Topic: Akumajo Dracula PS3/360–still a mystery 17 years later

[crisis]

This game has eluded us ever since this teaser was released, and quickly cancelled in favor of Lords of Shadow. Little to nothing is known about this, but what we could piece together & speculate, obviously Alucard would’ve been the main character again. It seems it would have taken place shortly after Symphony of the Night. I don’t think this was ever confirmed (obviously) but I believe this game would’ve tied into the Nocturne of Recollection radio drama somehow. Some motion capture work was done, as I recall an interview a mocap actor did a while back where he said he did a few days work on this project at Konami HQ before it was canned.

As far as I know IGA never commented on this, since he’s the only one that could give us solid answers as to what happened, the direction he was going for, etc. I feel the OST would’ve been incredible had it been greenlit. So was this a missed opportunity, or did we dodge a bullet?

[PFG9000]

It was a massive missed opportunity, at least in my mind.  We got Lords of Shadow instead of this.  I really like a lot about Lords of Shadow, but I hate that it has the Castlevania name attached to it.  It just doesn't respect Castlevania, and much of it doesn't feel like Castlevania.  Lords of Shadow effectively took the place of this SotN follow-up.  Even if this canceled project ended up mediocre, it would have been infinitely more respectful to the Castlevania lore than LoS was.  And LoS would likely still have been made, but not under the Castlevania name.  It would have been the best of both worlds.

[LuxKiller65]

they suddenly remembered judgment and told koji, yeah no man, leave castlevania alone now, and no more sotn clones ok?
so he left konami and made a sotn clone.

you can't keep chewing on the same piece of meat and expect the initial texture and taste forever (japanese castlevanias). but there's even greater risk in trying a new piece of meat lol (lords of shadow). i agree it has absolutely nothing to do with castlevania, but hey eric alvarez is a genius, something like that.

[Dongled]

This game has eluded us ever since this teaser was released, and quickly cancelled in favor of Lords of Shadow. Little to nothing is known about this, but what we could piece together & speculate, obviously Alucard would’ve been the main character again. It seems it would have taken place shortly after Symphony of the Night. I don’t think this was ever confirmed (obviously) but I believe this game would’ve tied into the Nocturne of Recollection radio drama somehow. Some motion capture work was done, as I recall an interview a mocap actor did a while back where he said he did a few days work on this project at Konami HQ before it was canned.

As far as I know IGA never commented on this, since he’s the only one that could give us solid answers as to what happened, the direction he was going for, etc. I feel the OST would’ve been incredible had it been greenlit. So was this a missed opportunity, or did we dodge a bullet?

When I interviewed Shutaro Iida last year (with IGA acting as a sort of backup to the interview,) I specifically asked them about this game and what it was supposed to be and I was told to straight up delete the question, so I'd imagine they don't want to get in hot water with Konami over this. There were a small handful of questions as well about the timeline, Castlevania Resurrection/Legends and maybe the N64 games, and all of them were shot down...which makes sense as Iida specifically had nothing to do with those. But seeing as how Iga was backup to the interview, I figured I'd shoot my shot.

Anyways, back to the PS3/360 game that was announced here...from what I have read/heard (please take with a grain of salt as I can't recall the source at the moment,) Konami asked Iga, as well as other teams to pitch to them a new entry in the series. Iga pitched this game and Mercurysteam pitched their original plan for LoS which was supposedly a Super Castlevania IV remake that eventually morphed into LoS (there's video evidence of this as well online that this was the initial plan.) Obviously, Konami was trying to go big budget and sink some serious time/effort with a new entry. Ultimately, it didn't work out despite LoS selling the highest out of all 'Vania titles....but the subsequent sequels killed the LoS alternate series and, well, it seems time heals all wounds as Konami has been focusing on the original timeline again...thank goodness. Food for thought.

[crisis]

Hmm, that’s a very interesting bit of info! So you inquired about it, but they straight up declined to even comment on it. I would imagine they signed strict non-disclosure agreements that are still in place to this day. But IGA’s not even with Konami anymore so I wonder why he still chooses to keep his mouth shut about it, how far into development they put in, etc. If that Resurrection demo could leak onto the internet after everyone believed it was a lost cause then perhaps something similar can happen with this, I just don’t want to wait another 20 years for it to happen

[Inccubus]

Definitely a missed opportunity.
With this project getting canned leading IGA to ditch the corporation in favor of going indie, then one has to wonder if any it's concepts made it into Bloodstained?

[zangetsu468]

It was a massive missed opportunity, at least in my mind.  We got Lords of Shadow instead of this.  I really like a lot about Lords of Shadow, but I hate that it has the Castlevania name attached to it.  It just doesn't respect Castlevania, and much of it doesn't feel like Castlevania.  Lords of Shadow effectively took the place of this SotN follow-up.  Even if this canceled project ended up mediocre, it would have been infinitely more respectful to the Castlevania lore than LoS was.  And LoS would likely still have been made, but not under the Castlevania name.  It would have been the best of both worlds.

Seconded.. Remember when LoS was its own franchise… PachinKonami remembers…

[LuxKiller65]

I've heard it's not true that LoS started as something else than Castlevania. It was apparently always going to be Castlevania, but in order to not disrupt Judgment, it was initially announced simply as a new game.

[Foffy]

As others have said, this was the pitch from the Japanese side for Konami for Castlevania. It lost to Lords of Shadow and the pitch from the European side of the company. IGA has previously stated showing that trailer publicly was a "mistake", likely because it was a pitch and not a promised upcoming work. At the time, as fans didn't know there were three pitches for a new Castlevania game (one from each major branch) fans presumed this was a 3D adaptation of the radio drama which was being broadcast at the time, as that also starred Alucard.

In the end it was more or less a concept video. IGA went on to help with The ARCADE, Adventure Rebirth, and Harmony of Despair as the European pitch went forward as the next mainline console game. The Lords of Shadow pitch they showed around this time hid all of its "Castlevania" elements by name but many people, some even on this forum, found it weird it was a whip wielding game with a character who wore armor very similarly to the artwork of Simon's Quest. Their original pitch, released after the release of LoS1, show a redesigned Simon Belmont wearing white, looking more like an Assassin's Creed character.

I remember when at E3 2009 people thought the press got misprinted information about Konami's upcoming presentation, as it had a game named "Castlevania: Lords of Shadow" when previously it wasn't known as a title in the series. Looking back at it, they really didn't do a good job showcasing this game as the next major entry when so much time was put into the mess that was Metal Gear Rising, a title that never came out as originally envisioned.