after the ship reaches the castle, not sure if there is a area before the castle entrance, I don't mind if a cutscene bridges the ship arrival with the entering of the castle.
though maybe there's, well it seems like from the castle art, right to the water's edge, there seems to be steps leading to the entrance, so it doesn't seem like an island where the castle is deep within a forest or something like that. its like the island is exclusively holding up a castle and not much terrain outside of that, which is pretty cool, that means more areas dedicated to the castle interiors.
maybe the castle start and progression won't be so linear. they can still have a plot that unfolds without needing to have a specific sequence to watch certain story related cutscenes/conversations before the castle becomes less linear. Well it becomes more nonlinear as progression is made anyways, but it would be cool if they took some tips form the original Resident Evil 1, where you can explore the house in different ways and trigger story events in different sequences, with more unlocked doors and accessible rooms than the RE Remake which basically forced the playthrough to have to go through one path on the west wing before the east wing is explorable beyond 2 rooms.
and Bloodstained ROTN could have better beginnings having its first castle bosses beatable in any sequence. that would give people greater first impressions of exploration and ways they can progress differently and stuff.