Castlevania

• 1. Introduction

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  Castlevania is a gothic horror action-adventure series from Konami, and its first staff roll in 1986 was full of disguises.

  The director and programmer, Hitoshi Akamatsu, was credited as Trans Fishers, a nod to the horror film director Terence Fisher. Composer Kinuyo Yamashita appeared as James Banana. The reason is uncertain. It may be that Konami barred real names to stop other companies from hiring away its staff.

  The game sent its hero through the castle of Count Dracula, and that castle has pulled players back ever since. How did a whip-swinging hero reshape a whole style of game? Why did the people behind its best entries keep walking away from Konami? And where did the monsters in the castle really come from?

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• 2. Horror Film Inheritance

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  Zombies, werewolves, Frankenstein's monster and Count Dracula himself all roam the castle, borrowed from the horror films of Universal Pictures and Hammer Film Productions. Akamatsu wanted players to feel they had stepped into a classic horror film. Alucard, who first appears in Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, shares a name with a character in the 1943 film Son of Dracula. Folklore supplies creatures such as Medusa. Literature is cited directly too. Castlevania: Bloodlines works the events of Bram Stoker's Dracula into the series, and the recurring character Carmilla comes from the 1872 novel Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.

  Every hundred years, Dracula rises again to take over the world, and his castle is where most games happen. In most of them, players control a Belmont. The clan has beaten Dracula for centuries with the Vampire Killer, a legendary whip that is handed down to successors and works only for them. In Bloodlines, the whip passes to John Morris, son of Quincey Morris and a distant descendant of the Belmonts.

  Dracula's Curse added allies to the hunt. Alucard, a dhampir, sides with Trevor Belmont against his own father, Dracula. Trevor is also joined by Sypha Belnades, a vampire hunter who fights with magic and marries him by the end of the game. Later titles made her descendants, including Carrie Fernandez and Yoko Belnades, playable characters.

  In 2002, Koji Igarashi removed four games from the official chronology: Legends, Circle of the Moon, the 1999 Castlevania and Legacy of Darkness. Fans criticized the decision. Igarashi said Legends clashed with the plotline of the series. Circle of the Moon, he said, was removed because its own team meant it as a stand-alone title, not because he had no part in making it. The American pre-order bundle for Portrait of Ruin in 2006 included a poster whose timeline restored every game except Legends. In 2007, the official Japanese website still left them all out. Igarashi has called them a "subseries."

  None of that tangle existed in 1986, when the whole series was one castle, one hero and one whip.

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• 3. The Whip

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  Simon Belmont carries a whip because Akamatsu liked the idea of a weapon that could hold enemies back, and because he was a fan of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Akamatsu approached the project with what he called a "film director's eye." He said the visuals and music came from people who consciously wanted to do something cinematic.

  In the 1986 original, Simon crosses six levels of Dracula's castle by jumping between platforms and climbing staircases. A health meter drains when enemies or hazards touch him. Losing all health, dropping off the screen or running out of time costs a life, and collecting points can earn extra lives.

  Upgrades hidden in candles make the Vampire Killer whip longer and more powerful. Simon also carries secondary weapons, including throwing knives, holy water and a boomerang-like cross. Each one spends hearts gathered along the way. Every level ends with a boss, a monster with its own life meter that Simon must drain.

  Emil Heidkamp, a senior vice president at Konami of America, disliked the Japanese title Akumajō Dracula. He believed it translated as "Dracula Satanic Castle." The international name Castlevania was the result. The Famicom Disk System original was followed by a cartridge version for the Nintendo Entertainment System, which reached North America in 1987 and became one of that console's first major platform games.

  Nintendo of America's censorship policies of the time also left marks. Most blood, nudity and religious imagery was removed or edited in the early Castlevania games.

  The straight path of those six levels would not survive the sequel that Akamatsu directed a year later.

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• 4. Exploration Takes Over

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  Asked whether Metroid inspired Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, Akamatsu pointed instead to Maze of Galious, another Konami game built around exploration and puzzle solving. The 1987 sequel dropped the straight line of the first game for a world map that players could roam freely and revisit. Day and night cycles changed how strong enemies were and which non-playable characters were available. Villagers offered hints, merchants sold items for hearts, and Simon could gain levels and more health through experience points.

  Dracula's Curse in 1989 went back to ordinary platforming, and it was Akamatsu's last game in the series. It added alternate stages and multiple playable characters. Konami's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games had sold many copies and were prioritized, so the Dracula's Curse team set out to outdo them. Neither Simon's Quest nor Dracula's Curse was a commercial success. Akamatsu was demoted to work in one of Konami's game centers, and he chose to resign.

  Three Castlevania games were in development at once in 1993, among them Rondo of Blood and Bloodlines. Toru Hagihara directed and produced Rondo of Blood, the first installment made for a CD-ROM and the first to be fully voiced. He later directed its follow-up, Symphony of the Night, for the PlayStation in 1997, with Koji Igarashi as assistant director and story writer. Artist Ayami Kojima joined to give the series a new look, and she went on to design characters for several later titles.

