Crisol is a BioShock-Like Cult Horror Shooter Using Your Blood For Bullets
One of the best things about Summer Game Fest is discovering games that blend some of your favorite classics into something wholly new. Crisol: Theater of Idols is a game with clear BioShock influence in its first-person shooter exploration, but melds some cult horror from games like Resident Evil 4 into the mix. On top of it all, to reload your gun, you've gotta sacrifice your own blood -- and take a chunk from your own health bar.
It's a novel mechanic that combines with the gothic, nautical setting for a promising approach to horror action games. Crisol is being developed by Vermila Studios, which was acquired by Embracer Group in 2020, but the game is being published by Blumhouse Games. After playing through a 20-minute demo of his new game, the studio's CEO David Carrasco explained how its game is a course correction for horror games.
Each gun has its own blood-reloading animation -- for this pistol, spikes jut out from the handle and pierce to palm to draw their tithe to reload.
Vermila Studios
"We've thought for a long time that survival horror was getting to where you didn't have that survival element so much," Carrasco said. "We wanted to give it an extra layer of tension by using your blood, your holy blood, to defeat these unholy monsters."
I certainly felt it in the demo. As I stalked the moonlit cobblestone streets of an island teeming with unholy, creepy marionette creatures, knowing every missed shot was a bit of lost life. Survival horror games give players weapons to quench fear (or in their absence, amplify it, as with the Amnesia series), but tying my guns' efficacy to my health made me slow down and pick my shots, amping up the fear as enemies closed in -- "keeping that tension constantly in the back of your head," as Carrasco put it.
While I felt the slightest concern for players with poor aim, there are health-restoring syringes sitting in the corners of abandoned shops and buildings. Crisol also has a mechanic where players can harvest blood (and thus, chunks of life) from dead animals lying around. Tying weapons to health is a twist on another survival horror game trope of saving heavy weapons ammo for dangerous bosses later on, Carrasco noted -- in Crisol, you'll always be able to use your big guns…for a price.
In Crisol, players take on the role of Gabriel, captain of the Tercios Del Sol, a command of soldiers under a sun-worshiping religion that takes on holy missions. He receives a divine order to go to an old island that's spun off into its own sea religion, Tormentosa, and deal with idol statues that have come alive and begun rampaging around.
When I asked what inspired Crisol, Carrasco was up-front that Bioshock and a number of Resident Evil games (4, 7 and 8 specifically) had the right mix of artistic design and gameplay Vermila Studios was looking for. Dishonored was another source for its heavy emphasis on art.
"Sprinkle in Spanish folklore, religious undertones, and in the end, with all of those fantastic and crazy and brutal inspirations make something that will be unique and memorable," Carrasco said.
Marionette-like idol enemies that have come to life on the island.
Vermila Studios
Spanish folklore is underutilized compared to the Japanese, Nordic and American mythology that appears in many games, Carrasco said. Vermila Studios, based in the Spanish city of Madrid, drew on its home country's history and culture -- and though the island players visit in Crisol doesn't explicitly take place in Spain, players will be able to connect the dots with the cathedrals, old architecture, polychromatic statues and stained-glass windows that make up the game's visual language.
That blend applies to religion, too: players will run into a faith following on Crisol's island that follows religions of the sea and sun, which I saw a bit of in the demo, with deification of mermaids and other pseudo-pagan effects. But Carrasco acknowledges the Catholic influence in the game, too.
"We've taken a lot of religious inspiration from different religious, like the Catholic Church, which has a lot of deeply rooted components in the Spanish culture, but [also] some other, older religions, even cults from very old history," Carrasco said, affirming that there's no explicit connection to the Catholic church or Christianity. "We do have holy blood, but it's not like a Christ or any connection to the reality of religions nowadays."
As I wander the cobbled streets of the demo, I see how all these elements blend into Crisol's visual language. Vermila Studio has a larger-than-usual art department, Carrasco noted, with around 20 people working for five years scribbling out drafts of enemies and locations to give the game a look and feel that felt familiar, fantastical and plausible at the same time -- that it really could be on an island out to sea.
