Cuphead has by now established itself as one of the best games of the last decade, so more Cuphead content is bound to turn heads. Its expansion, The Delicious Last Course, has been a long time coming, having first been announced back in 2018 and seen multiple delays since then- but at long last, it’s finally almost upon us. Ahead of Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course’s imminent launch, here, we’re going to take a look at a few key details that you should know about it.
STORY
The Delicious Last Course is promising to be a meaty new experience, but what exactly is the narrative conceit for it? New character Chef Saltbaker serves as a springboard for the expansion. As it turns out, he has a recipe in mind for a very special Wondertart that will make The Legendary Chalice a.k.a. Miss Chalice “as real as real can be”. To fetch the ingredients for that recipe, Cuphead, Mugman, and Miss Chalice head to a new location. Speaking of which…
INKWELL ISLE
The new location being added to Cuphead with The Delicious Last Course is Inkwell Isle. As the sole new island being added to the game with the expansion, it’s going to be quite large in size. It is, in fact, bigger than any island in the base game, and has various biomes all smushed together into a single area. Studio MDHR has also confirmed there will be plenty of optional secrets and challenges to keep players occupied.
MISS CHALICE
The star of the show in The Delicious Last Course is going to be Miss Chalice, who’s a completely new playable character with her own attacks and abilities. As you may have gathered from the core narrative setup of the expansion, Miss Chalice is going to be central to the new content- though, interestingly enough, she’s being retroactively added to the base experience as well. That means as soon as you’ve acquired her in the DLC, you can go back and play through all the content of the base game as Miss Chalice as well.
MISS CHALICE GAMEPLAY
How exactly is Miss Chalice going to play though, and how will she be different in terms of her moveset and abilities? Well, several ways. For starter, she comes with an extra health point, which in and of itself is a huge deal in a game like this one. Where her movement is concerned, things such as a double jump, a dash parry, and an invincible roll also collectively set her apart from what’s come before quite significantly. She also has new Super Arts, while her regular attacks also come with different spread, rate of fire, and more. All in all, you can expect playing as her to be a very different experience.
NEW WEAPONS AND CHARMS
As you might expect, The Delicious Last Course is also bringing plenty of new weapons and charms for players to mess about with. Where weapons are concerned, there’s the Twist-Up (which fires three tornado-like projectiles), the Converge (which fires a three-way shot), and the Crackshot (a straight firing weapon with high damage). Meanwhile, new charms include the likes of the Heart Parry (which restores a health point once for every few parries), and the Astral Cookie, which is what allows you to play as Miss Chalice.
NEW BOSSES
One of Cuphead’s several major draws was its excellent boss fights- how well-designed they were, how challenging they were, how incredibly and consistently enjoyable they were. It should come as no surprise that that’s something that The Delicious Last Course is looking to double down on. There will be five new main bosses for players to take down in the expansion- we’re not going to go into detail about what and who they are here, because as anyone who’s played the base game will tell you, that sort of stuff is best experiences unspoiled. Suffice to say though, there’s every reason to be excited.
LENGTH
With all the new content that Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course is adding, exactly how long can we expect the expansion to be? One can never be too sure about the length of a game before it is out, but according to Studio MDHR, there’s quite a bit on offer here. Speaking in a recent interview with Wccftech, studio director, producer, and lead artist Maja Moldenhauer said that it’ll be between three to five hours long for “seasoned” Cuphead players- which means that for someone that isn’t as experienced with the base game, it is probably going to be a longer experience.
ANIMATIONS
Of course, when you think of Cuphead, you instantly think of its gorgeous visuals and incredible animations, and how perfectly they resembled classic 1930s cartoons. Unsurprisingly, Studio MDHR has doubled down on that particular aspect with The Delicious Last Course. In fact, the development team put in as much work on the DLC animations as they did for the entire base game. Speaking with IGN, the aforementioned Moldenhauer explained: “We really wanted to experiment with the art form… I don’t have an inventory yet or a frame count, but it is comparable to the entire core game in this one DLC. With the additional frames of animation, we moved from that more basic style, early thirties [Disney], closer to Fantasia. I say that loosely, it is not anywhere near Fantasia quality, but it’s something we strive for, something we aspire to.”
LOCATION TRANSFORMATIONS
Boss transformations is something else that the base Cuphead experience has become known and loved for widely, and The Delicious Last Course is putting quite an interesting spin on that. We can, of course, expect bosses to transform and take different forms as we fight against them, but The Delicious Last Course is bringing location transformations to the table as well, which should make things that much more varied and dynamic. Speaking to IGN, Moldenhauer said: “One of the things that we’re known for are boss transformations in the core game. One thing that we did this time was location transformations. In the Mortimer Freeze boss fight that you’ll see, he’s not in the same arena through the whole fight. Every phase brings you to a new location, which means lots more watercolor background paintings.”
PRICE AND LAUNCH
The wait for Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course has been a long one, and from everything we’ve seen of it so far, it seems like it may very well end up being worth that long wait- but when exactly is it coming? Well, at long last, it’s right around the corner. Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course will launch on June 30 for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC, and will also be playable on Xbox Series X/S and PS5 via backward compatibility- though you shouldn’t expect any visual, performance, or technical enhancements on current-gen consoles. Meanwhile, the expansion’s price has been confirmed as $7.99. Studio MDHR has also confirmed that at some point in the future, a bundle containing both the game game and its expansion will also be available, though further details on that haven’t yet been shared.
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