  Igarashi described the project as beginning as "something of a side story series." From the start, it was meant to push the franchise in a new direction. The team returned to nonlinear exploration and role-playing elements, last seen in Simon's Quest, and critical reaction to that older game helped them pitch it to Konami. Hagihara was then promoted to head of the division, and Igarashi was asked to finish the game as assistant director.

  Symphony of the Night made Alucard its protagonist. Players explore Dracula's castle by collecting specific items and abilities that open new areas. Alucard raises his statistics with experience points from defeated enemies and uses a wider range of equipment. He can also turn into a bat, a wolf or mist to reach places that were closed to him. Together with Super Metroid, the game helped popularize the genre called Metroidvania.

  On release, Symphony of the Night was well received and became a sleeper hit. Its sales were only mediocre, particularly in the United States, where it was meagerly publicized.

  Circle of the Moon, a Game Boy Advance launch title in 2001, was the first game since Symphony to use Metroidvania gameplay. Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow followed by 2003. Then came the Nintendo DS games Dawn of Sorrow in 2005, Portrait of Ruin in 2006 and Order of Ecclesia in 2008. Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin adopted a new art style, hoping younger DS owners would not be put off by Ayami Kojima's art. The style ended with Order of Ecclesia.

  Every one of those games was a 2D adventure, and a team at Konami's Kobe branch had been working in another dimension since 1997.

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• 5. Third Dimension

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  Dracula 3D was the working title of a Nintendo 64 project that Konami Computer Entertainment Kobe began in 1997. It was released in 1999 simply as Castlevania, and an expanded version, Legacy of Darkness, followed in the same year. Two characters, Reinhardt and Carrie, could be played, and combat used a basic targeting and lock-on system. Platforming now demanded precision, with rotating and crumbling platforms. A hedge maze sequence, in which the player must flee a pursuing enemy, borrowed from survival horror.

  Konami Computer Entertainment Kobe was dissolved during 2002. Harmony of Dissonance on the Game Boy Advance was then produced by Igarashi and developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo. Starting with that game, Japanese releases briefly used Castlevania as their title. Igarashi explained that Dracula is not always the main antagonist. The name Akumajō Dracula returned in Japan with Dawn of Sorrow in 2005.

  Lament of Innocence arrived on the PlayStation 2 in 2003 as a 3D game made as a new starting point for the series. Its hub gave access to five main areas from the start, and defeating bosses opened the last one. Combat centered on the Whip of Alchemy, which could chain attacks into fluid combos. The game drew comparisons to Devil May Cry and, in retrospect, God of War. Curse of Darkness followed two years later.

  Castlevania: Lords of Shadow in 2010 rebuilt the series from scratch as a 3D reboot. Its first game takes place in Southern Europe during the Middle Ages. Gabriel Belmont belongs to the Brotherhood of Light, an elite group of holy knights who defend people from supernatural creatures. He fights the Lords of Shadow to win the God Mask, which he believes can bring back his dead wife. In Mirror of Fate, Gabriel appears as Dracula, the enemy of Simon and Trevor Belmont. Lords of Shadow 2 is set in modern times, with Dracula searching for a way to end his immortality.

  Gabriel's weapon is the Combat Cross, a retractable chain whip. The game offers up to forty combos that mix direct and area attacks. The Cross also helps him climb walls, rappel and swing across gaps. In massive boss fights against titans, the player uses it to navigate each giant and disable it.

  Konami, however, had more than one candidate for the next Castlevania, and not all of them survived.

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• 6. Reboot and Departures

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  In 2008, worry over the poor sales of recent Castlevania games set several prototypes against one another to become the next installment. Igarashi announced his own game at Tokyo Game Show 2008. The rival was Lords of Shadow, from the Spanish studio MercurySteam.

  Konami asked MercurySteam to stop work while Lords of Shadow was still in its early stages. Producer Dave Cox then showed the game to senior management in Japan, and the designer Hideo Kojima offered help. According to Igarashi, his own project had not been going smoothly. Konami canceled it and chose Lords of Shadow.

  Kojima gave input, co-produced the game and oversaw its Japanese localization. Robert Carlyle took the lead role and Patrick Stewart also appeared, making it the first Castlevania with celebrity voice talent. The art style drew on the work of Guillermo del Toro.

  Lords of Shadow drew positive reviews in 2010 and became the best-selling Castlevania game to date. Lords of Shadow 2, released in 2014, was received less warmly. Afterward, an anonymous source claiming to be MercurySteam employees alleged that its development had been troubled. It was the last mainline game before Konami shifted focus to mobile games and gambling in the 2010s.

  Igarashi had been moved to Konami's social division in 2011, and he felt he could not release new games as the company turned toward mobile development. He left in March 2014 to make Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, a spiritual successor to Castlevania. Cox followed a few months later. Releases under Konami's new business model included mobile games, along with pachinko and slot machines based on the series.

  In 2021, rumors circulated that internal restructuring at Konami would refocus the company on PC and console games, with a "reimagining" of the series in development. In 2024, the compilation Castlevania Dominus Collection included Haunted Castle Revisited, a remake by M2, who had earlier worked on The Adventure ReBirth. For the series' 40th anniversary, Evil Empire and Motion Twin are set to release Castlevania: Belmont's Curse in 2026, the first brand-new game since 2014.

