Cathedral: Crow’s Curse, a Prequel to the NES-Style Metroidvania, Gets a New Trailer and Demo

Decemberborn Interactive’s Cathedral is one of the better modern love letters to the NES. The 2019 original was a sprawling, deliberately old-looking Metroidvania: a nameless knight, a huge interconnected map, all rendered in careful 8-bit-style pixel art. Now it is getting a standalone prequel, Cathedral: Crow’s Curse, and it just showed a new trailer at the Convergence Showcase with a demo live on Steam.

The prequel does not just repeat the trick. Crow’s Curse steps the art up from the strict 8-bit look of the original into more detailed pixel work with dynamic lighting and smoother animation, and it leans into stealth. You play as Crow, a Shade Sentinel who appeared as an NPC in the first game, sneaking through cursed woods and old ruins where enemies react to sight, sound, and touch. It is heading to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC.

This is the neo-retro lane I always want more of: a team that clearly loves the era building on its own foundations instead of coasting on nostalgia. The original Cathedral earned its following the honest way, by being a genuinely good Metroidvania that happened to look like 1989. If the prequel keeps that up while sharpening the presentation, it is one to watch. The demo is on Steam now, so you can judge the feel yourself.