Salt and Sanctuary
Explore a haunting, punishing island in this stylized 2D action RPG. Salt and Sanctuary combines fast and brutal 2D combat with richly developed RPG mechanics in a cursed realm of forgotten cities, blood-soaked dungeons, and desecrated monuments.
Salt and Sanctuary is a souls-like, metroidvania and dark fantasy game
developed and published by Ska Studios.
Released on May 17th 2016 is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux
in 13 languages: English, German, Japanese, French, Italian, Spanish - Spain, Korean, Portuguese - Brazil, Polish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Turkish.
It has received 20,211 reviews of which 18,124 were positive and 2,087 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.8 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 17.99€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Salt and Sanctuary into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Salt and Sanctuary through various videos and screenshots.
Requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS *: Windows Vista
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8 GHz or equivalent
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: DirectX 10 compatible video card with shader model 3.0 support
- DirectX: Version 10
- Storage: 2 GB available space
- Sound Card: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card and drivers
- Additional Notes: Xbox360 Gamepad recommended
MacOS
- OS: Lion 10.7.5
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8 GHz or equivalent
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: OpenGL 3.0+ support (2.1 with ARB extensions acceptable)
- Storage: 2 GB available space
- Additional Notes: SDL_GameController devices fully supported
Linux
- OS: glibc 2.15+, 32/64-bit. S3TC support is NOT required.
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8 GHz or equivalent
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: OpenGL 3.0+ support (2.1 with ARB extensions acceptable)
- Storage: 2 GB available space
- Additional Notes: SDL_GameController devices fully supported
Reviews
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Salt and Sanctuary is a certified hood classic when it comes to 2D Souls-likes, probably one of the best ones around. It's a must play if you're a fan of the genre!
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PRO Souls like metroidvania Map levels are insanely detailed and vast Clever use of shortcuts Tons of weapon options Magic is great addition Upgrade system plus creed devotion is game changing Parry and block system is same like dark souls. Cons No map
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Salt and Sanctuary is a gem for Souls-like fans, offering a dark and immersive experience that hooks the players from start to finish. I was pleasantly surprised by the game's atmosphere. The game does not visually hold back, from splashing the background with blood to the disturbing bosses. The bosses are often unexpected and are rather easy, due to the simplicity of the combat. The leveling and progression system is flexible, allowing you to customize your character to suit your preferred playstyle. While the gameplay may seem straightforward at first glance, it quickly reveals its depth and interconnectedness of the world. Suddenly you start to recognize areas again and unlock shortcuts. The game could really need navigational tools though. While the interconnected world is a joy to explore, the lack of an in-game map can make orientating a daunting task. While online maps are available, they often contain spoilers and ruin the joy of discovery and exploration. Despite the simplicity of the combat and the map issue, the game is amazing, and I can highly recommend trying it out yourself.
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It's not Dark Souls, it's Dark Salts. For a game that imitates the Dark Souls formula, I gotta raise my hat to S&S. Wow, does it almost nail everything. This game is fun. This game is captivating. This game is unique. This game is rewarding. It's super fun, I played around for 17 hours in 2 days back to back, the world is fantastically woven together, dark, grim, and gritty yet has glimpses of hope and life. It's not so common when a game takes a leap of faith and tries something new in an already established, wanted, and much-loved genre, such as the Metroidvania and Soulslike genres like S&S did to the point of excellence. Exploration is rewarding, maps are Metroidvania-esque certified, small and condensed, easy to reason about and remember, and almost always end with a boss that after beating you can progress to the next area. Your progress, as with Metroidvanias, is halted by certain abilities and tools you lack till you progress in the right direction, beautifully done as well. One point of concern is how fast travel works and how hubs work, you can only fast travel to a hub where there's a fast-travel NPC that you added (Or by consuming one of two items that let you travel to a hub, regardless of its NPCs state) and some NPCs in that hub (such as the ironsmith, will only do business with you if you follow the same religion as them, more on that later) so this might be uncomfortable at first. Those NPCs can be added to any hub by using items you find while exploring the island. And the same applies to