Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse still feels like a dream, and yet it’s very real – a brand-new Castlevania game built by Dead Cells studio Evil Empire, in partnership with Konami. It’s hard to pick a more perfect developer to bring the legendary series back, and the result is looking absolutely stunning. At Gamescom 2026, we sat down with Producer Tsutomu Taniguchi of Konami, alongside Evil Empire’s Marketing Director Bérenger Dupré and Lead Level Desginer Sandro Bordier to learn how Belmont’s Curse marries classic Castlevania with new ideas.
“Like any successful thing in life, I think it all came down to communication and collaboration.” Dupré remarks that Evil Empire is full of Castlevania fans from across the years, while Bordier adds that Konami was “really supportive” in making sure every element of the art, design, and narrative in Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse fit perfectly into the broader series. “Actually, we were honored – and still are – by how much trust they put into us.” At first, the team was “pretty shy” about its suggestions, but then it began to try “some kind of crazy ideas,” and Konami’s response was, “Yeah, let’s go for it.”
Taniguchi tells us (via a translator) that Konami has “huge trust” in the Evil Empire team. “We know how important it is to keep the legacy of the franchise and keep the core elements that make Castlevania Castlevania.” But alongside ensuring that Belmont’s Curse could hit those key nostalgia beats, it “needed to make the gameplay fun and more exciting,” and so the two studios “deliberated a lot” together to reach the ideal balance.
As Castlevania’s most landmark entry, Symphony of the Night was naturally a big reference point, but Bordier says the team “referenced from many games” across the series. Another key touchstone is Super Castlevania 4’s omnidirectional ‘brandish whip’ technique, albeit modernized to let you fly around the map as smoothly as possible. Aria of Sorrow and Circle of the Moon helped give rise to the spell and tarot systems, “which for us really characterizes Rose as the main protagonist of this adventure.”
Bordier notes that “Castlevania is such a rich IP,” so there was a lot to choose from. “We decided to pick and choose what fit best with the time frame we aligned on. Belmont’s Curse follows on from Dracula’s Curse and Curse of Darkness, so “it made sense to first focus on those games.” Taniguchi adds, “There’s nothing that we wanted to leave out – it’s more about what we do for the fans. It’s a new story that we’re telling, so it’s something that we want to be careful of, to pick things that we know the crowds would want to see.”
Evil Empire was first established to act as the guardian studio of Dead Cells by developer Motion Twin, and Dupré says it has continued to act as a “godfather figure” to the Evil Empire team in much the same way through the development of Belmont’s Curse. “We’re working on the game – at some point, we show them our progress on the game, and we’re waiting for their approval. Is it cool enough? Is your quality standard there? And that’s pretty much it.”
Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse is set to release on Thursday October 15. Could this be the start of a new era for Castlevania? Taniguchi comments that he’s a massive fan first and foremost, and “wanted new things to come out – that’s why we ended up creating this. So our hope is that, obviously if it succeeds, it would be lovely to see more to come.”
Additional reporting by Lauren Bergin for at Gamescom.
