Salt and Sanctuary casts you as a sailor shipwrecked on a strange, purgatorial island, insulated somehow against a backdrop of centuries-old worldwide perpetual war. What hope remains is isolated in Sanctuaries: protected dwellings where travelers band together under common creeds to take shelter from the hostile world outside.

If you’re familiar with some of Ska Studios' earlier games like The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile and Charlie Murder, you should know what to expect: solidly executed, intricate and brutal combat, lovingly hand-drawn and animated 2D art (of the non-pixel variety), a killer in-house soundtrack, and a massive roster of set-defining, dynamic and unique bosses. Salt is inspired as much by our history as a studio as it is by old classics like Castlevania DS, and new classics like the Souls series.

Like in The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile, the emphasis in Salt and Sanctuary is stylistic sidescrolling combat: weapons have movesets, air attacks have hang time, and rolling is king. There’s a huge amount of depth to the combat in Salt, however. Weapons can be one-handed and paired with shields or offhand crossbows for versatility, or wielded two-handed for added power — and every configuration has its own unique moveset. There are staffs for magic, bows for ranged combat, and belt-slotted consumables like throwing daggers and weapon-buffing Pitchfire. Of course, loadout weight affects your movement, rolling speed and stamina regen, so a good balance of defense and agility is key. Basically, it combines two things we love: fast, precise 2D combat and super strategic RPG depth. Also, there are curb stomps.

One of the coolest things about RPGs is the party dynamic, but up until about a year ago Salt was purely a game of solo exploration. We wanted to explore cooperative multiplayer, and perhaps some PvP, but how? Online multiplayer was (and is still) a crazy dream of mine, but trust me: online gameplay is an absolute nightmare to implement anywhere, and PS4 development is still pretty new to us. So we settled on the idea of sellswords.

Salt and Sanctuary centers around sanctuaries. A sanctuary takes on the role of a bonfire, archstone, Hunter’s Dream: it’s a place of rest, replenishment, and — when things go south — respawning. In Salt and Sanctuary, sanctuaries can be populated with NPC villagers. Tiny statues are scattered throughout the world, and placing a statue on a sanctuary’s altar permanently summons a villager of that type to the sanctuary.

The sellsword facilitates cooperative play. Placing a sellsword statue on the altar will summon a sellsword. Telling the sellsword that you’d like to “Hire” prompts a second player to pick up a controller. This player now gets to pick anyone in his or her roster, jump in, and get jolly!

Having a companion present tweaks a few things: enemy health is scaled up a hefty bit, and enemies will do a little extra damage. Prayers of healing aid cooperative players within a radius. A Revive prayer might even make an appearance. The synergy is something I wanted to experience in Salt years before implementing coop, and Michelle and I always tend to balance out our builds like we would in Dark Souls 2: tank and caster style.

But the sellsword doesn’t just connect adventurers with brave companions; he also sells Eggs of Wrath. Crushing an egg in the universe of Salt is a tradition of war, meant to signify the commencement of battle. As such, crushing an Egg of Wrath immediately initiates PvP. Once battle has begun, it cannot end until someone dies. But fear not! Your fallen companion will be found alive and well in the next sanctuary or shrine you visit.

PvP in Salt and Sanctuary is an interesting beast. Not all fights will be fair, but all fights tend to be interesting. Stamina and focus (spellcasting) management, parries and counters, crucial I-frames, and weapon ranges are all super important. And because of the nature of the Egg of Wrath, you can pretty much spring PvP on your ally anywhere. Boss fight? More like three-way free for all! Need a human punching bag to try out a new weapon you just crafted? Crush that egg.