree providing hundreds of combinations. The game also provides a multiplayer option, and asynchronous features such as messages that may be interchanged between players. Multiplayer allows for co-operative and versus play, but it is local only.

Plot[edit]

The game begins with the player stowed away in a ship that is also carrying a princess from an unnamed country who is to be married to an opposing country's king in order to avert war. However, a group of marauders attack the ship, murdering its crew. The player kills all the marauders and escapes to the deck, but they are then set upon by a giant kraken of the sea resembling Cthulhu. Whether or not they are able to defeat the powerful kraken, the ship is wrecked regardless, sending them drifting to shore on a mysterious island.

There, the player meets a strange old man who gives them an icon of one of three creeds the player says they are a member of, helping them in their quest to find the lost princess. The player places this icon in the first Sanctuary and then continues exploring the island, gathering salt in order to gain power, as in this universe, humans are known as Saltborn and are ostensibly largely composed of it. There, it is possible to meet several NPC's with side-stories, an unnamed Knight, Thief, and Sorcerer. The player also meets a highly sinister talking Scarecrow that threatens that they will perish.

In the process of conversing with these NPCs throughout the journey, they come to realize that the island is made up of copies of dangerous locations from the various continents of the world, and that some kind of power "collected" them. The player realizes that the Scarecrow is the avatar of a being known as the Nameless God, and also that the princess they were searching for may not have even been real in the first place, just a trap to betray the ship's crew.

Finally, the main character meets the old man for the final time, and he reveals that he was once Jaret, a great king who agreed to be the servant of the Nameless God in exchange for power. The Nameless God is an incredibly powerful being who was once Saltborn, but desires to be a divine being, yet is unable to no matter how much power he collects.

The player travels to the Nameless God's castle and defeats him, finding a well with which they are able to escape from the island. Alternatively, they can choose to pick up the Nameless God's helmet and gain his full power, but be trapped on the island.

Development[edit]

The game was first announced in an open letter from the developer to the PlayStation Blog on August 28, 2014. The game was released for the PlayStation 4 worldwide on March 15, 2016,^[4] and for Microsoft Windows on May 17, 2016.^[10] A future release for PlayStation Vita is planned, but it is being handled by a developer outside of Ska Studios.

The initial idea behind the game was conceived as a fusion of the combat of the Souls series with the studio's previous Dishwasher series. ^[11] The Castlevania series, particularly Symphony of the Night and the later Nintendo DS installments (which are noted for their free-roaming exploration-based design), also served as inspiration for the gameplay.^[12] The tech demo received a large amount of positive feedback, so the developers decided to continue with that idea.^[11]

The game took about two and a half years to develop, though the underlying systems were created before development started in earnest.^[11] The original game as designed was much more complex, but some cuts had to be made due to the small size of the development team.^[11]

The art design of the game was inspired by Game of Thrones and other various medieval images.^[12] The game uses desaturation (reduction of colorfulness relative to brightness) to emphasize gloom and danger outside of the Sanctuaries.^[12] Most of the game's monster design was not done with any prior inspirations in mind, however, a certain birdlike enemy that vomited eggs was created as a reference to Internet trolls on Twitter.^[11]

Reception[edit]

Since its release, Salt and Sanctuary received positive reviews, and has an aggregate score score of 86/100 on Metacritic.^[13]

IGN awarded it a score of 8.6 out of 10, saying "You could call Salt and Sanctuary a 2D mashup of Dark Souls and Castlevania, and you'd be right. But such a simple pronouncement would be a disservice to the tremendous amount of thought that's gone into Salt and Sanctuary, whether it's in the graphic style that evokes horror through the style of comic strips or in the intricate web of dungeons and castles serves as it map." ^[14]

Fextralife awarded it a score of 9.0 out of 10, saying "An intimate, exciting and discovery-fueled experience, rich in content and secrets, will have players exploring and lorecrafting for months to come. The price point sweetens the deal for any Souls, RPG or Castlevania fan looking for a new and satisfying experience."^[15]

PlayStation Lifestyle awarded it a score of 8.0 out of 10, saying "Salt and Sanctuary is fairly shameless in the way it replicates elements from games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne, but that’s not really a bad thing when you see how it all comes together as a polished and thoroughly enjoyable final product."^[16]

References[edit]