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Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse proves Dead Cells' developers were the right fit for a revival in this blessing for the Belmonts
Whip it real good
"You're not the last Belmont anymore", Trevor reminds his daughter Rose, as they gently sail into a Paris ablaze and ripped apart by monsters. Rose knows it well, as do indie developers Evil Empire. Following their success with roguelike Dead Cells (and its own Castlevania DLC), Konami gave them the keys to Dracula's kingdom, trusting the French team to bring the series back to life after a ten year slumber. It's a heavy holy cross to bear, but Castlevania: Belmont's Curse holds it up confidently.
While Rose is a new character in the series, she's the daughter of two former protagonists: Trevor Belmont and witch Sypha Belnades. Afflicted with a demonic right arm cursed by Dracula, she has travelled to Paris to vanquish the vampire lord. "We wanted to explore an interaction between two Belmont generations because it's something we haven't seen that much in the games," marketing director Bérenger Dupré says of Rose. "We had this story of legacy and religion, Rose being trained by her father, and we wanted to have a new female protagonist, so it clicked."
Castlevania as a series has flirted with both linear and non-linear exploration in its time, and there are advocates for both sides on what Castlevania ‘should' be. Belmont's Curse is a search-action game (or a Metroidvania, as anyone not working for Konami would probably call it – I bet they're furious Castledroid never took off), with non-linear design encouraging exploration and the discovery of items and abilities being the keys to progressing through the overarching adventure. And despite the maker's Dead Cells past, there's no roguelike or roguelite elements.
The level design is wide open and sprawling, giving you the space to optimise Rose's movement (she can wavedash!) and enjoy her Symphony of the Night Alucard-esque speed, but there's a degree of mystery inherent to the design that requires more thought than just blazing through enemies to the next apparent objective. Lead designer Sandro Bordier says that the levels are designed around "giving the player some agency in exploration by nudging them in directions, leaving clues and collectibles, to build up the moment to moment while also making the macro level design work." Dupré adds that "with Castlevania itself being an IP that emanates mystery and secrecy, it was a natural thing to drive players towards solving mysteries." I've played the Metroid series to death and loved my time with Symphony of the Night, and Belmont's Curse nails the balance of rewarding speed and curiosity that's necessary to make a Metroidvania work. And for the oldheads, yes, there's chicken in the walls. Rejoice!
Making my way through the ruined streets of Paris and into the dour sewer system, I'm taken aback by the sheer prettiness of this game. Past the wonderful anime opening cutscene, Belmont's Curse shows off with painted-over 3D models for Rose and her foes against 2.5D levels dripping with vibrant colour and impressive baked lighting. From the moment Rose steps off her boat onto the Parisian docks, I'm met with a stunning parallax background of the city on fire, coated in a blood red, that distracted me so much I took a free hit from a skeleton for all my gazing.
The highlight of the preview build is the boss fight against The Fallen, one of the monsters roaming around Paris' sewer system as part of this romantic apocalypse. Armed with sharp claws, a familiar holy cross and an even more familiar golden whip, he's a real test of your reactions and precise movement; I'll admit he took me down a few times before I felled the Fallen. Upon his defeat, Rose absorbs the Fallen's soul into one of her many Arcana tarot cards, granting her his booming voice in her head, the use of the classic boomerang holy cross from Belmonts past, and most importantly, the legendary Vampire Killer whip as a combat and movement tool. Why does this mysterious monster happen to be a master in all the Belmont classics? Don't worry about it, I'm sure it's nothing lore-related.
While the cross does serve as a strong alternate attack alongside her default fireball and trusty sword, the whip is what makes Belmont's Curse come into its own. Paired with her slide, Rose goes from a nimble knight to a web-slinging acrobat, swinging between grapple points as smooth as a sword through a vampire. Rose can also wrap her whip around enemies to pull herself toward them, and you can activate a special attack if you strike at just the right moment. I only had fifteen minutes to play with the whip but it felt amazing and that sensation has stuck with me in the week since. It's where I felt the fast paced influence of Dead Cells most, despite how different Belmont's Curse is from Evil Empire's past games. "We had this internal debate because we're known for Dead Cells, where the movement and action is fast-paced,"Dupré says. "We wanted to keep that, but how do you make a 2D action exploration Castlevania game where you need to take the time to explore if we have a character that can whip from one place to another and across the screen in two seconds?". Despite his qualms, they've nailed it.
The shift from original IP Dead Cells to longstanding series Castlevania comes with inherent pressure to live up to previous games, and even with their work on Dead Cells' Castlevania DLC (which I'm told started development after Belmont's Curse!), it was in the team's mind throughout. Dupré tells me that "Even internally as devs, we have fans from the handheld era, we have boomers from day one. As soon as you start to choose your own path based on experience and knowledge, you know you may disappoint some of the fans. It's tough to balance, but you have to do it once you know what's the right goals for the game." A different outlook on this unique opportunity comes from Bordier, who elaborates that it's one "we never thought we'd have and the IP is such a treasure trove of opportunities. There were a lot of things, like making a boss out of Joan of Arc, that we could do because it's Castlevania!" Knowing the time that's passed since the last game, Dupré explains that he got a little emotional in the consumer area seeing "real players — no offense, you're a journalist — and looking at their face to get the vibe of their first impressions."
There's an evident awareness of what Castlevania means to its fans, and how important Belmont's Curse is as a return to form. But there's something about the confidence of its design, the passion with which the team speak about it and the open honesty they give on feeling that pressure and living up to it. From my time, I can say with my own confidence that Evil Empire's got a (vampire) killer on their hands.
Travel and accommodation to Gamescom were provided by Hooded Horse.