Topic: There's an alternate universe where Lords of Shadow never happened

[The Puritan]

We're not living in it, obviously, but how do you think things turned out there?

To explain: Lords of Shadow was the result of Hideo Kojima seeing Mercurysteam's pitch for a Castlevania reboot and saying, "This is awesome. Why isn't this Castlevania?" At the time, it was up against IGA's SOTN sequel, and we all know which one Konami greenlighted in the end.

But what if LOS hadn't gotten that thumbs-up? What if Konami hadn't listened to Hideo and stuck to its guns? How would the game have been? Would the franchise (and maybe even Konami itself) be different today or would it still have fallen into Pachislot Hell?

[Shiroi Koumori]

To answer the question, if LOS did not exist, IGA's game would have pushed through. But we may never know if it will be good or bad. If it is good, then IGA would have stayed with Konami and CV will still be alive. If it is bad, then, it might be a repeat of what happens in our universe.

[DraculaCronqvist]

We can't say for sure if Konami would still be an actual gaming company, but at least we would have gotten one more proper Castlevania game instead of a reboot that failed spectacularly. I will always hate Kojima for this.

[Super Waffle]

Wouldn't that just be called the normal Castlevania universe?

[zangetsu468]

Thank God.. I thought this was going to be one of those CV LOS is part of the main "Gabriel-became Dracula- became Mathias-became Dracula" timeline deals...

If IGA stayed at Konami we may have had 1999 but never had bloodstained. Since 1999 would have presumably been a console game we must ask if this trade-off would have been worth it... Or just move on with our lives. 

[AlexCalvo]

While I completely acknowledge the short comings of Iga' s 3-D games, I feel his rushed production schedule and tight budgets were a big part of that problem.  If this changed, and Iga was given the time and budget that mercury steam got I am pretty confident we'd have gotten something great.  If things just went as usual, probably a fun but flawed game, hard to enjoy by people outside the fanbase.

[X]

Most likely IGA's SotN sequel would have gone through. Though not without Konami's purposely limited spending. The company's way too conservative for its own good and the products suffer for it. IGA's sequel would have also suffered for it as well. That much I'm sure of.

[The Puritan]

To answer the question, if LOS did not exist, IGA's game would have pushed through. But we may never know if it will be good or bad. If it is good, then IGA would have stayed with Konami and CV will still be alive. If it is bad, then, it might be a repeat of what happens in our universe.

I like to think it would've been good; a considerable step above LOI and COD. If only because OOE pretty much proved that the third time is the charm (for the DSVanias, that is).

We can't say for sure if Konami would still be an actual gaming company, but at least we would have gotten one more proper Castlevania game instead of a reboot that failed spectacularly. I will always hate Kojima for this.

That'll always be a point of resentment for me too. That he had that much say to influence a series outside his 'jurisdiction.' I mean, Silent Hills looked like it was gonna be great thanks in part to his Western cinematic leanings, but those same leanings just weren't right for CV. It just so happened that Mercurysteam's proposition lined up with said leanings and Hideo had a lot of clout because of MGS.

Wouldn't that just be called the normal Castlevania universe?

That would make them Earth-1. Weird to know we're Earth-2.

If IGA stayed at Konami we may have had 1999 but never had bloodstained. Since 1999 would have presumably been a console game we must ask if this trade-off would have been worth it... Or just move on with our lives. 

Well you know there's no way an official Demon Castle War game could've been as fulfilling as we were all (and sometimes still are) hyping it up to be. So I'll have to roll with Bloodstained. 

Then again, if IGA had done 1999 sometime between 2009 to 2014, his take on the saga up until then might actually have received closure and Konami would only now be considering a reboot. Which means either LOS would've been inevitable or some other company (maybe American instead of European this time) would have had their own unique shot at CV.

While I completely acknowledge the short comings of Iga' s 3-D games, I feel his rushed production schedule and tight budgets were a big part of that problem.  If this changed, and Iga was given the time and budget that mercury steam got I am pretty confident we'd have gotten something great.  If things just went as usual, probably a fun but flawed game, hard to enjoy by people outside the fanbase.

Most likely IGA's SotN sequel would have gone through. Though not without Konami's purposely limited spending. The company's way too conservative for its own good and the products suffer for it. IGA's sequel would have also suffered for it as well. That much I'm sure of.

Looking at these two together (and as much as I want to think a SOTN sequel would've been great with enough time and money), I feel Pachislot Hell would ultimately still have happened. Even if LOS had been turned down and IGA had kept making games, Konami would've still seen the future in mobile gaming around 2015 and adjusted accordingly. No game they would've made, let alone CV, could've changed that. Kinda like a fixed point in time, in Dr. Who terms.

On the plus side, a Lords of Shadow-less world would probably still get Bloodstained. Just five years later and visibly different in certain aspects, if only coz I suspect BS is made of stuff IGA would've used in CV had he stayed on.

[Holy Diver]

Well, I can't say if the game would be good(it probably would) but it would certainly sell good.
I mean, it is a sequel to one of the best games on PS1 and generaly the most beloved game of the franchise.

[Guy Belmont]

yeah It really pissed me of when Hideo stuck his nose in, How would he have liked it if IGA had come down and been like

"YES you should so make this MG game that most others will feel has no business holding the MG name, and really misses what MG is all about"  It was really underhand and just rude  As it in no way was his franchise, why did he  feel the need to screw a fellow co worker.

Thank God.. I thought this was going to be one of those CV LOS is part of the main "Gabriel-became Dracula- became Mathias-became Dracula" timeline deals...

