Another day, another
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. Nennai's Ci-en has recently been updated, but unfortunately there wasn't anything new revealed. Just a look behind the scenes on the Swamp Abomination Brood's concept art and development. However, Nennai did mention that they're currently working on the new content they announced a while back. They're keeping it under wraps for now but from the five items they disclosed before, the ones that are in development are:
- New costumes for Lilia (In-progress)
- New enemies and mid-bosses on the Highway (In-progress)
- The return of the Spider enemies from SiNiSistar (Unknown)
- Expansion of the Vampiric Swamp area (Not in development yet)
- New NPCs and events inside Arcezon Town (In-progress)
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While nothing has been shown so far, Nennai is no doubt working hard behind the scenes on the new content. And if they do get that extra artist they're looking for in their Twitter job offering, development would speed up tremendously. Though as you can see, the Vampiric Swamp expansion most likely hasn't started yet given Nennai did not include it among the content they working on. Given that the average SiNiSistar 2 dungeon took at least 5 - 7 months to develop (Vampiric Swamp and Demi-Human Cave) with only Northeast Village (2 months), Arcezon Cathedral (3 months) and Innards Cave (1 month) being rushed, they are probably saving it for last. Since it's just an expansion and not an original level built from the ground-up, I'd estimate it to take at least 1 - 2 months before its complete.
But with that info out of the way, I'd like to speculate once more on the future content we'll be getting. To imagine what it would look like when it's finally added to the game.
Costumes
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Concept sketch of an alternate Lelia wearing stockings
When it comes to the question of what kind of outfits will we getting for Lelia, I typically take a look at Nennai's prior works, both final and unused, to get an idea for it. Unfortunately, unlike Rabiane who had multiple design revisions during the first game's development, Lelia's design was practically final since the start. The only change Nennai made to her design was to give her tights while keeping the original as an alternate costume named 'Lelia_NoTights'. However, that didn't mean they didn't experiment with other ideas during development. Among these ideas was an alteration of her sister outfit where the skirt and tights were removed in favor of stockings; one even turned her dress into a leotard.
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Despite positive feedback towards the design from both fans and "Nennai's libido", Nennai did not keep it as a costume, stating that they didn't want to further delay the game just to add more costumes. They did however confirm that they will be re-adding both the slit and mini-skirt versions post-launch as extra costumes. Assuming they don't change their mind, these two outfits will be returning for the coming update, possibly with changes to Lelia's outfit to make them further stand-out.
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While it's great that those are confirmed, I personally would find it quite boring if every official alternate costume for Lelia just changes her legwear. Going further than that, I speculate that the first true outfit swap would be the second game's equivalent to Rabiane's white outfit. Considering that most of the second game's content retreads old ground, it would make for a perfect opportunity for Nennai to redo the design for Lelia. And unlike the first game where a single outfit swap required entire sprites and portraits to be redone, the process is much simpler here so it wouldn't take up as much time as before.
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Or for all we know, the next costume would be something random entirely. Nennai did retweet a Warhammer meme once saying that they wanted to make a game with 'Priests in mechas' so who knows? Maybe the next update will have Lelia dressed up as a Space Marine and fighting the Abominations with laser guns and shit. That would be something.
That's all I have to say for now on the costumes. If I were to share my own personal ideas, I would think of something like a Otherworlder Cultist outfit for Lelia as the next costume. It makes no sense lore-wise but it would be interesting to use that costume and roleplay as an alt-Lelia who turned her back on the cult and is fighting to stop it. Unfortunately, Nennai admitted in the article that they won't be taking requests as of now due to their current workload so I guess it'll have to remain a dream for now.
Highway Enemies and Mid-bosses
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Sprite of the unused Zombie Patient enemy. They were originally intended to appear in the cut Isolation Ward area back when Nennai planned for it to serve as the first dungeon. But after two months in development, the area was scrapped and it was replaced by the Vampiric Swamp on May 2023. Unlike the Bobels, these zombies did not survive their parent area's removal from the game.
Much like the Souls games SiNiSistar was inspired by, the enemies and bosses of the game are unique in terms of art direction and concept, which makes it hard to visualize what Nennai will be coming up with next. Cut content won't help us here since barring the special case of the 'Zombie Patient', all enemies with sprites have at least made it to the game in some way. So far, the only enemies I can speculate will be added are 'bandits' which Nennai wanted to add from the start of development. But I already covered them with great detail in my previous speculation post so rather than going over them again, I'd like to instead focus on what changes Nennai will be making to the Highway.
It is interesting that Nennai specifically states they will adding new enemies and mid-bosses on the Highway rather than an entirely new level. While it may seem like a no-brainer given its the overworld, the Highway as of now is thoroughly packed with enemies so that greatly limits the options of where they'll be placed. There are two notably empty areas, those being the Castlevania 2 and the Wand of Hardship dead ends, but by their nature they aren't conducive to placing enemies there.
One possibility is expansion. This is something I can definitely see happening as by expanding the Highway, Nennai can make room for the new enemies as well as creating pathways to future dungeons. Another is changing the enemy placement after the Demi-Human Raid to symbolize the switch to the mid-game. Perhaps this could be explained in the lore as new monsters settling on the Highway after the death of two Abomination Broodlings and the near total annihilation of the Demi-Humans. But another likely answer are new quests. This ties into the new events and NPCs so I'll go into more detail on that later, but basically Nennai created the quest system as a way for the player to interact and be rewarded by NPCs for helping them. Maybe through this system, Lelia will be able to receive news of disturbances from the villagers and when the quest is active, the game loads the quest version of the stage instead of the normal scene, thus allowing the player to encounter and fight the new enemies and mid-bosses.
