French-Bread just announced Melty Blood: Twi-Lumina for 2027

French-Bread and Type-Moon have announced Melty Blood: Twi-Lumina, a new entry in the 2D fighting game series scheduled for release in early 2027. The initial reveal surfaced briefly on social media before the post was pulled down, but the early 2027 launch window is locked in. Oh yeah, this happened during EVO...

I always thought Melty Blood is a beautiful game. The sprite work moves with a fluidity that most modern 3D fighters struggle to replicate. French-Bread's approach to animation is incredibly labor-intensive. The studio models the characters in 3D first. Then artists trace and paint over the frames to create 2D sprites. This process results in gorgeous visuals but takes a massive amount of time per character.

The franchise started as a doujin project sold at Comiket in 2002. It was a spin-off of the Tsukihime visual novel. French-Bread eventually brought the series to arcades and home consoles. The most recent release was 2021's Melty Blood: Type Lumina. That game launched alongside the first half of the Tsukihime remake.

Twi-Lumina will likely coincide with the second half of that visual novel remake, titled Tsukihime -The other side of red garden-. Type Lumina focused heavily on characters from the Near Shore routes. A new game gives French-Bread the room to add the Far Shore characters in their proper new contexts.

Six years after Type Lumina

Fighting game development cycles are getting longer. A 2027 release puts Twi-Lumina six years past its predecessor. French-Bread spent part of that gap updating Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes. The studio also continued patching Type Lumina with free DLC characters like Neco-Arc and Mash Kyrielight.

Type Lumina launched on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam. Melty Blood: Twi-Lumina has been officially announced for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam. While highly anticipated and expected for modern fighting games, rollback netcode has not been officially guaranteed for Melty Blood: Twi-Lumina in its announcement.

Type Lumina introduced the Moon Skill and Moon Drive systems. These mechanics gave players access to powerful attacks tied to a regenerating gauge. It was a major shift from the varied Moon phases found in older titles like Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code. Twi-Lumina will have to decide whether to iterate on the Type Lumina mechanics or introduce a completely new system.

I still have my original PC CD-ROM

Getting into Melty Blood used to require navigating a maze of community wikis and importing physical discs from Japan. I remember downloading fan-made translation patches just to understand the menu options in Act Cadenza. The community kept the game alive through sheer stubbornness and a peer-to-peer netplay client called CCCaster.

Now the series has official global releases and main stage presence at Evo. The transition from a niche anime fighter to a mainstream genre staple took two decades. Twi-Lumina has the advantage of building on an established global player base.

The roster is another major question mark. Type Lumina launched with 14 characters and eventually expanded to 22 through free updates. Several fan favorites from the classic era are still missing. Players have been asking for Sion Eltnam Atlasia to return for years. Since Sion is the original protagonist of the Melty Blood storyline, her absence in Type Lumina was heavily felt.

We will likely see the first gameplay trailers later this year. Until then, Type Lumina still has an active player base on PC if you want to practice your air dashes.