Finding the perfect balance between hardcore and dynamism
The new installment of the cult franchise — Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse — has already arrived on the Switch 2 console. Players, together with Trevor Belmont and his daughter Rose, venture onto the burning streets of Paris to confront evil and save the city with the help of the legendary Vampire Killer whip.
In an interview with PCGamesN, Evil Empire's business development director Ben Laulan spoke about the challenging development journey and the numerous iterations the game went through prior to the final release.
From soulslike to roguelite
As it turned out, the developers experimented with completely opposite approaches to gameplay pacing:
- A slow Dark Souls-style version: the game featured a heavy combat system, a slow pace, and high difficulty, but lost the signature Castlevania atmosphere as a result.
- A fast-paced Dead Cells-style variant: overly dynamic combat pushed castle exploration into the background, which also did not fit the series' canons.
As a result, Evil Empire chose a middle ground: preserving the spirit and respect for classic metroidvanias with an emphasis on location exploration, while combining it with modern, responsive controls and balanced dynamism.
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