Vermila Studios
As players explore the 10- to 14-hour game, they'll experience the creeping horror of the cult's presence, but Vermila isn't relying on a lot of jump scares, Carrasco said, which can lose their impact if overused. Rather, the game will rely on the tension of enemies behind and pursuing you, from those you run out of blood bullets (and health) to defeat, to those unaffected by your weapons.
In the second half of the demo, I ran into what Carrasco was talking about: a tall, hulking marionette monster with an impossibly wide smile that called out to me, shrugging off my bullets as I darted into buildings to evade its pursuit. Like other invulnerable pursuit bosses (Mr. X in Resident Evil 2, Jack Baker in Resident Evil 7), I had to sneak around while finding bolt cutters to clip chained-off doors. I also had to roll up a gate agonizingly slowly, expecting my stalker to close in on me at any second.
I escaped into a mermaid-themed restaurant and the demo ended, but the vibes of the game stuck with me. They clearly appealed to Blumhouse, too, who were interested in Crisol's dramatic art style and its blood mechanics. For Vermila Studios, Blumhouse was a good fit for its track record of bringing in new artists and projects that may be smaller but bring something new to the table.
"For us, being a part of this Blumhouse lineup is just like a partnership made in heaven -- or hell, maybe -- where they understand horror and what tickles that," Carrasco said.
Crisol: Theater of Idols is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox later in 2025.
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CNET
5 hours ago
- CNET
Crisol is a BioShock-Like Cult Horror Shooter Using Your Blood For Bullets
One of the best things about Summer Game Fest is discovering games that blend some of your favorite classics into something wholly new. Crisol: Theater of Idols is a game with clear BioShock influence in its first-person shooter exploration, but melds some cult horror from games like Resident Evil 4 into the mix. On top of it all, to reload your gun, you've gotta sacrifice your own blood -- and take a chunk from your own health bar. It's a novel mechanic that combines with the gothic, nautical setting for a promising approach to horror action games. Crisol is being developed by Vermila Studios, which was acquired by Embracer Group in 2020, but the game is being published by Blumhouse Games. After playing through a 20-minute demo of his new game, the studio's CEO David Carrasco explained how its game is a course correction for horror games. Each gun has its own blood-reloading animation -- for this pistol, spikes jut out from the handle and pierce to palm to draw their tithe to reload. Vermila Studios "We've thought for a long time that survival horror was getting to where you didn't have that survival element so much," Carrasco said. "We wanted to give it an extra layer of tension by using your blood, your holy blood, to defeat these unholy monsters." I certainly felt it in the demo. As I stalked the moonlit cobblestone streets of an island teeming with unholy, creepy marionette creatures, knowing every missed shot was a bit of lost life. Survival horror games give players weapons to quench fear (or in their absence, amplify it, as with the Amnesia series), but tying my guns' efficacy to my health made me slow down and pick my shots, amping up the fear as enemies closed in -- "keeping that tension constantly in the back of your head," as Carrasco put it. While I felt the slightest concern for players with poor aim, there are health-restoring syringes sitting in the corners of abandoned shops and buildings. Crisol also has a mechanic where players can harvest blood (and thus, chunks of life) from dead animals lying around. Tying weapons to health is a twist on another survival horror game trope of saving heavy weapons ammo for dangerous bosses later on, Carrasco noted -- in Crisol, you'll always be able to use your big guns…for a price. In Crisol, players take on the role of Gabriel, captain of the Tercios