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We paid a visit to Vermila's offices in Madrid to play the latest build of Crisol right before launch and to catch up with the co-founders of the studio. In this video we talk twisted folklore, inspirations, Unreal Engine, lasting appeal, blood weapons, and more!
"Hi Gamereactor friends, we are kicking off the 2026 video game calendar proper as we are taking a look at Crisol at the Vermila Studios offices in Madrid.
So thank you so much for welcoming us into your premises.
We've played a demo, this is a nice story because we met you guys in 2023 at the IndieDevDay, it was a small demo, you had a story ahead, you had some things to do and now we've played an almost final build and you're going to be releasing on February the 10th."
"So first question is, what did I just play? What's going on here? You know, story-wise and how much are we into the game and what's happening here?
In that demo you are in the middle section of the game, so you are into the story, I think a little bit, so to explain the whole part from before is a little bit complicated but the idea is you are Gabriel, you are in this island and you discover, because you are in a secret mission, because your god, the sun god, sends you this message that you need to destroy the evil thing that is in the island."
"So you arrive in the island and you discover this statue, this monster that is killing everyone and this cult of the sea, that it's your enemy because you are the cult of the sun and this is the cult of the sea.
It's like a natural enemy. In the first glance you are the good guy of the game and you have your mission totally clear but you will have a transformation when you are meeting with other characters and knowing more about the history and the past of the island.
Alright, alright. And we have people, we have press playing in the background and I did play myself and I sort of witnessed or experienced first hand how blood weapons function here."
"How do you have to keep in mind that the ammo is your own health and I died like several times because I was reloading, right? So you have to all the time to assess whether you really need to reload.
So this is how you guys approach survival horror scarcity, right? Instead of giving very little ammo in the map, what you're telling the player is listen, if you want to reload, think twice because it's your own blood into this.
So what can you tell me has been the evolution like for this blood weapons mechanic that you told me about in 2023? How has it evolved until what I played today?
Well, as you can see, there's several weapons in the demo that you played in 2023. We had very little possibilities, very, very few. And we were thinking about three aspects of this."
"The most gameplay focused aspects where we want you to always be fearful in that survival horror style where survival needs to be always in the top of your mind, right? So we make it more complicated because your life is literally, quite literally on the line.
And then in the other side, we are making your ammunition retrieval a little easier because it's the same for all your weapons and it's a little more simplified. It is your life and it's your ammunition.
So we've helped you in one way, but at the same time, we are making your life a little more complicated. But we also took the side of the lore of the game where religion plays a major role, right?
So when we think about religions, we always think about giving your all to your God, giving your soul, your blood, sacrificing yourself, right? So here you sacrifice yourself to defeat the enemies, to defeat the enemies of your God."
"That's interesting. And speaking about lore, I wanted to ask you, how did your background in production design and cinematography help you become what you are in this project? Because that's something that comes from your own past personally. And then you wanted to create this world with all that experience that you had before.
My background is full of arts. I studied arts in the university. I was a photographer during 10 years. But again, of this size and this challenge, it's like the first time that I approached something like that. So I tried to do my best."
"I love the movies. I love this 80s thing that mixes horror and comedy. And it's something that I try to translate to the game. But yeah, at least my past as a photographer helped me a lot to try to understand these visuals, how it works.
At the end, it's more, I think, the passion that they have for some kind of art and my professional background.
And speaking about that, you said the way you deal with the lore here, the folklore, the many references to Spanish culture, is a little bit twisted. It's very personal of yours."
"Of course, I love that you guys are referencing the Spanish culture. We've seen Blasphemous succeed in the past. We talked about that. Bestiario is coming up next. It's also referencing a lot of Spanish things.
So how would you say you are adding your personal differentiation? How it differs in terms of dealing with, you know, you have Semana Santa, you have a lot of, you know, you have bullfighting, you have a lot of references.
So which would you say is your personal touch to that, that you just mentioned?
Yeah, the main difference from other games, you mentioned Blasphemous and Bestiario. I think Bestiario, it's more like the setting is more in the actual days and Blasphemous is more Dark Souls, old age, medieval."
"And we, in Crisol, it's like a mix because we have this old stuff or sensation, the churches, the cathedral, the Gothic architecture or different types of architecture that we use it.
And we have the other part that it's, we have the shops, we have the, like the bars or a culture that is more representative from the actual one.
And we have these mix, I think works well because you have the horror, but you have even comedy when you see the signs, you can see like a poster, like a shark, a baby shark or something like it's more, it's not that horror."
"And this mix, I think it's that makes Crisol unique using the aesthetics that we are using. It's not like, it's not Blasphemous, it's not Bestiario, it's something mixed, it's something new.
And in that it's where we are trying to find the key selling point of Crisol.
