Slain! attracted quite a bit of attention in the lead up to its launch, and rightly so: in motion it looked really cool. The hard-as-nails, 16 bit-inspired sidescroller looked like a death metal album cover come to life, and the soundtrack sounded the part too, composed as it was by a former member of cult band Celtic Frost.

Unfortunately, when it launched back in March, the response was less than favourable. People criticised its movement, its difficulty, and... well, most aspects of the game. That prompted Wolfbrew Games to completely overhaul the game, and the results of their attention have launched today as Slain: Back From Hell.

According to the announcement, not much has been left unchanged. The changenotes say that the "difficulty curve has been completely re-calibrated", checkpointing has been "re-regulated to allay difficulty spikes" and enemy AI has been overhauled to allow for "more complex and challenging behaviours for nearly all enemies".

Meanwhile, there are three new bosses, combat has been changed, and weapons can be switched on the move. For the full list of updates, head over here. As you'll see, they're quite substantial.

It's interesting that a lot of the changes reduce the difficulty, because Slain was originally delayed because it was too hard. I hate to think how hard the game was before that delay, but whatever the case now seems to be the time to jump aboard. Everyone who owns the game will be gifted a new copy as well, to pass on to a friend.

Check out a trailer for the re-launch below:

Slain, the tough as nails action platformer that looks like a Celtic Frost record in motion, is releasing on March 24. To celebrate, Wolf Brew Games has released the above launch trailer, which does a pretty good job of summarising what the game is about: killing ugly supernatural phenomena, jumping between jagged hellscape precipices, and dying regularly in a burst of unrealistically abundant red chunks. 

It arrives a little late, due to some last minute adjustments to the game's difficulty. While the game is designed to be hard, Wolf Brew Games admitted earlier this year that they'd made it too hard, and that they needed an extra few months to pare it back a bit. Seems reasonable.

Anyway, here's some Celtic Frost. You'll thank me!

In retrospect, one of the worst things about my teenagehood was that there was no video game with a soundtrack composed by the bassist from Celtic Frost. Oh, to live one's formative years in the 2010s, at a time when dark metal pioneers are happily collaborating with the video game industry! There's probably more to Slain! than its soundtrack, of course it's a gruesome 16-bit style action-platformer but we won't know for sure until March, which is when it's now scheduled to release.

Originally slated for a "fall 2015" release (spring in Australia), Slain! is now scheduled to release on March 24. "The game needs a few last tweaks because right now no mortal man or woman could possibly get past Slain! s intense platforming, traps and monstrosities," studio Wolf Brew Games wrote. 

Anyway, to tide you over, here's some classic Celtic Frost:

Amazingly, we don't seem to have talked about Slain! (Steam link) before, so here's a quick precis: it's a gothic action-platformer with a none-more-metal soundtrack, buckets and buckets and gore, scrummy pixel art, and a hero who looks almost exactly like our Witcher friend, Geralt. It's out this Autumn, and there's a new trailer showing all of those things below.

The YouTube video title says 'June', but the footage was published yesterday—how confusing! Devs Wolf Brew Games, and publishers Digerati, have announced that Curt Victor Bryant, formerly of the band Celtic Frost, will be doing the soundtrack. 'Celtic Frost' sounds like the name of either a folk or metal band—and what do you know, it's the second one. Here is a good picture from Google Images:

In Slain, "players control Bathoryn, a hero in a Gothic world, seeking to liberate seven great towers from 7 deadly overlords.

"Bathoryn must battle his way through a doomed land packed with gruesome pixel art foes before ascending (or sometimes descending) each tower, defeating puzzles, traps and monsters alike. At the heart of each tower, he must confront a mighty overlord. Defeat it and Bathoryn s quest continues. Fail, and you ll die gruesomely mauled by werewolves, disintegrated by floating monstrosities, squashed by great weights or torn apart by hidden blades."