There, the player meets a strange old man who gives them an icon of one of three creeds the player says they are a member of, helping them in their quest to find the lost princess. The player places this icon in the first Sanctuary and then continues exploring the island, gathering salt in order to gain power, as in this universe, humans are known as Saltborn and are ostensibly largely composed of it. There, it is possible to meet several NPC's with side-stories, an unnamed Knight, Thief, and Sorcerer. The player also meets a highly sinister talking Scarecrow that threatens that they will perish.
In the process of conversing with these NPCs throughout the journey, they come to realize that the island is made up of copies of dangerous locations from the various continents of the world, and that some kind of power "collected" them. The player realizes that the Scarecrow is the avatar of a being known as the Nameless God, and also that the princess they were searching for may not have even been royalty, but rather a slave that was to be sacrificed to the Nameless God in exchange for ending the current war, as has been done many times in the past. An optional boss fight also reveals that the Nameless God has killed the current gods of the world, known as the Three, by trapping them in special coffins and receiving and answering prayers meant for them, as gods require worship to survive.
Finally, the main character meets the old man for the final time, and he reveals that he was once Jaret, a great king who once ruled the island and agreed to be the servant of the Nameless God in exchange for power. The Nameless God is an incredibly powerful being who is Saltborn (i.e. mortal), but desires to be a divine being, yet is unable to no matter how much power he collects due to him not having a soul of fire like other gods.
The player travels to the Nameless God's castle and defeats him, finding a well with which they are able to escape from the island and presumably end the cycle of war that the Nameless God perpetuated. Alternatively, they can choose to pick up the Nameless God's helmet and gain his full power, but be trapped on the island.
Development
The game was first announced in an open letter from the developer to the PlayStation Blog on August 28, 2014. The game was released for the PlayStation 4 worldwide on March 15, 2016, and for Microsoft Windows on May 17, 2016. The game also released on PlayStation Vita on March 28, 2017. A Nintendo Switch port, handled by BlitWorks, was released worldwide on August 2, 2018 via the Nintendo eShop, with a physical retail released on December 11, 2018 under the title Salt and Sanctuary: Drowned Tome Edition.
The initial idea behind the game was conceived as a fusion of the combat of the Souls series with the studio's previous Dishwasher series. The Castlevania series, particularly Symphony of the Night and the later Nintendo DS installments (which are noted for their free-roaming exploration-based design), also served as inspiration for the gameplay. The tech demo received a large amount of positive feedback, so the developers decided to continue with that idea.
The game took about two and a half years to develop, though the underlying systems were created before development started in earnest. The original game as designed was much more complex, but some cuts had to be made due to the small size of the development team.
Reception
Salt and Sanctuary received "generally favorable" reception, according to review aggregator Metacritic.
IGN awarded it a score of 8.6 out of 10, saying "You could call Salt and Sanctuary a 2D mashup of Dark Souls and Castlevania, and you'd be right. But such a simple pronouncement would be a disservice to the tremendous amount of thought that's gone into Salt and Sanctuary, whether it's in the graphic style that evokes horror through the style of comic strips or in the intricate web of dungeons and castles serves as its map."
Pascal Tekaia of RPGamer rated the game 4.5/5, calling it "a remarkable fusion of several distinct styles" and "more than just a passable clone", while expressing dismay at the minimalist storyline and what he called "cheap deaths".
Griffin McElroy of Polygon rated the game 9/10, saying that it accomplished the "impossible" feat of "borrowing the mechanics of another game franchise without getting lost in derivation". He called the game a "loving" adaptation that rivals even its source material.