upgrade-my-armor NPC, sell-me-stuff NPC, etc. You have to find their items first to have access to them, but this isn't an issue at all as you find them as you play. I'm not sure if there are enough items for each hub to have all of its NPCs, but I just traveled to where my ironsmith is and did what I needed to do there. At the start, I was a bit bothered by the lack of a map I should mention, (this game has no map) and how fast travel works. For a Metroidvania, to me, it's heresy to not have a map, or markers, to see the full picture, what have to you missed, etc., So you should be aware of this, it's going to take a lot of memory power to remember what you are doing, where are you going, and what area is linked to what area, and where does this shortcut take me to. But also, honestly, it's quite straightforward unless you want to check every part of the map, of course. You keep progressing till you can't due to lack of ability, and then you circle back till you find said ability. Ultimately, there are a lot of shortcuts (as is in Metroidvanis and this is par for the course) that can get you, unexpectedly, from very deep underneath to high above, and from the far East to the far West across the water (shout out to Castlevania and its ferrymen) The weapons, armor, shields, charms, and spells? It's mind-blowing, for a 2D, there are so many weapons and playstyles, upgrades, and resources, truly it felt like a Souleslike and I loved it so much. The fighting is fun, melee weapons are generous in range (I only played a knight build), and enemies are fair for the most part (be careful of the peaceful horse-looking thing... it's not peaceful). The fighting is satisfying, there are buffs and potions, for both you and your weapons. You level by consuming accumulated salt (DS's souls), in a tree of abilities and skills. The game balances itself by predefining routes in which you can progress, so you can't for instance dumb all your salt into strength or stamina, you have to get to the next stamina node in the tree by purchasing the strength node before it, etc. I think for the most part, it's well laid out, but it's hard to say for certain without playing the game multiple times with different playstyles. You pick a direction to branch into from the start based on your playstyle (knights go for strength and equip load, mages go for wisdom nodes on the opposite end of the tree, etc) and then you progress in it and it should have reasonable nodes that help your playstyle but at any time you can unlock any node given it's not very deep in the tree. There are so many bosses, most of them you can beat on 1st or 2nd try if you have played those kinds of games before, so not a challenge there but still, I appreciate what they tried to do given the restrictions of 2D vs 3D. Although having played other top-tier Metroidvanias games, such as Hollow Knight and Blasphemous, I know for a fact that bosses can be done better, and in a more engaging and challenging way. For the most part in S&S, bosses are just something to bulldoze your way over (at least that's how I did it). Ultimately, I wouldn't say the not-so-difficult bosses take away from the experience as it is more in the world and exploring anyway. Down to the story and how it entangles itself at the end, and how it reaches the usual Soulslike epilogue, where no secrets are left, no darkness unlit, and no salts unshaken. There are a lot of NPCs that have their quests, need your help, and offer theirs, a lot of inspirations again from Soulslike even here but that is much welcome. There are creeds, tribes, or religions you can enter and leave (DS's covenants) they control what kind of healing potion you get, very slightly your ending, they stand for different ideals and ideas, aspirations and goals, so you can pick accordingly. Or you can just ignore all that and pick based on gameplay benefits that is a better fit for your character. You can anger them, side with only one, or be a man of many faiths, though such a path is a fool's path. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this game, it's something new despite masterfully pasting together ideas from multiple other games and it felt original and very, super unique. Glow ever brightly, Saltborns. We are made from it and to it, we return.
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If you're looking for souls, you'll be disappointed, but castlevania gang's got some good eats coming their way. Just remember: OG wiki's dead, Fandom is 30% complete and half of that is plagiarized from the OG wiki, never trust John Fextralife's lies. There is no in-game map, Fextralife maps are pathetic, [url=https://kaszub09.github.io/SSMap/]this github leafletjs thing is the best you're gonna get. [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/saltandsanctuary/mods/5]Pax Empyrean is a great mod, even especially for your first playthrough. Is it worth the 20? I pirated it, beat it, bought it, beat it, installed an overhaul, beat it again. I'd say it's alright.
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Last Updates
| Steam data | 19 November 2024 05:26 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 20 January 2025 10:02 |
| Steam price | 22 January 2025 20:44 |
| Steam reviews | 22 January 2025 19:54 |
Online players
63
Developer
Ska Studios
Publisher
Ska Studios
Release
17 May 2016
Platforms