If IGA stayed at Konami we may have had 1999 but never had bloodstained. Since 1999 would have presumably been a console game we must ask if this trade-off would have been worth it... Or just move on with our lives. 

Yeah id love a game about 1999, id play the SH***** out of that game, ohhh whyyyyyy whyyyyyyyy

Just think playing as a young Julius  in his prime, ohhh I bet the game would be amazing.

[FanOfDracula]

if Konami had not supported Kojima and would have left the project to Iga, Iga would have done Castlevania Next Gen of which we only saw a mini trailer of 30 seconds with Alucard, and depending on that game that would have been so good, the franchise might have continued with games of console or perhaps at least by the economy of the company with games for handhelds, and if instead I would not have been successful Iga maybe would be in Konami or perhaps also could have left.
just my two cents 

[Lumi Kløvstad]

I'm in the "nothing would have really changed" camp. Regardless of that game's success, the series would have still petered out after 3 or so games like it did in real life as Konami transitioned to a swiftly abandoned cash crab on mobile and instead tripling down on casinos and arcades -- they've made it pretty plain since even before the first Lords of Shadow that this was the direction their long-term plan was going to be headed in.

We would have gotten a 1-3 games of appreciable effort but probably middling quality and we'd be bitter over the fact that Castlevania fizzled out rather than imploding like it did in our reality thanks to LOS2. The Pachislot games would still be around to be reviled though, most likely.

I don't like it either, but the issue was never Lords of Shadow, or even Castlevania. The issue was rather changes going on at Konami, in personnel, attitude, and the rapid and unstable changes and disruptions in their key markets. It really seems like all the "what if" topics and Lords-blaming among the Castlevania fandom has started to reek of bitterness rather than actual curiosity of how things might have turned out. If that actually is the case, people really need to get the hell over it. If not, well then... I guess I apologize.

Castlevania sank and it sank deep. It sucks, but I can't even fully blame Konami for this. There's a LOT I can blame them for, and rightly so, but this is not one of them. A lot of money was spent on the Lords of Shadow trilogy and when it ultimately failed to perform, well, there were going to be consequences for that sort of failure. But more than that, the wheels at Konami had already been turning away from console gaming for several years before Lords 2 made the coffin Castlevania is currently resting in. The failure of Lords 2 didn't cause Castlevania's death; it just further demonstrated to Konami that moving away from console gaming was a smart choice and so they cut their losses sooner rather than later.

But no matter how many threads we make or how we might imagine a perfect "savior game" might have come forth like a heroic Hungarian (or is he Swedish? ) warlord to rally the people and save the franchise, that was never in the cards. The state things are in now is pretty much always how it was going to be after we crossed a certain point sometime after 2007. Castlevania was going to end up this way, Lords or no Lords. Lords just made it happen a few years sooner, and I'm not certain I'd have preferred otherwise.

At least this way Iga gets to make Bloodstained and we generally still like him. If his game had been made... I'm not sure that would have been the case.

Now whether Castlevania stays dead or makes like a Dark Lord and rises again? That's something only the future can tell.

[JR]

I'm in the "nothing would have really changed" camp. Regardless of that game's success, the series would have still petered out after 3 or so games like it did in real life as Konami transitioned to a swiftly abandoned cash crab on mobile and instead tripling down on casinos and arcades -- they've made it pretty plain since even before the first Lords of Shadow that this was the direction their long-term plan was going to be headed in.

Same here. Even worse, I think IGA's game would've been met with "more of the same" complaints that have followed him during his run on the series regarding the stage layouts, lackluster storylines, etc. Not that there's any way to prove any of that, of course, but that's what I would've been anticipating if he were greenlit instead of MercurySteam. I could see Konami being more eager to cut corners on his budget as opposed to the new team with the new idea who had Hideo Kojima's blessing.

I think Castlevania would have met an even swifter demise under IGA's proposed game, with him probably not being granted any follow-ups to the game and Konami just putting the series out to pasture right then and there. As much as I hate to admit it, I don't think an IGA game at that time would have surpassed or even met the sales that we saw with LoS.

We can't say for sure if Konami would still be an actual gaming company, but at least we would have gotten one more proper Castlevania game instead of a reboot that failed spectacularly. I will always hate Kojima for this.

Strangely enough, I don't really have any gripes about Kojima dipping his hand in the series, since his involvement seemed pretty minimal. I can dislike him plenty for some of the crap that went on in the Metal Gear series, though...

[AlexCalvo]

Strangely enough, I don't really have any gripes about Kojima dipping his hand in the series, since his involvement seemed pretty minimal. I can dislike him plenty for some of the crap that went on in the Metal Gear series, though...

This missed a pretty substantial point that I think many people are unaware of.  Kojima did not have much of a hand in LoS but he very much is responsible for it in a way.  Mercury steam pitched LoS as a Castlevania reboot, but while Konami liked what they saw, they did not think it should be the Castlevania reboot, they intended to move forward on its production as an original IP, and the game continued its development as such for an unknown period of time.  It is unknown if Konami were still moving ahead with Iga's game at This point.   Then, when mercury steam was showing their progress on the original IP Lords of Shadow, Kojima said something along the lines of "why isn't this Castlevania?" And this comment, coupled with his god-like status in the company at the time is what made LoS into the Castlevania reboot. If the plug hadn't already been pulled on Iga's game before, it certainly was after that meeting. So if you are looking for someone to hate over this whole rebooting deal, Kojima is a fair choice.

[JayDominus]

Nothing would change, aside from around twenty thousand fanboys not raging at LoS. Konami is Konami and Konami is the worst and the series would still be dead.