The New Castlevania Game Just Confirmed What Everyone Wanted to Hear

The upcoming Castlevania title, Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, has confirmed a bit of news about its genre that fans have been hoping to hear. The game, which looks to serve as a soft reboot of the long-dormant Castlevania series, is slated for release sometime in 2026, a year that marks the franchise’s 40th anniversary.

The brand-new Castlevania game will be the franchise’s first official mainline entry since 2014’s Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, ending a decade-long drought of releases in the vampire hunting series. Belmont’s Curse serves as a follow-up to the similarly named Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse, a prequel that takes place centuries prior to the original Castlevania. Dracula’s Curse starred Trevor Belmont, an ancestor of the vampire-killing Belmont family line who will be familiar to fans of the series’ animated Netflix adaptation, and Belmont’s Curse will be set 23 years after the events of that game, with players likely playing as the child of Trevor and sorceress Sypha Belnades.

The Main Castlevania Timeline, Explained (In Chronological Order)

Castlevania features an expansive, extremely confusing timeline, and we’re here to sort through it and make sense of Konami’s crazy story.

Konami Confirms That Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse Is Not a Roguelike

In a bit of news that long-time Castlevania fans will be happy to hear, Konami has confirmed that the latest title in the series, Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, is not a roguelike or roguelite. As confirmed by The Verge, the game is described as a “2D action exploration game,” implying that the title will fit into the Metroidvania archetype that the series helped to define. Many fans questioned whether Belmont’s Curse would feature a gameplay style more akin to Dead Cells, as the game is being developed by both Evil Empire with advisory assistance from Motion Twin, the two studios that originally created the popular roguelite title. The game’s updated art style also invokes the look and feel of Dead Cells, leading to furthering questions about how much the game would differ from the series’ roots. With this latest news, those questions can finally be put to rest.

Despite its status as a roguelite, Dead Cells featured gameplay that is heavily inspired by the Metroidvania subgenre, with its expansive map sections containing many unlockable secrets that require revisiting. The game even featured a set of critically acclaimed Castlevania DLC, adding characters and weapons from the iconic series to Dead Cells. This homage, which thrust the series back into the gaming spotlight for the first time in years, makes the development of Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse seem like an obvious choice in hindsight, with Konami collaborating with two studios that have proven to understand and respect the franchise.

Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.

Easy (5)Medium (7)Hard (10)

Although Castlevania began as a more traditional series of side-scrolling action games, the intense popularity of Symphony of the Night helped to introduce the world to the Metroidvania subgenre. Often heralded as the best game in the Castlevania series, Symphony of the Night firmly shifted the franchise into the Metroidvania realm, with a focus on exploration and discovery that perfectly suits a series based around exploring Dracula’s mysterious castle. Older Castlevania platformers like Rondo of Blood and Super Castlevania 4 prove that the franchise does not need this style of gameplay to be excellent, but it is a proven formula that many fans have been missing.

The games industry has fully embraced the gradual progression systems and brilliant exploration of Metroidvanias in recent years, with a massive spike in games that utilize this brand of gameplay. Despite this, Castlevania has undoubtedly been missed, as one half of the subgenre’s namesake and a pioneer of the style. Although roguelikes have also exploded in popularity recently, Castlevania fans have hoped since the announcement of Belmont’s Curse that the game would stick to the series’ roots. It looks like those hopes will be answered when the game launches in 2026.