Development
Castlevania was rebooted due to the team's concern over the poor sales in their latest Castlevania games. The team wished to expand the franchise's fanbase with this game. A number of prototypes in parallel development competed to become the next Castlevania title. Konami told MercurySteam the game would be an original intellectual property (IP) when it was first greenlit as a Castlevania title. Konami eventually asked them to cease work on Lords of Shadow while it was still in its early stages, until David Cox showed the Japanese senior management the game and was offered help by video game designer Hideo Kojima. Konami then chose the pitch for it as the next Castlevania entry. The original concept for the game was to remake the first Castlevania starring Simon Belmont, but it was later decided to make a reboot of the franchise. Lords of Shadow still drew inspiration from earlier titles in the series, most notably Castlevania for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and Super Castlevania IV.
Kojima's input included advising Cox's team to redesign some of the lead character, Gabriel, who he felt needed a "more heroic face". Originally, Gabriel's design resembled a classic barbarian, before Kojima then advised the staff to refine him into a character that was more relatable for the player. Cox mentioned that the voice acting provided by Robert Carlyle helped humanize Gabriel's character. Kojima also oversaw the Japanese localization of the game, employing a number of voice actors from the Japanese versions of Metal Gear Solid. Cox stated that Kojima otherwise allowed the actors a lot of freedom with the project. MercurySteam wanted to depart from the art style of the other games in favour of one that was darker. Cox said, "The old games had this boyish depiction of vampires and monsters and we wanted them to have a darker edge this time around." VideoGamer.com drew comparisons between the art style and Guillermo del Toro's work.
The developers claimed to avoid the use of quick time events during combat, stating that they distracted the player from the action, but the game features several instances. When the game was 60% complete, MercurySteam was aiming for 30 frames per second performance, as opposed to 60 frames, which the company said was not a priority at that stage. The game reached gold status following an announcement on Twitter made by David Cox on September 9, 2010. The game's two downloadable content (DLC) episodes, Reverie and Resurrection, were released few months after the game's release to explain the twist from the story's ending. David Cox referred to these DLC chapters as "a mistake."
A port for Microsoft Windows was announced in June 2013 with the subtitle of "Ultimate Edition". This port will feature new weapons, boss fights and environments. The downloadable content chapters are also going to be included within the game. It is set to be released in Steam on August 27, 2013 and in retail on August 30, 2013.
Read more about this topic: Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow
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