Del Sol, a command of soldiers under a sun-worshiping religion that takes on holy missions. He receives a divine order to go to an old island that's spun off into its own sea religion, Tormentosa, and deal with idol statues that have come alive and begun rampaging around. When I asked what inspired Crisol, Carrasco was up-front that Bioshock and a number of Resident Evil games (4, 7 and 8 specifically) had the right mix of artistic design and gameplay Vermila Studios was looking for. Dishonored was another source for its heavy emphasis on art. "Sprinkle in Spanish folklore, religious undertones, and in the end, with all of those fantastic and crazy and brutal inspirations make something that will be unique and memorable," Carrasco said. Marionette-like idol enemies that have come to life on the island. Vermila Studios Spanish folklore is underutilized compared to the Japanese, Nordic and American mythology that appears in many games, Carrasco said. Vermila Studios, based in the Spanish city of Madrid, drew on its home country's history and culture -- and though the island players visit in Crisol doesn't explicitly take place in Spain, players will be able to connect the dots with the cathedrals, old architecture, polychromatic statues and stained-glass windows that make up the game's visual language. That blend applies to religion, too: players will run into a faith following on Crisol's island that follows religions of the sea and sun, which I saw a bit of in the demo, with deification of mermaids and other pseudo-pagan effects. But Carrasco acknowledges the Catholic influence in the game, too. "We've taken a lot of religious inspiration from different religious, like the Catholic Church, which has a lot of deeply rooted components in the Spanish culture, but [also] some other, older religions, even cults from very old history," Carrasco said, affirming that there's no explicit connection to the Catholic church or Christianity. "We do have holy blood, but it's not like a Christ or any connection to the reality of religions nowadays." As I wander the cobbled streets of the demo, I see how all these elements blend into Crisol's visual language. Vermila Studio has a larger-than-usual art department, Carrasco noted, with around 20 people working for five years scribbling out drafts of enemies and locations to give the game a look and feel that felt familiar, fantastical and plausible at the same time -- that it really could be on an island out to sea. Vermila Studios As players explore the 10- to 14-hour game, they'll experience the creeping horror of the cult's presence, but Vermila isn't relying on a lot of jump scares, Carrasco said, which can lose their impact if overused. Rather, the game will rely on the tension of enemies behind and pursuing you, from those you run out of blood bullets (and health) to defeat, to those unaffected by your weapons. In the second half of the demo, I ran into what Carrasco was talking about: a tall, hulking marionette monster with an impossibly wide smile that called out to me, shrugging off my bullets as I darted into buildings to evade its pursuit. Like other invulnerable pursuit bosses (Mr. X in Resident Evil 2, Jack Baker in Resident Evil 7), I had to sneak around while finding bolt cutters to clip chained-off doors. I also had to roll up a gate agonizingly slowly, expecting my stalker to close in on me at any second. I escaped into a mermaid-themed restaurant and the demo ended, but the vibes of the game stuck with me. They clearly appealed to Blumhouse, too, who were interested in Crisol's dramatic art style and its blood mechanics. For Vermila Studios, Blumhouse was a good fit for its track record of bringing in new artists and projects that may be smaller but bring something new to the table. "For us, being a part of this Blumhouse lineup is just like a partnership made in heaven -- or hell, maybe -- where they understand horror and what tickles that," Carrasco said. Crisol: Theater of Idols is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox later in 2025.
