‘Battleblock Theater’ hits Xbox Live on April 3

Get ready: The curtain’s about to raise on Battleblock Theater. The Behemoth’s long-awaited follow-up to the smash hit Castle Crashers will hit Xbox LIVE on April 3 for 1200 Microsoft Points.

The Behemoth’s oft-delayed title, first revealed in 2009 as simply “Game #3,” will indeed finally see the light of day next month, as the the publisher announced on its dev blog with an accompanying video. The video is sure to make you feel like a “stupid jerk” for doubting the developer:

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Battleblock Theater sees square-headed Harry Hattington and his nameless, round-headed buddy shipwrecked on a mysterious island. The two discover a mysterious theater filled with prisoners, leading gold-greedy Hattington to force the prisoners – and his round-headed best bud (that would be you, the player) – into deadly, grotesque plays. On The Behemoth’s announcement blog, the dev promises that players will experience “technologically evil cats, friendship, betrayal, co-optional justice, and several other forms of visual and audible stimulation.”

“It’s so close we can taste it,” the dev writes, “which doesn’t really make sense since we don’t use taste as a measure of how close something is, but I think you get the point, right?”

The Behemoth’s previous outing, Castle Crashers, is arguably one of the most enduring and widely-celebrated titles of this console generation. The side-scrolling beat-’em-up was widely lauded for its cartoony aesthetic, over-the-top humor and addictive multiplayer. The game is still a consistent seller, with the game marking three million players in September. Whether Battleblock Theater will reach such heights of popularity, obviously, remains to be seen.

Are you looking forward to Battleblock Theater? Do you think you’ll play it as much as you played Castle Crashers? Are you still playing Castle Crashers? Let us know in the comments below.