Dead Cells: Return To Castlevania – Konami seems to love the Dead Cells DLC as much as fans do (pic: Twin Motion)
Although there remain no real announcements, Konami is said to be ‘motivated’ to do more with Castlevania due to fan enthusiasm.
It’s been nearly 10 years but there is finally a new Castlevania game… okay not really but Dead Cells: Return To Castlevania – a DLC expansion for the 2018 indie hit – is the closest thing fans have to an actual new entry rather than a spiritual successor like Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night.
It’s difficult to predict exactly what Konami’s intentions with the series are but between the successful Netflix adaptation (which is getting a follow up series at some point), rumours of a proper revival, and the company’s own renewed interest in video games, the odds seem a lot better than they were several years ago.
At the very least, it seems Konami is interested in doing more with the Castlevania IP again thanks to fan enthusiasm according to Tsutomu Taniguchi, an assistant producer at Konami and supervisor on the Return To Castlevania DLC.
While he doesn’t go so far as to say exactly what plans the company has for Castlevania, Taniguchi calls the online excitement ‘really motivating’ for Konami.
He also references how the company has re-released older titles in recent years, but knows that fans want even more.
‘We tried to bring back the games that people loved and cherished with the Castlevania Anniversary Collection and the Castlevania Advance Collection, we also brought back Rondo Of Blood and Symphony Of The Night for our PlayStation fans and on mobile, and launched Grimoire Of Souls on Apple Arcade to celebrate the lore of the franchise,’ he tells IGN.
‘But we know that our fans always want more, and we do too, so this opportunity to have this amazing crossover with Dead Cells was impossible to pass up on.’
Castlevania Advance Collection – the aforementioned collections were welcomed, but they’ve yet to lead to a wholly new game (pic: Konami)
He doesn’t specify whether he’s referring to entirely new games or more re-releases and crossovers. It’s also worth noting that it wasn’t Konami who pitched the idea for the Dead Cells DLC; developers Motion Twin and Evil Empire approached Konami and the latter loved their pitch enough to agree to everything that was suggested.
‘Seriously, knowing that Dead Cells, which is among the greatest indie games of the past 10 years, was inspired by Castlevania is a huge source of pride for us,’ Taniguchi adds.
‘When Evil Empire and Motion Twin came back with their full DLC proposition instead of just this short featuring we weren’t really surprised and we were hoping for that to be honest. And we just thought we had to let them go full circle, because we knew they would use every ounce of their talent to honour the franchise.’
Between the aforementioned re-releases, the Suikoden remasters, and the multiple Silent Hill projects, Konami does seem to be getting back into releasing premium video games again.
However, those Silent Hill projects are all being outsourced to other studios with Konami acting as a supervisor. So, it’s not unreasonable to believe that Castlevania could see a similar treatment.
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Given its response to the Dead Cells pitch, perhaps all Konami needs is more third party studios willing to try their hand at Castlevania while demonstrating a passion for it.
With how much Konami apparently loves Dead Cells and the Castlevania DLC, perhaps Motion Twin and Evil Empire could be tasked with developing a new 2D game?
It’s not as if Konami hasn’t tasked other studios with making new Castlevania games before. The last few official Castlevania games were developed by Spanish studio MercurySteam, which went on to develop Metroid Dread for Nintendo.
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Although there remain no real announcements, Konami is said to be ‘motivated’ to do more with Castlevania due to fan enthusiasm.