It seems that Castlevania has been such a long running series, that a lot of fans have probably thought at one time or another that it's run out of ideas. When Order of Ecclesia came out, after finishing it myself, I wondered if there would ever be another title like it. I enjoyed it, but at the same time I also saw the gaming industry doing everything it could to push a lot of past titles into a new 3D realm.
Sure Castlevania faired pretty well with Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness, but what after that? That's where Konami decided to turn the steering wheel over to MercurySteam, letting them take the series into a new direction, and praying that the fans were accepting enough to give it a shot.
Recently in an
interview with Dave Cox and director Enric Alvarez were asked about the challenges that they were faced in taking Castlevania in the direction they felt it should go. Here are a few of the statements they had to say on the issue.
ALVAREZ: "At the end of the day, we (at MercurySteam) are a Western developer. If we did the same type of game (as the classic Nintendo games) it'd be a failure. This is our philosophy, the way we see things. After all, the vampire mythology we are depicting in this game belongs to the European culture. We handle this a different way than a Japanese developer. It's not better or worse. It's just different."
Dave Cox also weighed in by adding....
COX: "We always knew it would be a difficult task to bring everyone along with us. Once we got our heads around that, we were able to do what we wanted. I think that gave us a lot of confidence to develop Lords of Shadow 2 again in our own way. We almost felt vindicated in a way. We accept that some people aren't going to like what we're doing. And there's nothing you can do about that."
Also adding....
"We felt more confident in the second one that we could do more risky things. We really love to surprise people. It would have been very easy for us to knock out a sequel (in 2012) after one year. But we just didn't want to do that."
What was also helpful was the fact they received some help and advice from none other than Hideo Kojima himself, whose role was simply to advise, and to not interfere. He knew it was a bit of a risk. It always is when you change the direction of a project to something that's never been done before. But after seeing the success of the first Lords of Shadow game, if was pretty much on automatic pilot with the next Lords of Shadow title.
LOS2 will however be the last Castlevania game ever created by MercurySteam again. This marks the end of the series in terms of what they will produce. Cox in a few statements at the GamesCom round table had this to say about the future of the series.
"I think if you've got something to say, you should just say it, and when you're done, just shut up, and we've got something to say. Once it's out there, think it's time for somebody else, somebody younger, a younger producer to come in and take up the mantle and do what they think would be right for Castlevania and for us to move on to something else."
Something else indeed, let me just add that whoever that somebody else is, I hope they can also embrace Castlevania the way the rest of us have over the last 26 years, and if they too decide to take it in another new direction, let's hope the results are similar to those that MercurySteam has so well delivered to us.
HIDEO_KOJIMA @HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN 
