Castlevania: Belmont's Curse Leads On How It Came To Be, Not Being A Roguelike, And The Potential Future Of The Series
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As many great Metroidvania games have been proving in its absence over the past two decades, Castlevania is one of the most influential series in all of gaming. Despite the impact that early entries made on side-scrollers and how Symphony of the Night was one half of the invention of an entire genre, Castlevania simply hasn’t had a notable presence for a strangely long time.
Sure, there’s been a bunch of remastered collections to keep long-term fans happy and several seasons of the animated series are responsible for casual gamers even knowing the property at all, but a new game is something we’ve not seen since 2014’s divisive Lord of the Shadows 2. And a proper Castlevania in the classic style that everyone loves was even further back.
That long wait is finally coming to an end later this year with Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, a new game from former Dead Cells developers and the excellent Rogue Prince of Persia team, Evil Empire. As you’d hope, Konami is also heavily involved in waking Castlevania from its long slumber, with the two teams working in close collaboration during the game’s development.
We Can Thank Dead Cells’ Castlevania Collab For Belmont’s Curse
After getting the chance to preview Belmont’s Curse last month, I took part in a group interview with two of the leads behind the game, Konami producer Tsutomu Taniguchi and Evil Empire creative director Emmanuel Nouaille. The two explained that the surprising team-up between the French and Japanese studios actually came quite naturally.
“When I joined the company, and Castlevania started to come to the table, I had my own feelings about how I wanted to approach it and make it fresh”, Taniguchi explained through a translator. “One thing that I was thinking about was how amazing Dead Cells was, and that’s when Evil Empire approached us to say, ‘Hey, do you want to make a collaboration DLC for Dead Cells?’. And so it was really fortunate timing that they approached us, but then we were obviously like, ‘Let’s not just make a DLC, let’s make a new game’. That’s how we came about with two projects running at the same time.”
Despite the two joking about Belmont’s Curse having a different origin depending on who you ask, Nouaille backed up Taniguchi and revealed that Evil Empire had “a lot of freedom” thanks to the strong collaboration between the studios. Despite the time difference, the two had weekly, sometimes even daily, meetings, with Nouaille thinking of Konami as “not just a publisher” but a “true creative partner”.
RELATED PREVIEW
Belmont’s Curse Was Made With The Intent To Go Back To What Makes Castlevania So Beloved
Due to Evil Empire’s pedigree and how mainstream the genre has become in the wake of Hades, many assumed that Belmont’s Curse was a roguelike similar to The Rogue Prince of Persia. It became such a misnomer for the game that Konami even came out and set the record straight following its reveal earlier this year. Even still, that assumption was a reasonable one, and something I asked the two about and whether it was even considered.
“I think everyone's curious about that,” Taniguchi replied. “So the reason we stuck with the action exploration genre is that this is the first title in a pretty long time, and we really wanted to go back to the basics of what makes Castlevania, Castlevania. We had that core element decided when we started thinking about the project, but when we spoke with Evil Empire about what to do, really the only thing we said to them was, ‘Hey, we really want to capture what made Castlevania’. Apart from that, we gave them creative freedom.”
If anyone was going to swerve towards roguelikes out of the two teams, it was Evil Empire. While Nouaille noted that the team “talked about absolutely everything and explored every idea possible”, potentially including a roguelike structure, he and the team clearly sided with Taniguchi in wanting to bring Castlevania back to what it was known for.
“Clearly, if you want to create a new Castlevania, the best idea is to get as close as possible to the spirit of the franchise, and the exploration action genre was as close as possible to that,” Nouaille noted. “It was absolutely natural for our company, but we had a lot of discussion because we all grew up with different games and experiences, so it was interesting to find the right spot together. After that, it was like a highway to hell, literally.”
Belmont's Curse isn't a roguelike, but you can still feel the Rogue Prince of Persia and Dead Cells DNA in how it feels to play, which is absolutely a good thing.
Konami Wants To Bring Castlevania To A Younger Audience, Even With Its High Difficulty
As the return to the 2D action exploration genre makes very clear, honouring Castlevania’s legacy is a very important goal for Belmont’s Curse. That being said, the developers also knew they needed to change things up and innovate to bring the series forward, and hopefully towards a new generation.
Taniguchi pointed out that he used to play the original Castlevania on the NES when he was younger, and that the series was a mainstay all those years ago. Nowadays, though, he doesn’t “feel that there are any ten-year-olds playing Castlevania”, which is what he wants Belmont’s Curse to hopefully change and usher in a younger generation to the series.
“It was the greatest difficulty to find the right balance between innovation and, of course, wanting to create a game for all fans of Castlevania, but not just the fans,” Nouaille added. “You want to address Castlevania fans, so when we started, we talked about key pillars. What is the core gameplay? It’s very important because we have a lot of different references, maybe more than 30 games in the franchise. The real challenge for the team was finding the right balance between innovation and tradition.”
Having played Belmont’s Curse for myself, though, I found it surprisingly challenging and very reminiscent of earlier games in the series. While it’s not as punishing as the original Castlevania, it’s certainly not a walk in the park and something that the targeted younger generation might have a tough time with.
Taniguchi says that, as an action RPG like Symphony of the Night, Belmont’s Curse has a level-up mechanic that lets Rose get stronger over time. This, he says, is one of the core ways that the game is balanced so that any player can feasibly beat it. On Evil Empire’s end, the discussion surrounding difficulty was more complicated, as it wasn’t just viewed as one specific element.
As I noted in my preview, Symphony of the Night is clearly a big influence on Belmont's Curse, with Rose controlling very similarly to Alucard.
“When we talk about difficulty, we talk about everything, not just the campaign,” Nouaille explains. “We talk about the clues, we talk about the ability to see and understand the structure and level design. When we talk about difficulty, we also talk about the capacity to create a specific build. When you unlock some weapons, when you find some relics, when you find some extension of Vania move. We use the term Vania move for this game, and the whip is the most important Vania move because it’s used for both combat and traversal, so we wanted something with a lot of responsiveness. We have something very responsive, very fluid, very easy to use, so when it comes to difficulty, the range is very large and very progressive.”
Konami Can’t Say More About Castlevania’s Future, But Taniguchi Has High Hopes
While it’s a blessing to finally get a new mainline Castlevania game after more than two decades, that wait has left Castlevania fans anxious to see if Konami views Belmont’s Curse as the start of a new era or if it’s just a once-in-a-red moon revisit to the beloved series. I asked Taniguchi this, and his exaggerated facial expression and hand over his mouth said it all.
“I think you can tell by his reaction that there’s not much he can say right now,” Taniguchi’s translator said. “This is him personally speaking - he would obviously love for this to succeed and have another game, but we can’t say any more.”
Konami obviously isn’t going to confirm it has plenty more plans for Castlevania in the future until it sees how its newest game performs both critically and commercially, but we do at least know that the franchise’s producer is personally interested in carrying it on with the series. For now, I have nothing but confidence that Belmont’s Curse will be the return that everyone has been waiting for. Let’s hope it’s just the first of many.
Castlevania: Belmont's Curse
- Released
- October 15, 2026
- Developer(s)
- Evil Empire, Motion Twin
- Publisher(s)
- Konami
- Prequel(s)
- Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
- Franchise
- Castlevania
- Number of Players
- Single-player
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Platformer, Action, Adventure, RPG
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