Blumhouse's bloody BioShock-inspired Crisol gets release date

Crisol: Theater of Idols, the next game from publisher Blumhouse Games, will launch on Feb. 11 for PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. Ahead of its release date reveal, Polygon played a new chapter from the upcoming horror game and learned more about its unusual blood-shooter premise.

First announced at Summer Game Fest 2024, where Blumhouse Games revealed its initial batch of games, Crisol: Theater of Idols is a first-person horror shooter. It’s the debut game for Vermila Studios, a new development studio based in Spain. The game takes place in a reimagined vision of the country, dubbed Hispania, and follows a hero named Gabriel on a quest to fulfill a mission for the Sun God.

Image: Vermila Studios/Blumhouse Games

Polygon went hands-on with Crisol at Summer Game Fest 2025, playing an early chapter of the game. The latest demo I tried picked up shortly after that last one left off. I’m in control of Gabriel, dropped into a sort of gloomy train yard. It’s not long before I’m reacquainted with Crisol’s unique (and morbid) hook: blood bullets. To kill the creepy monsters that lurk around Hispania, Gabriel needs to drain some blood out of his body, sacrificing some health for ammo.

The demo showed off some new weapons that Gabriel can feed his blood into, including a sniper rifle that he refills by smashing his fist against a thorn on the gun frame.

Gabriel holds a sniper in Crisol: Theater of Idols.

Aside from showing off new guns, the demo highlighted some of Crisol’s more traditional horror gameplay. I needed to make it through an industrial scrapyard by adjusting the flow of water in pipes and hunting down a valve to deactivate hot steam barriers. I also had to engage in a bit of stealth when I came face to face with a horrifying, unkillable monster that stalked me in specific rooms, forcing me to hide out in storage containers.

Even with its strange blood hook, Crisol is shaping up to be Blumhouse Games’ most traditional release yet in what’s been an eclectic start to its publishing career. The first-person shooter premise that calls BioShock to mind and I’m starting to see little shades of Resident Evil in its item puzzles. Wrap that up in Spanish folklore and a shooting system that turns your greatest defense into a weakness, and you’ve got a recipe for a unique horror game that’s both reminiscent of its influences and its own thing entirely.

Crisol: Theater of Idols launches on Feb. 11 for PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X.