Home » Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse (Preview)

We had the opportunity to adventure through Konami’s upcoming game, Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, during our time at PAX West. The demo provided some satisfying, fast-paced battles and delicious visuals that make this Castlevania worthy of your radar.

A New Generation Threat

Konami’s next Castlevania game comes with new stylish visuals and mechanics that give the next entry a fresh taste for new and returning players. Taking place 23 years after Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse, you play as Rose Belmont, the daughter of Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades. A new threat arrives during your trip in medieval Paris, and you’ll need to tame it before things get out of control. The demo didn’t include any cutscene explanation of Rose’s story and dropped you right into gameplay.

Smooth Like Butter

While playing the short twenty-minute demo, the visuals popped out right away. The clean and detailed illustrations contribute to a more modern 2.5D vector style. The game bears a resemblance to titles such as Hades and the Netflix animated series Castlevania. Animations are smooth, and there are very few to no issues with the background and characters clashing. Konami has mentioned the game will run at 60 frames per second (fps) with the Nintendo Switch at 30 fps. It’ll be intriguing to see how it runs above 60, but the gameplay still feels smooth.

Roaming the areas, the game’s layout felt excellent and brought curiosity to how to get around obstacles that block some of the pathways. You can use your whip ability to swing across multiple spike floors. I encountered a situation where the command to swing the whip did not work, but I realized it was mostly due to a minor user error on my part. Removing enemies and hitting those candlesticks brought reminiscence of the glory days of Castlevania. I look forward to continuing the journey in Belmont’s Curse.

Maneuvering Rose felt excellent on the controller and responded quite well. Enemies consist of various skeleton warriors and bats in this demo, and the action felt fast-paced enough to enjoy. The first boss battle against “The Fallen” was fun, as your attacks penetrated the large-scaled boss while dodging at key moments to survive his brute force. Once it was over, you were rewarded with a tarot card, known as “Arcana,” that lets Rose use his abilities as special actions. You’ll earn more of these specialized cards that you can equip to Rose the further you play. Players can also develop their Arcana to increase damage, range, and more. A rewarding system that’s worth exploring the depths in Belmont’s Curse.

Continuing the Quest

The Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse demo at PAX West gave a satisfying taste of what’s to come when it releases this fall. Seeing the return of Castlevania is looking promising, and players should look forward to it.

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse is set to launch on October 15, 2026 for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Fans can visit the game’s official website for additional information and purchasing options. We appreciate the Konami team for giving us the opportunity to test out their game at PAX West.