I love Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights. Whenever anyone mentions Hollow Knight, Salt & Sanctuary, or Blasphemous, I’m the person who always asks, “Have you played Ender Lilies? You should really play Ender Lilies.” It is one of my favorite games in the ‘Metroidvania’ genre, owing to its uniquely floaty gameplay, haunting artstyle, and incredibly deep themes present in its story.
Naturally, then, I’ve also been playing the Early Access version of Ender Lilies’ sequel, Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist. And at PAX West 2025, I had the chance to play through a never-before-seen area of the game, while I talked casually with publisher Binary Haze’s CEO & Creative Director, Hiroyuki Kobayashi (with the assistance of our interpreter, Sarah Blackwell), about both games. The experience left me curious and eager for the full release of Ender Magnolia, and I hope it will for you as well.
While I sat down and navigated the menu for Ender Magnolia, I asked Hiroyuki Kobayashi what inspired Binary Haze and developers Adglobe and Live Wire to pursue a sequel that goes in such a different direction than the first game. After all, the game takes place decades in the future, features a different protagonist, with different gameplay elements, fighting a different threat, in a different setting. While there is an aesthetic and ludic connection, the narrative connection is seemingly very limited.
His response resonated with me: according to Kobayashi, the connections are there, just beneath the surface and just behind the mind. In other words, the most apparently narrative connections are thematic. For example: the Blight — the ever-present, consuming entity from the first game, which brought ruin to the Kingdom of Land’s End — does not make a return, but still nature has reclaimed vast swaths of the new “Land of Fumes”. Lilac does not cleanse rotten spirits and bring them to follow her, as our Lily did in the first game, but she can Attune with the Homunculi who occupy the world.
With all that said, and after I finished examining my loadout, now in game, Kobayashi still reassured me that there were “more direct connections that one might expect,” including one that “you’ll know immediately when you see it.”
I acknowledged this answer, and focused on the gameplay. I found myself in a scarlet forest of sorts, filled with strange and aggressive creatures. A far cry both from the mechanized-industrial enemies frequently found in the currently available parts of Ender Magnolia, and also very different from the corrupted knights and monsters found throughout Ender Magnolia.
The Ender series, it seems, takes a lot of joy in playing with expectations, and treading new ground with each new area.
The areas in Ender Magnolia are inventive, gorgeous, and mysterious
But, despite facing new foes, I know Ender Magnolia’s combat by now, and so I was able to quickly dispatch the new enemies I came across. Kobayashi was smiling, happy to see a journalist who clearly had played before and knew how to play well. Or maybe he was just being polite. But, in either case, as I fought a large behemoth of an enemy, I asked Kobayashi to clarify his statement regarding themes. After all, Ender Magnolia, like Ender Lilies before it, is a game you play for the story; for those themes.
He smiled, and for a long while spoke to Sarah, who dutifully wrote onto her notepad. While he did, I charged through more of the new area and — ah, that one got me. I mistimed my attack, sending one of my homunculi forward at the wrong time, and as a result landed in the cloudy, acidic spray of a beautifully designed butterfly enemy, killing me (and proving that Ender Magnolia can be just as challenging as Ender Lilies). As I did, Kobayashi took note, said one last thing, and let Sarah interpret. Paraphrased:
“You can see the themes just there. Hardship is one of them. But also decay. Difficulty. But things are different now, in this new place. Lilac isn’t putting down the bosses that Lily had to. Instead, she saves them. The world is more colorful, but also still dark. The world is less lonely — there are more people to talk to now, where before there were none — but those people are still only just managing. Just like you, just now, when you died; just managing. But there is more, and that is what we are trying to show.”
Like before, the memories are sad at first, and heartwrenching as you gain context on them
“There is more” is a statement I take up. But I don’t need to clarify much; instead, I think about what I’ve seen so far of Ender Magnolia, and I think I understand. And as I fight my way through those same butterflies, and come into a new area of the forest I hadn’t seen before (a true feat, given the teleportation gimmick and lack of map in the early build I was playing), I feel like I see what is happening.
Yes, Ender Magnolia is a different game to Ender Lilies. A fact that did, at first, make me wary. And I was still a bit wary until this experience. But after? “There is more.” What that entails is not just that there is more to the combat, to the hours played, to the characters, but also to the world. Things are progressing, and progress takes time, and there is a lot of hardship along the way. There is a lot of change.
But, ultimately, things improve. There is still fighting to be done, people (or homunculi) to save, and things to do, but now the world is more colorful, the atmosphere more alive, and rescue much more possible. The true ending of Ender Lilies was hopeful, but bittersweet, and it only came at the end of an overwhelming amount of tragedy and loss. But, because of that ending, now Lilac — decades on — seems to have the chance that Lily never did: to save the Land of Fumes before the end.
And, given the tools and abilities at Lilac’s disposal, and her Homunculi allies, Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist seems primed to fully engage with that. Lilac might be someone new and somewhere new, but she is still after the same goal as our Lily: endure hardship so that she can end it for others.
One improvement from Ender Lilies: Lilac actually talks, fitting in with the new, still-living world
As I’m expressing this (not nearly as eloquently), and Sarah is rapidly interpreting my thoughts to Kobayashi, he has a big smile. In English, he says: “You got it! You got it!”
As he says this, I die again, and my time with the game, and with Kobayashi, is up. Despite this (and despite wanting to play more), I came away delighted with the results of our conversation and of my hands-on time.
Ender Magnolia was already high on my list of most-anticipated titles, but thanks to my time with the game and one of its lead creators, it has jumped up nearly to number one. The gameplay is as smooth and elegant as ever, with a lot of the folds from the first game ironed out. The world is just as deep and beautiful, and at times moreso. And the story? Well, the story promises to be something truly brilliant, truly grand, and something that anyone who played Ender Lilies must experience, and anyone who hasn’t still probably should.
Oh, and yeah: the bossfights are just as good as before.
Whether Ender Magnolia can actually live up to that promise, and make it work for the entire 35+ hour experience remains to be seen, but based on what I’ve seen, and based on Hiroyuki Kobayashi’s statement… I’m very confident Binary Haze, Adglobe, and Live Wire will deliver.
Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist already has “Overwhelmingly Positive” reviews from over 3700 reviewers for its Early Access release, and — especially for the price — it is already more than worth purchasing, in my opinion. If you haven’t already, you can purchase Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist as an Early Access title on Steam here.
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Graves
Graves is an avid writer, web designer, and gamer, with more ideas than he could hope to achieve in a lifetime. But, armed with a mug of coffee and an overactive imagination, he'll try. When he isn't working on a creative project, he is painting miniatures, reading cheesy sci-fi novels, or making music.
