Nine Sols Looks Like Sekiro Meets Hollow Knight In New Trailer

Taiwanese studio Red Candle Games has launched a crowdfunding page for its latest game Nine Sols–which was revealed last year–and within a single day its first goal was met. Described as a “journey of Asian fantasy” inspired by combat-heavy games such as Sekiro and Hollow Knight, Nine Sols has you play as Yi, a hero from the past who is tasked with slaying the nine alien warlords of a strange realm.

Red Candle added that the game merges deflection-focused combat with a “Taopunk” setting, and the single-player adventure is being designed to offer 10-15 hours of playtime ahead of its Q2 2023 release. When parrying isn’t enough, you’ll still be able to dash, double jump, and wall jump out of harm’s way.

Stylistically, the game has hand-drawn 2D animation and a “dark electronic” sound mixed with Eastern instruments. The Taopunk theme is described as a fusion between sci-fi elements and Eastern mythology, with parts of the explorable city of New Kunlun having its own distinct style.

As for the platforms that Nine Sols will be released on, Red Candle is prioritizing PC for now, but it has acquired Nintendo Switch and PlayStation devkits for when it’s ready to port the game over to those platforms.

At the time of writing, Nine Sols is almost within reach of its first stretch goal of $210,000, which will add a story mode to the game and an easier difficulty setting for non-hardcore players. Additional stretch goals include an in-game cutscene, an alternate ending, and additional bosses.

The studio had previously worked on Devotion, a game that courted controversy with Chinese players after they discovered art assets that compared Chinese president Xi Jinping to Winnie the Pooh. Devotion was removed from Steam and a promise by GOG to release the game a year later was canceled at the eleventh hour, leading Red Candle to go into business for itself and sell the game on its own store.