Castlevania is finally back, and it's in exactly the right hands

Every once in awhile the world stops delivering us a nonstop cavalcade of horrors—and questionable videogame trailers—to simply serve up something obviously good and right. Today that happened with Castlevania: Belmont's Curse, a new 2D action platformer from Evil Empire and Motion Twin, developers of the excellent Dead Cells.

This game has seemed destined to exist since the 2023 Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania DLC, which proved the developers clearly had the chops to make a full-on new game in the series. But it's been a long time coming, even as Konami has restarted development on Silent Hill and Metal Gear. Castlevania's been stuck with crossovers and retro re-releases until now.

It's no coincidence that the new game, set in 1499 Paris, is set not long after the popular Netflix series, starring "Trevor Belmont’s successor" with a whip in hand. Though the character isn't named, their red hair is a likely giveaway that we're looking at the daughter of vampire hunter Trevor Belmont and mage Sypha Belnades.

Motion Twin is credited with an "advisory" role with Evil Empire handling the bulk of development, as it did with years of Dead Cells DLC. On the PlayStation blog, Belmont's Curse is described as a "2D exploration action game," which I'd say is legalese for what series fans would call a metroidvania or Igavania, for Symphony of the Night producer Koji Igarashi.

"Crack your whip to move around freely like a trapeze artist and master its mechanics to get creative and pounce on your prey like a wolf in fast-paced combat," the PlayStation blog says about Belmont's Curse.

"There will be more weapons and abilities for you to master. In today’s reveal, you can see our hero use the Sword, which is easy to use and offers solid attack power. There’ll be more weapons and abilities revealed in the future. You will need to strategically plan your next move in combat and make full use of the tools to hand to stand a chance to save the city from the brink of destruction."

Igarashi, the longtime Castlevania lead, left Konami in 2014 to make his own spiritual successor, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Its long-in-development sequel is slated to release this year—as is Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse.