During the eighties and nineties, Castlevania meant something atypical than it did after SOTN changed the franchise. Back then, it was more about simple action stimulated by gothic horror, as opposed to back-tracking within a distinct location to open up in the past blocked paths with unique capability. It was the sister series to the Ghosts and Goblins games, another series that effectively blended horror themes onto the epic action plat-forming genre. Ironically, my first experience with the series was the open-ended Simon's Quest, which moved away from the linear approach of the original game. That being said, the game centered on the Dracula's castle, as opposed to the castle itself.
Castlevania 3 and 4 both endeavored to amalgamate the two approaches, by adding some gameplay outside the castle, while still preserving Castlevania itself the star. When the focus of gaming changed to 3D and polygons, however, the game series was unable to make the jump lucratively. Early efforts to comprehend how to translate the fast, twitch-based action of the game series into 3D did not fare well, in part because, truthfully, the technology wasn't up to the task at the time. Consequently, the mantra became that Castlevania merely wouldn't work in three dimensions, and even with a couple of later efforts at a 3D Castlevania, conventional perception seemed to indicate the game was to be downgraded to 2D handheld titles.
Surprisingly, it took a totally different series GoW to show that the basics of Castlevania could work in three dimensions with some effort on the development side. In a number of ways, GoW was type of a three dimension Castlevania, but re-coated with Greek legends. Some years later, the Uncharted series offered a fresh take on three dimensions plat forming. It's no surprise that Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (LoS) borrows a lot from both series in its highly successful bid to regain the series' previous mainstream glory.
Just over a year since the release of LoS1, Konami has revealed during its Pre E3 2012 Press Conference that a sequel to Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, LoS2, is currently in development for Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3) and is expected to release somewhere in 2013.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 - Exclusive Debut Trailer
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