The Verge
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- The Verge
Astro Bot's director on making a PlayStation icon
Astro Bot is filled with whimsy and silliness that makes you want to pay attention to the details. But in a presentation at this year's Game Developers Conference, director Nicolas Doucet shared one particular aspect of Astro the robot that I hadn't noticed but blew me away. Doucet talked about how Team Asobi worked hard to give the game a good tempo with things like enemy placement and how you can interact with Astro's spaceship with the DualSense's gyro controls on loading screens. One thing that kept the momentum going was Astro himself and how he shows his impatience. Doucet showed a video of one idle animation where Astro is hopping up and down on his feet and pointing forward, almost like a little kid that's demanding you go to the playground. It's adorable — and was added 'very, very late' in development, Doucet says when I chat with him a few weeks after the presentation. While a lot of games have characters simply breathing or looking left to right while they're idle, Team Asobi thought that it could do something a little more fun. Since the game is about rescuing characters, the team started to tie the animations to the idea of looking around, Doucet says. The team even reduced the amount of time it takes for the animations to show as a way to more quickly remind the player of the goal to find the bots. Doucet thinks of this as a subliminal way to put players in the mood to move faster. Astro actually originates from a 2013 PS4 pack-in game called The Playroom that used the PS4 camera. In that game, the robot is named Asobi, but he looks a lot like the charming Astro from Astro Bot: Asobi has big blue eyes and a cute, pudgy robot body. 'Back then, the design of the character came from two angles,' Doucet says. One was that the development team didn't have much time, so they went for a simple character design instead of a human that might require a lot of facial animations. But they also picked a robot because of where it would be making its debut: a preinstalled game on (at the time) new Sony hardware. When you think about Sony or PlayStation, Doucet says that there is an 'aspiration to the future' or something 'a little bit science fiction.' Team Asobi uses the term 'techno magic.' The robot's design came from that: 'we wanted the playful fun character, but also coupled with something really cool and futuristic.' The PS5 hardware and Astro might share a lot of similarities — white plastic with black parts and blue lights — but that's an accident, Doucet says. Instead, both the character designers and hardware team were following similar values. While it's flattering to hear that people treat Astro as PlayStation's mascot, Doucet says that wasn't the design team's original intention for the character. Instead, a mascot needs to be something that 'grows naturally' and something that the users decide or feel. That happens through repeated consistency and quality, Doucet believes. In retrospect, the awards for the game — including Game of the Year at The Game Awards — are well deserved, but the goal was primarily to put platformers and family-friendly games back on the map and release 'as good a game as we can.' Doucet used to look at renowned PlayStation studios like Naughty Dog (Uncharted, The Last of Us) and Santa Monica Studio (God of War), and think they knew some kind of 'black magic' that Team Asobi didn't. But following Astro Bot, the takeaway was that 'actually, it became the sum of lots of small things that are carefully made.' If the team keeps that consistency and makes sure that 'every bit' of the game is done as well as possible, then 'the sum of it ends up being high quality.' No wonder Astro is impatient to explore.
Los Angeles Times
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Destination Venice: 9 Romantic Wedding Venues in Italy's ‘Floating City'
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It's the only hotel in Venice to feature two private canal-side gardens—the Canal Garden and the Pergola Garden—which serve as rare outdoor ceremony or reception spaces. The historic double piano nobile houses grand event rooms, including a luminous ballroom, salon, library, and multiple dining spaces, each retaining frescoed ceilings and elegant period details ideal for both intimate and larger wedding celebrations. With just 24 suites, direct Grand Canal access, and fully tailored celebration services, it offers luxury couples a rare blend of exclusivity, heritage, and discreet Aman hospitality—all steps from Piazza San Marco Hotel Locanda Vivaldi is housed in the historic home of composer Antonio Vivaldi, rebuilt into a boutique hotel perched on the Riva degli Schiavoni with views across St. Mark's Basin—just steps from Piazza San Marco. Its panoramic rooftop terrace offers sweeping vistas of iconic landmarks like San Giorgio, the bell tower, and the lagoon, making it a stunning setting for a sunset reception. The hotel organizes full wedding packages, from ceremony coordination to vintage boat transfers and traditional Venetian catering. With fewer than 30 rooms—including suites with private balconies and lagoon views—it's well-suited to couples seeking