Story-driven Shmup Caladrius Blaze finally comes to North American Steam users next week.

Contrary to popular belief, the archaic Shoot-Em-Up genre continues to thrive overseas, thanks to the strong popularity of public arcades. Several dedicated arcades still exist across the States and Canada, however their overall popularity and existence began to fade across the mid-2000’s. The Shmup genre is now primarily designated to the digital marketplace in NA, kept alive by the love of many Indie developers and publishers willing to localize Eastern home console ports.

Moss’s Caladrius is one of many Shmups previously limited to Japanese and Korean audiences, until 2016’s release on the PS4. Available exclusively through the PSN Store, Caladrius Blaze is the updated version of the arcade, PS3 and 360 release of Caladrius, complete with new characters, levels, and higher-resolution sprites and frame artwork. What may come as a shock to Shmup veterans, Caladrius Blaze holds a surprising amount of story content across its cast of playable characters- possibly the most of any arcade Shmup.

Publisher H2 Interactive recently announced that Caladrius Blaze will see a digital PC release on Steam next week. The PC release includes all content from the PS4 version, including the extra characters and the option of playing the original arcade release, Caladrius AC. The PC release also supports Steam Achievements, Trading Cards, and Online Leaderboards. The system requirements are as follows courtesy of Steam:

Caladrius Blaze will release for PC via Steam on 1/12; the store page is live, however a price and pre-purchase option are not yet available. The 360, PS3, and physical PS4 versions of Caladrius and Caladrius Blaze can be imported from the likes of Amazon and Play-Asia.

Source: H2 Interactive
Image courtesy of Moss, H2 Interactive