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  E3: Konami's Briefing Reveals New Castlevania, MGS Arcade Exclusive
by Leigh Alexander [PC, Console/PC, E3, Exclusive]
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June 3, 2009
 
E3: Konami's Briefing Reveals New  Castlevania ,  MGS  Arcade
Madrid-based MercurySteam will be developing a next-gen Castlevania with production support from Kojima Productions, it was revealed today at Konami's E3 press briefing, attended by Gamasutra.

Since Kojima has already revealed two new Metal Gear titles -- Peacewalker for PSP and Rising for Xbox 360 -- it came as a surprise to attendees of Konami's E3 press briefing when the renowned director said he had four new games to announce, and the Castlevania title was the last one he revealed.

"As I have said before it's sad if E3 is not a big festival with big announcements," said Kojima. "I want this new E3 to be a big success. So even though it might be too early to show, I brought something very special for you," he said.

Titled Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, it has something of a Western look and feel, seems to have a dramatic storyline, and had few enough identifying features of the classic franchise that the audience was surprised at the trailer's end, when it turned out to be a Castlevania. It's positioned with the tagline "reborn" for a 2010 multiplatform launch.

"In order to be more [globally] appealing in the years to come... we thought that this project should be done this way," said Kojima. He called MercurySteam "top class in the world" as developers, and says his role is "to support them, help them to give birth to this Castlevania."

Nearly every Castlevania title in the past has been produced by the iconic Koji "IGA" Igarashi, who was conspicuously absent from the announcement. His name was not mentioned, so it appears he is not involved in Lords of Shadow.

Kojima also said Peacewalker -- the "true sequel" -- is being developed by Metal Gear Solid 4's core team. As he did during Sony's press briefing, he stressed that it specifically takes advantage of the PSP and has his full involvement on the writing and direction side.

As for Rising, Kojima said that it's a "test" of what he calls the Western development strategy of building technology first and game second, as he discussed wanting to try in his GDC keynote earlier this year.

Aside from the aforementioned two, already revealed during the briefings of Sony and Microsoft, respectively, Kojima unveiled a coin-op, online arcade game that apparently will use 3D goggles. Metal Gear Arcade is expected to launch in Japan this year, and then Konami hopes to launch it overseas, although it hasn't yet worked out how.

Kojima closed his portion of Konami's press briefing by explaining that the cloud and storm images that have been so prevalent on his pre-E3 teaser site are "representing what the current status nowadays [is] in our real lives."

"The entertainment business... [is] here to clear up this storm, and we need to work together," he said.
 
   
 
Comments

david vink
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Metroid is a notable exception to that rule, though.

Rayco Santana
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@Andre Thomas: I can name you a list just as big with successful games from japanese franchises developed by westeners and viceversa, Mercury Steam are good developers I had 100% confidence in them when the game was first announced in 2008, now after seen the trailer I have 150% confidence in them, this game its gonna be FUCKING AWESOME, period.

Im pretty sure if they announced the game with the same name they originally announced it in 2008 (lords of shadow) instead of "Castlevania:lords of shadow" you would be praising it, thats what I call hypocrisy.

this will be the first 3D castlevania to be a good game.

Tom Newman
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We need a 2D Castlevania in 1080p! The 3D title may be good, but the series really shines in 2D. Konami had a lot of success with sotn on PS1, and at the time Sony was frowning on releasing non-3D titles for it's console, but that game turned out to be a true PS1 classic still played today. I love the DS Castlevanias, but we really need to see a new 2D version for current-gen consoles.

Andrew Dovichi
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From the trailer, it looks to be God of War with the Castlevania theme skinned on top. If that is the case, then I will be a happy camper indeed. I can only hope that it plays nearly as well as God of War does, none of the 3D Castlevania games could even hold a candle to the 2D ones but this one is showing some promise.

I just hope that they don't mess with the established story and timeline, the trailer made it sound like they may have embellished some facts already.

And I concur with Tom Newman.


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