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• 7. Sound of the Castle

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  Kinuyo Yamashita had just graduated from college and, she said, knew nothing about video games when she composed the first Castlevania with Satoe Terashima. Working under strict hardware limits, she wrote the scores first and then entered them into a computer as data.

  Super Castlevania IV, the first 16-bit entry, was scored by Masanori Adachi and Taro Kudo. The new hardware let the game build a more atmospheric environment.

  Michiru Yamane, known mainly for her Castlevania work, first scored the series with Bloodlines on the Sega Genesis. She felt pressure because the series was already admired for its music. She heard a link between the vampire themes and the classical music of her upbringing, having studied Johann Sebastian Bach at university. She blended that style with the rock themes of earlier games.

  Symphony of the Night gave her more room. Art director Osamu Kasai asked her to join the team, and she drew inspiration from Ayami Kojima's concept art. Bloodlines used FM synthesis, while Symphony was made for CD-ROM, which allowed much higher quality music and sound. The Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS entries had note limits like older consoles. She collaborated with other composers, including Yuzo Koshiro. Order of Ecclesia in 2008, scored with Yasuhiro Ichihashi, was the last Castlevania she worked on before becoming a freelance composer.

  Albums first appeared under the King Records label. Remix albums recast the themes as orchestra, rap and heavy metal arrangements. In 2010, Yamane and the Stockholm Youth Symphonic Orchestra performed a Castlevania concert in Stockholm, Sweden.

  For Lords of Shadow in 2010, Óscar Araujo wrote a score for a 120-piece orchestra. The International Film Music Critics Association nominated him for breakout composer of the year, and he won Best Original Score for a Video Game or Interactive Media. He went on to compose both sequels, Mirror of Fate and Lords of Shadow 2.

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• 8. Beyond the Console

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  Netflix released an animated series titled Castlevania between 2017 and 2021, running four seasons and 32 episodes. Warren Ellis created it, drawing heavily on a script he had written for a 2007 animated film that never entered production. The first two seasons adapt parts of Dracula's Curse and follow Trevor Belmont, Alucard and Sypha Belnades as they defend Wallachia from Dracula. Later seasons add elements from Curse of Darkness and Symphony of the Night. Anime and Ayami Kojima's artwork shaped the look, with animation by Frederator Studios and Powerhouse Animation Studios.

  Castlevania: Nocturne reached Netflix on the 28th of September 2023. It follows Richter Belmont, a descendant of Trevor and Sypha, and Maria Renard in France during the French Revolution, 300 years after the original series. It adapts elements of Rondo of Blood. Its second season premiered on the 16th of January 2025. Ellis did not take part after allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced in 2020.

  Simon Belmont was earlier a star of the animated series Captain N: The Game Master, where he was egotistical and looked different from his game design. He joined the N-Team, which defended Videoland against Mother Brain from Metroid. Dracula appeared only as "the Count," and Alucard showed up in a single episode as a rebellious skateboarding teenager.

  Worlds of Power, a 1990s series of Nintendo-based novels produced by Seth Godin, included a Simon's Quest book by Christopher Howell. It invented a junior high student named Timothy Bradley, who crosses into the game and helps Simon. In 2005, IDW Publishing released The Belmont Legacy, a graphic novel based on The Adventure, written by Marc Andreyko with art by E. J. Su. Kou Sasakura illustrated a two-volume manga of Curse of Darkness, published in Japan from 2005 to 2006 and in English in 2008. Lament of Innocence became a cell phone comic in Japan, running for 40 episodes from 2007 to 2008.

  NECA made a Castlevania toy line with figures of Simon Belmont, Alucard, Dracula and a Succubus. A Pixel Simon mini figure was available only as a promotional item at Comic-Con 2007.

  In the late 1980s, DIC Animation City produced concept art for a Castlevania segment in the Super Mario Bros. Power Hour. Only the Mario and Legend of Zelda segments were made, and they aired in 1989 as part of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!. A film fared no better. In December 2007, Rogue Pictures halted development because of the writers' strike, then the studio's sale to Relativity Media and the possibility of a screen actors' guild strike. On the 27th of May 2009, the film was reported officially canceled.

  Kid Dracula, a parody starring the title character, became the first spin-off in 1990 on the Famicom. Judgment, the first fighting game, came to the Wii in 2008 from the developer Eighting. Harmony of Despair in 2010 was an online multiplayer game in which players used past characters. Grimoire of Souls soft launched on Android and iOS on the 18th of September 2019, with a full iOS release through Apple Arcade on the 17th of September 2021.

  The franchise has sold over 20 million copies worldwide, up from 3.7 million by 1993. Symphony of the Night is the most acclaimed game, with a Metacritic score of 93, while Judgment is the most panned, at 49. IGN placed Symphony at number 16 on its top 100 games and ranked the series fourth among game franchises, behind only Final Fantasy, The Legend of Zelda and Mario.

  Castlevania characters now turn up in games the series never made, including Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Dead Cells and Vampire Survivors.

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