Today I’m excited to announce – and take a first look – at a new guest character joining our 3D arena battler Mighty Fight Federation: Miriam from action platformer Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night! Miriam will be a free addition to the main game and available to everyone later this spring. As a reminder, Mighty Fight Federation is available now on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4.

Like our other licensed character guest stars such as Yooka-Laylee and ToeJam & Earl, Miriam comes with her own level and remixed music track. She will have one the largest movesets in Mighty Fight Federation, focusing on weapon and shard synergy, with many moves inspired by the entirety of the Bloodstained franchise. See her in action in the below trailer:

We worked with Bloodstained’s famed creator, Koji Igarashi, and his team to ensure we did Miriam justice, from her unique design to her wide breadth of weapons and Shard abilities. Both myself and the game’s creative director, Jullian Spillane, are incredibly excited to see what fans of technical-style combatants are able to achieve come her debut later this year. You can take a closer look at the in-game model below, and Igarashi-san himself found the time to share his excitement as well.

“Hello, this is Iga. I am pleased to announce that Miriam has been included in Mighty Fight Federation! Miriam is the protagonist of my exploration-heavy side-scrolling action game Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. I am very excited to see what kind of fighting style she’ll bring to the table. Oh, and if you haven’t heard of Bloodstained, please check it out as well~ I wish you all have tons of fun playing both works.”

• Koji Igarashi

Mighty Fight Federation is playable with up to four players, and console crossplay ensures that epic, chaotic clashes can take place locally or online. Comprehensive tutorials and training modes mean players of all abilities and fighting game backgrounds can hit the ground running, while veteran fighters can be sure they are landing every punch in this balanced and highly-competitive brawler thanks to its rollback netcode. 

Whether it’s one-on-one, a triple threat, or a fatal four-way, competitors can jump into the action and join the foray 24/7. The game boasts 13 outlandish characters (and more to come), each with their unique play-styles, combos, and special moves. It also has a killer soundtrack featuring music by Tee Lopes (Sonic Mania), James Landino (RWBY, No Straight Roads), Vince DiCola (Rocky IV, Transformers), and Manami Matsumae (Mega Man, Shovel Knight).

Mighty Fight Federation is available now on PS5 and PS4, so you can join the action while waiting for Miriam’s debut later this year.

Signs of the Sojourner is a narrative card game about connecting with people. It’s the debut release from our studio, Echodog Games, and I’m delighted to share the news that it’ll be available to download on PS4 from March 16. 

Play Video

Deck-building begins

We started development on Signs of the Sojourner during the summer of 2018 (at that point it was called ‘Project Thunder’), with a lot of prototyping and experimenting early on. The original pitch was ‘your deck is your character’, but figuring out what that actually meant took a lot of exploration and iteration. 

How the game looked during the early stages of development

By the start of 2019 we’d figured out the core structure, systems, and visual language, and that’s when things really started coming together. We began bringing on external collaborators during that spring and by the fall we had an open alpha and growing community. Involving the community so early was a new experience for all of us, but a fantastic one. Folks were so enthusiastic and bursting with ideas about how the game could be expanded.

Designing a narrative 

At first, we included mechanics similar to those found in games such as Slay The Spire and Magic: The Gathering, but quickly realised it encouraged players to approach card encounters with a hostile mindset. They would regard characters as foes to be defeated, which was not what we wanted at all.  

We moved in a direction that focused on symbols and stringing together sequences, which we felt was a much better representation of how it can feel trying to connect and communicate. Combined with how your deck develops over time, the new direction also brought more focus to the themes of identity and personal growth that we wanted to explore.

Different communities in the game tend to favour certain card and deck types, and it’s up to you to choose how to build your deck as you travel around Signs of the Sojourner’s near-future, sort-of-Earth world. Of course, by curating a deck that allows you to communicate more successfully with one group, it may make othe