Out of everything announced so far, the new enemies and potential quests are what I'm most hyped about personally. I seriously can't wait to see what Nennai's cooking up over there!
Let's talk Spiders
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This is all purely speculation on my part since Nennai didn't mention them at all in the recent Ci-en article so I'll keep this brief. Personally I don't think Spiders have begun development yet and are currently benched alongside the Vampiric Swamp expansion for now. It's true that an argument could be made that Spiders are among the enemies and mid-bosses being added to the Highway and that Nennai simply didn't bother to differentiate them, but I don't think so. Spiders are a prominent enemy in the first game, even if they appeared briefly. As they're popular enough to warrant so many requests for them to come back, I don't think Nennai would just add them back in as just another enemy/mid-boss on the Highway. Rather I think they'll be saving them as a prominent enemy for the Vampiric Swamp expansion or add a completely new dungeon just for them.
Again, pure speculation on my part. I could be wrong, and I'm perfectly fine with being proven wrong here! We'll just have to wait and see.
New NPCs and Events
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Concept art of Villager Woman C by Shishikura Sendou. Out of all the designs for the Villagers, hers has always been my favorite. Nennai's descriptions of her in their blog posts also made me assume that she had some kind of hidden past, like being raped by a monster prior to the game's start which I thought was the reason why she looks so gloomy. Then the game released and turns out she just shows up to tell you about the Gravekeeper then dies shortly after. Yeah, that sucked.
Now moving onto the part we're all looking forward to, new events and NPCs in Arcezon Town. When it comes to the state of the town as of writing, we can all agree that the events were lackluster. All we got was one sidequest with the pregnant woman and two events with the Drunkard and the Ruffians. And while personally I think that the silhouette of Lelia being spitroasted by the two thugs is very erotic as it leaves it to the mind's imagination, I do understand why some wouldn't like the way it turned out. (The portrait just being her shoe sucked honestly.) It was quite disappointing to have the town be described as hostile to the sisters, with some townsfolk even warning Lelia to watch out lest she be assaulted and raped should she not be careful, yet those warnings turn out to be a nothing burger.
This state of affairs was unfortunately due to the rushed state of development by the end of 2024. The Ruffian and Drunkard events were added very late in development, being implemented around January 2025. Because of its late implementation, it may have played a major factor in why the game was pushed to an April release.
But with the game finished, Nennai has stated that they will be bringing back events they weren't able to add in development. I'm expecting new events where if Lelia walks around town with damaged clothing, the townsfolk would take her to a nearby alleyway to assault her. Maybe some townsfolk would offer to give Lelia advice, items, or coin in exchange for sex, or that the Traveling Merchant that shows up after the raid is more devilish than he may seem, and might trick Lelia into falling to his debt and having her prostituting herself to make it back or be sold into slavery. All purely speculation on my end, but the possibilities are endless.
What is certain is that there will definitely be more sidequests. As I mentioned earlier in the Highway NPCs section, these quests will probably take the player outside the Town to fight monsters or find a villager that had gone missing as per the Female Mercenary, Lovestruck Guard, and Vampire Child questlines that Nennai entertained during development. (You can read more about them in my previous speculation post.) And with new NPCs, there's a opportunity for Nennai to introduce characters like the Church's Holy Knights, Mercenaries, and other characters mentioned briefly in articles as part of SiNiSistar's world-building to finally make an appearance in-game.
Haanja
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And if we're going to talk about new events in Arcezon Town, we have to talk about Haanja. Out of the many ideas for Arcezon Town that got cut, Haanja's events got shafted the most. As pointed out to me by qwertgdgdg, Nennai initially intended for Haanja to be featured in more H-scenes than she got in the final release. Originally, when Lelia was captured by the Demi-Humans, Nennai considered having the player play as Haanja for a brief section in order to rescue Lelia. Not only that, she was also supposed to have scenes where the townsfolk would assault her in the church while Lelia was off on a mission as well as have her attacked and raped by a wolf-like being. Unfortunately, none of those scenes were made as they didn't have time to implement it.
Fortunately, all is not lost. While I already expected new Haanja events to be a certainty in the coming updates, they were confirmed to be coming in a Twitter post Nennai made when discussing Haanja's voice actress:
Haanja fans, rejoice. Your prayers have been answered.
Vampires and their possible return
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A ghoul. Originally, Nennai wrote that the ghouls you encounter were corpses reanimated by vampires, not the Gravekeeper. Because they were resurrected by vampires, they developed tentacles in their mouth that made them more adept in sucking out magical energy from their victims. All traces of their vampiric heritage however was removed after vampires were written out of the game's narrative.
Before I end this long and drawn out post, I'd like to entertain the possibility of vampires making their return to the game. For those of you who don't know, vampires were originally supposed to be major antagonists in the story working together with the priests to bring about the Otherworlder's birth in Arcezon. They were intended to play a key part in many of the planned events inside Arcezon Town where they would turn many villagers into new vampires and reanimate corpses into ghouls. However, they were eventually cut and were completely erased from the game's story.
But with Nennai bringing back old concepts for Arcezon Town's events, we may see vampires making a comeback. According to their article titled '
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' where they talk about how the magic system in SiNiSistar operates, they mention that vampires often disguise themselves as elderly men or as beautiful women. Some blend into the crowd, appearing as ordinary townsfolk going by their day, while some vampires cannot and look monstrous from the get-go. Even if vampires can no longer regain their prominence in the narrative, its possible that they may return in Arcezon Town's events where Lelia discovers that the friendly old man/beautiful girl-next-door is actually a bloodsucking vampire or that she's tasked with slaying the vampire taking refuge in the woods.
That's all I have to say for now. Let me know what you think!