Castlevania turns 40 and Konami may be teasing a 3D collection

Castlevania hit its 40th anniversary this week, and Konami marked the occasion with a retrospective video celebrating Simon Belmont and the series' four decades of vampire-hunting history. Buried near the end of that video, though, is something that's got fans speculating — a sequence where Simon walks past portraits featuring cover art from Lament of Innocence, Curse of Darkness, Lords of Shadow, and the upcoming Castlevania: Belmont's Curse.

Konami hasn't confirmed anything, and the cynical read is that those games simply have some of the best cover art in the franchise. But the optimistic read is that the studio is quietly teasing a compilation of the 3D-era Castlevania titles — the PS2 and Xbox 360/PS3 games that never got the collection treatment. Konami has done this before: the Castlevania Anniversary Collection in 2019 bundled eight games from the series' first decade, and the Castlevania: Dominus Collection packaged all three DS entries alongside the 1988 Haunted Castle arcade game. A 3D collection would fill the obvious gap. What Konami did officially confirm for the anniversary: sales on select Castlevania titles, new vinyl record soundtracks available to preorder, and the original Castlevania free on iOS and Android for a limited time.

The series has been dormant as a mainline game since Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 in 2014, kept alive only by the two compilations and the acclaimed Netflix animated adaptations. Last year Konami announced that Evil Empire — the studio behind The Rogue Prince of Persia — is developing a new entry, Castlevania: Belmont's Curse. The game follows Rose Belmont through a ruined Paris as she hunts Dracula, and it introduces a mechanic that lets players convert powerful bosses into allies. It's a similar outsourcing strategy to what Konami has done with Silent Hill, handing the keys to external studios like Bloober Team and Screen Burn with strong results.

A demo for Belmont's Curse goes live October 1, with the full game launching October 15. If Konami is planning a 3D collection to sit alongside it, the anniversary video may have just been the first hint — intentional or not.