Salt and Sacrifice — 7.7 of 10

Salt and Sacrifice asks a lot of the people who play it. Ska Studios built a 2D action role-playing game that splits its world into five separate zones, strips out fast travel, and hands the player a single job: hunt mages, eat their hearts, get stronger. It came out on May 10, 2022, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Windows. The Nintendo Switch port followed on November 7, 2023. As a sequel to Salt and Sanctuary, it keeps the punishing combat and trades the single large map for something closer to a hunting ground.

Trailer, via PlayStation.

Five Zones and No Way to Skip Them

The structure is the first thing that separates Salt and Sacrifice from its predecessor. Instead of one continuous map, the realm is broken into five zones. To open new areas, the player has to devour Mage hearts and start Mage Hunts, which send the player character chasing down and killing boss characters.

Each mage that falls drops unique armor and weapons. Those weapons carry their own skills and movesets, so a kill is not just a stat bump — it changes how the character handles. Hidden tomes scattered through the world unlock Fated Mage hunts, which can be run again and again for specific upgrades.

The game borrows openly from Metroidvania design. Areas that sit out of reach become passable once the player picks up the right traversal item. Shortcuts open up over time and let the player move across a zone faster. What the game does not offer is fast travel, and that absence is felt every time a hunt sends you back across ground you have already cleared.

The Marked Inquisitors and Their War on Magic

The setting is a kingdom that was once peaceful and is now overrun. Mages — described as merciless embodiments of elemental chaos — have thrown the realm into disorder. The Marked Inquisitors, a condemned force, mobilize against them. The player is one of those Inquisitors, sent through the western frontier to pursue, hunt, and destroy the mages that roam it.

There is a buried secret in the story too, one that threatens to bring an ancient empire to ruin. The game is bound to the Inquisition in its framing, but the choices inside it belong to the player.

That premise does real work. A doomed order of the condemned hunting elemental chaos is a sharper hook than a chosen one saving a kingdom, and it gives every hunt a grim, transactional feel. You are not a hero. You are a sentence being served.

Factions, Invasions, and Two-Player Campaigns

Online multiplayer is the biggest addition over Salt and Sanctuary. Players can join different multiplayer factions, and the factions do not play nice.

• The Shroud Alliance invades another player’s session and hunts them down.
• Blueheart Runners summon enemies called Haze Burnt to kill the hosting player.
• Invaded players can recruit Oathbound Watchers and Sheriff Inquisitors to help them fight.

A private passcode system lets two players run the entire campaign cooperatively without being invaded. That option matters. It turns a game built on pressure and pursuit into something a pair can actually finish together, on their own terms.

What 7.7 out of 10 Reflects

Salt and Sacrifice sits at 7.7/10 on the IGDB critic aggregate, drawn from five outlets. That number is fair, and it lands where the game actually lives: a strong follow-up with a clear identity that stops short of its own ambitions.

The hunt loop is the best thing here. Chasing a mage across a zone, learning its patterns, and walking away with a weapon that plays differently from the last one is a tight, rewarding cycle. The Fated Mage hunts give that loop a repeatable spine, and the tomes make exploration feel like it pays into something.

The five-zone split is where the game gets in its own way. Breaking the world apart makes each region easier to learn, but it also makes the whole thing feel like a set of rooms rather than a place. Combine that with no fast travel and the backtracking turns into a tax. Metroidvania design lives on the pleasure of a shortcut finally opening. When you still have to walk the long way to use it, some of that pleasure drains out.

The multiplayer is the part worth watching. Invasions give the game a pulse that a single-player run cannot match, and the faction system gives those invasions a shape — hunters, saboteurs, and the people you can call in to stop them. The passcode co-op is the smartest piece of the package, because it lets players opt out of the chaos without opting out of the game.

Where the Hunt Stalls

Salt and Sacrifice is a sequel that knows what it wants to be. It wants to be a hunt. It builds a world of elemental chaos, hands you a condemned badge, and points you at the next mage. When that machine is running, it runs well.

It stumbles on the connective tissue. Five zones, no fast travel, and a lot of ground to re-cover add up to friction that the combat does not always justify. The result is a game that is easy to respect and harder to love for a full run.

Fans of Salt and Sanctuary will find the bones they came for, and the multiplayer gives them a reason to bring a friend. Anyone who needs a world to feel whole rather than divided may bounce off the seams. This is a good game with a clear ceiling, and a 7.7 out of 10 is exactly where it belongs.

Salt and Sacrifice — 7.7 of 10

Numbers Worth Knowing

• Developer and publisher: Ska Studios
• Release date: May 10, 2022 (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows)
• Switch port: November 7, 2023
• Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC (Microsoft Windows), Nintendo Switch
• Genres: Platform, Role-playing (RPG), Adventure
• Modes: Single player, Multiplayer, Co-operative
• Perspective: Side view
• Critic aggregate: 7.7/10 (IGDB, 5 outlets)

co-op · game review · Metroidvania · Salt and Sacrifice · Ska Studios · Soulslike