an intimate celebration framed by genuine Venetian history. Hotel Palazzo Stern is a 15th-century, neo-Gothic palazzo turned boutique hotel, standing directly on the Grand Canal in Dorsoduro with a terrace offering sweeping canal views. Its intimate, art-filled interiors—complete with frescoes, mosaics, carved wood, and antique mosaics—create a refined, historical atmosphere perfect for an elegant small wedding. The rooftop terrace can host welcome drinks or a reception against the backdrop of Venice's waterways, while on-site event planning includes vintage boat transfers and customized menus. With under 70 rooms, valet parking, and concierge-arranged logistics via water taxi, it strikes a balance between relaxed exclusivity and Venetian grandeur. The Gritti Palace is a 15th-century noble residence turned luxury hotel, set directly on the Grand Canal across from Santa Maria della Salute. Its richly decorated interiors feature antique Murano glass chandeliers, original frescoes, and period furnishings, creating an opulent backdrop for wedding celebrations. The Redentore Terrace and canal-side Gritti Terrace offer panoramic views ideal for elegant outdoor receptions or sunset toasts. With in-house floral and culinary teams, a private Riva boat for arrivals, and just 82 rooms, the hotel specializes in intimate events with unmistakable Venetian character. Couples can host ceremonies in the ornate Longhi Room or reserve the Club del Doge restaurant for a formal seated dinner. Located just minutes from St. Mark's Square, the property also offers easy access to Venice's most iconic photo backdrops. Palazzo Nani Bernardo is a private 16th-century Renaissance palace on the Grand Canal, blending historical grandeur with an intimate, residential feel. Its second piano nobile features a long hall and five side salons, ideal for refined indoor ceremonies and seated dinners. The crowning jewel is its hidden Italian-style garden—one of the largest in Venice—complete with climbing roses, jasmine, century-old trees, and the city's tallest palm, providing a lush outdoor backdrop for cocktails, vows, or sunset gatherings. Fully accessible by water, the venue includes its own dock and two private guest apartments, enabling exclusive multi-day celebrations. The palace remains family-owned and is rarely open to the public, making it one of Venice's most discreet and coveted wedding venues. Ca' Sagredo is a beautifully restored 15th-century palace turned boutique hotel, adorned with opulent Baroque art and grand frescoed ceilings overlooking the Grand Canal. Its elegant reception rooms—such as the Sala Maggiore and Sala del Camino—are ideal for intimate ceremonies or refined seated dinners, each set within original gilt frames and marble fireplaces. The rooftop terrace offers a romantic cocktail setting with sweeping canal views, perfect for sunset toasts or small receptions. With just 42 rooms and suites, many featuring painted ceilings and period furnishings, the atmosphere feels like hosting your own private Venetian celebration. Couples can arrive by private boat at the hotel's water entrance before retreating to discreet event planning services and chef-crafted Venetian tasting menus. Palazzo Zeno is a rare gem nestled in Venice's Dorsoduro district—a 14th-century residence thoughtfully transformed into an intimate boutique hotel. Its courtyard and charming rooftop terrace offer private outdoor ceremony settings with views of hidden canals and historic rooftops. The interior salons, with antique furnishings, exposed timber beams, and family heirlooms, create a warm, lived-in atmosphere ideal for small wedding gatherings. Couples can coordinate water-taxi arrivals directly at the front entrance and enjoy personalized service in a venue that feels like a well-loved Venetian family home. The St. Regis Venice is a lavish waterfront palace hotel set on the Grand Canal, offering sweeping views and a sense of aristocratic splendor. Its Meravigli Ballroom and dramatic canal-facing grand salon feature bold frescoes, Murano glass chandeliers, and gilded décor—perfect for elegant indoor ceremonies with a dash of Venetian flair. The hotel's spacious private terraces allow for al-fresco receptions or sunset aperitifs with guests floating by on the water. With over 110 rooms and suites blending classic Venetian styling with modern amenities, it accommodates both grand weddings and intimate gatherings. Full wedding planning support, including customized catering, floral design, and dedicated water-taxi logistics, ensures a seamless, romantic celebration from arrival to sparkler send-off. From canal-side gardens and rooftop terraces to frescoed ballrooms and centuries-old courtyards, Venice offers a wide range of memorable wedding settings. Each venue brings something unique, whether it's a private dock, panoramic Grand Canal views, or layers of history visible in every detail. Many properties include in-house planning, vintage boat transfers, and accommodations that make it easy for couples and their guests to settle in and celebrate without needing to look elsewhere. Whether you're drawn to a boutique palazzo, a storied luxury hotel, or a hidden garden retreat, Venice delivers a wedding experience rooted in character, beauty, and ease.