That's artistically, when we met in 2023, I think you were already working with Unreal Engine 5 or it was announced or you were working on it."
"So what can you tell me technically about that, about the sort of the working with the engine you were mentioning before, working with Nanite to make the props work really fast.
And how do you think this was an achievement to you guys being a 20 something people studio working on Unreal Engine 5 from scratch?
Well, we were actually some of the first studios. If you go back to the presentation of Unreal Engine 5, they had a slate, big slate of studios, worldwide studios using Unreal Engine 5 and we were one of them."
"So we were able to use it from the very start, much, much before many others, which means we had a lot of pain during that time.
A lot of things didn't work as they should, performance wasn't there, many features didn't work properly.
But at the same time, we were learning while the engine itself was being developed. So we had a chance to grow with it and to become very, very familiar."
"So using Nanite or Lumen was very useful for us. We've been able to extract a lot from it, especially, for example, when we use Lumen.
The fact that we can dynamically light up certain locations without the need of baking those lights and being able to do that in a fairly dynamic way, it makes it much more easy for the production.
And at the same time, it gives you more artistic control because you can retry very quickly and make sure that you fine tune every scene to your liking."
"And with Nanite, for example, you can set up more complex scenes and you don't need to worry about those level of details.
And in the end, you have much more production work to make the same amount of stuff.
So in the end, you end up with less assets that have more levels of detail. In our case, we were able to make more.
Taking into consideration how many people we are, it definitely helped us accelerate the production."
"How scalable it is?
In terms of the amount of enemies, our maps are quite large, I would say.
It's an adventure that takes place in a setting where you are moving around constantly.
And in more or less 10-12 hours of gameplay, you will feel very few loading moments."
"You will feel that it's all very connected.
So for us, it means that you need to control how the game loads and how it works.
But you will not have those long loading screens. It is all very connected, very easy.
You mentioned two things that I wanted to ask about, so fantastic."
"One of them is about the lasting appeal of the game.
So you mentioned 10-12 hours. Is that more or less the duration of the whole adventure?
Do you think it's a sweet spot?
For example, I recently enjoyed Cronos: The New Dawn by Bloober Team."
"I loved that it wasn't a 20-plus hour game.
And now we are seeing smaller studios being the way into this crisis of the industry.
So would you say that is a sweet spot for you guys, your size and what players are demanding now?
Absolutely. The fact that we are a small studio means that we can make a longer adventure that is less visually appealing and maybe a little more repetitive."
"So to make it shorter but more different within the same adventure, making sure that the puzzles do not repeat themselves constantly, that you find a good amount of enemies, that your biomes, your surroundings change.
That for us is very interesting, it's very important."
"And we think in that amount of time, for the amount of people we have, we were able to make it happen.
And the other thing was about scalability.
You know, the inevitable question about the Switch 2."
"You're working on Unreal Engine 5, it's going to be released on PS5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC on February the 10th.
Have you considered porting the game to the Switch 2?
Is it a matter of the publisher, Blumhouse Games, or is it something that you would like to do?
For sure, consoles are always in your mind, and Switch 2 is definitely one of our targets."
"But it came out very far into production.
And we started in 2020 more or less, where Switch 2 was merely a dream, let's say.
So for us, being such a small team, having three coding developers, thinking about creating a specific version for Switch 2 would be, for me, very daring to say."
"But it's definitely in our minds, and we hope that we could make it happen at some moment.
Okay, and the final one for you. How does it feel?
Are you guys excited? It is around the corner.
And if there is anything that you would like, no spoilers of course, that you would like to share in terms of crazy stuff, with the blood, and with the protagonist, and with the lore, and with the characters here."
"So, excitement and crazy thing.
Of course, and excitement for the launch.
We are working so many years for that specific day, but on the other hand, you have this fear, I'm forgetting something."
"It's the same sensation that you have when you are traveling, and you feel, I have everything in my wallet?
So, this is the feeling that I have right now, and I think the team.
But in the end, this is the thing, or the sensation that we seek, and we work for."
"So, we need to leave our fears away, and be happy for the launching.
In some cases, it's a miracle to launch a game nowadays.
On the other side, to share with the player, it's enjoy the world, because Crisol is not only a game, it's more than a game, it's a world itself."
"Enjoy the universe, and I encourage the player to explore every corner of Tormentosa, because we hide a lot of secrets, a lot of excitement details.
So, I don't want to spoil it, because at the end, we create a lot of plot twists, a lot of stuff that you have in the beginning, a sensation, but it's not the real one, and I prefer to maintain in secret, but I hope the player enjoy it, and wants to know more about the universe of Crisol in the future."
"I'm looking forward to learning more about this universe.
Congratulations on making a game that is different.
I'm looking forward to exploring that island in the fictional world of Hispania.
So, thank you so much for your time, David, David, David."
