Castlevania: Belmont's Curse hands-on: Evil Empire's Metroidvania is stunning, launches October 15

Konami flew press to a deconsecrated church in Paris for three hours of hands-on time with Castlevania: Belmont's Curse, the new entry developed by Evil Empire — the Dead Cells studio — alongside co-developer Motion Twin. The game launches October 15 on PS5, and based on early impressions, it looks like one of the year's best.

The game is set in 1499 Paris, picking up after Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. Players control Rose Belmont, daughter of Trevor Belmont, as she explores a burning, undead-infested city following a suspicious letter from the Bishop. Rose is a new character with her own arc — she carries guilt over her mother's death, symbolised by a tarot deck and a fiery red curse spreading up her arm. Gameplay is a full Metroidvania: a massive interconnected map, destructible secret walls, locked-off areas that open as you gain new abilities, and no roguelite permadeath or procedurally generated levels. The art mixes hand-drawn and 3D environmental assets with heavily animated character models, and the soundtrack layers electronic production over classic organ motifs. Konami producer Tsutomu Taniguchi said the goal was to return to the series' core: "We really wanted to capture the essence of the series. When we started discussing the game with Evil Empire, we said we'd like to go back to its core."

The origin story behind the game is genuinely strange. Evil Empire co-founder Benjamin Laulan originally approached Konami at BitSummit just to get a retail Dead Cells release in Japan, quietly hoping for an Alucard skin as a bonus. Konami said yes before he even finished the presentation — turns out they were Dead Cells fans. That snowballed into the full Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania DLC, and Taniguchi confirmed that the DLC deal was made on the condition that Evil Empire and Motion Twin would go on to make a standalone Castlevania title. Taniguchi clarified at the Paris event that it was actually Konami who pushed for the full game: "They pitched us DLC, and then we said, 'Well, you can do that, but can we create a new Castlevania game with you?'" Evil Empire marketing director Bérenger Dupré described it less as a formal pitch and more as a shared brainstorm between two studios that already knew they worked well together.

The reveal at the February 12 State of Play clearly landed — Dupré described the Evil Empire team watching the chat scroll too fast to read before a fan sent them an "absolute cinema" meme, at which point they knew they were fine. With October 15 locked in for PS5, the pressure is now on Evil Empire to deliver on what is shaping up to be one of the most anticipated Metroidvanias in years.