While Konami is making a Castlevania for mobile, one of the company’s former producers is resurrecting the spirit of the Dracula-killing franchise in a new 8-bit-style game. Koji Igarashi, who is the renowned developer responsible for overseeing beloved classics like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, revealed Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon as part of the BitSummit indie-gaming event in Japan today.
Curse of the Moon captures the look of the original Castlevania games for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It features low-fidelity sprites and world art. It launches May 24 for $10 on Steam, Nintendo Switch, 3DS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Vita.
Igarashi is working with developer Inti Creates on Curse of the Moon, which is a spinoff of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, which is a modern spiritual successor to Symphony of the Night. Igarashi crowdfunded Bloodstained on Kickstarter, and an 8-bit demake was one of the stretch goals as part of that campaign. That means anyone who backed over a certain amount will get a code for Curse of the Moon for free.
Inti Creates has done similar retro versions of modern games before. It is the studio responsible for the faux-8-bit Mighty Gunvolt companion game to the Azure Striker Gunvolt games. Now, Curse of the Moon will enable Inti and Igarashi to capture the spirit of the NES Castlevania games in a new package.