Castlevania dev's next game will be better

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow developer MercurySteam has recounted the lessons learnt from making the Konami-published action game, and promised: "the following game will be better."

Speaking during a keynote talk at GDC Europe 2011, MercurySteam co-owner Enric Alvarez discussed the challenges the Spanish studio faced rebooting the much-loved franchise.

"Of course, there were a lot of things with Castlevania we would have loved to have done better. But I'm convinced the following game will be better," he said.

And then, later in his talk, Alvarez said: "Hopefully in our next project we'll be able to improve on all the aspects. We've taken note of things that have gone well and others that didn't. Now, we'll see what happens."

Is Alvarez talking about a Castlevania sequel?

In October last year Oscar Araujo, composer of the game's soundtrack, said on Spanish radio that there would be a sequel to Lords of Shadow, and that MercurySteam had already begun working on it.

He said: "If you liked the first [game], hope that the second is even more spectacular."

Producer Dave Cox wrote on Twitter last week that he was working on two unannounced projects. Is the Castlevania sequel one of them?

Lords of Shadow launched late last year to critical and commercial acclaim. Eurogamer's Castlevania review whipped an 8/10. "So even though the wait continues for a 3D Castlevania that truly matches the elegance, complexity and spatial intelligence of the 2D games," wrote Christian Donlan, "this is a polished and enjoyable blast of musty Gothic action in its own right."

Konami has singled out Castlevania's sales for praise, describing them as "solid". A month after launch Konami had shipped a million copies of the game.

"Looking back, in spite of all the errors, honestly, I don't think we went wrong," Alvarez explained. "Of course, the framerate could have been better in some places, but I'm sure this game is completely playable and you can enjoy it as it is.

"There were some puzzles that were a bit obtuse because they didn't have sufficient clues, but that's only in a minority of cases.

"These are problems of implementation, not problems based on philosophy or because of having taken wrong decisions. Mentally, I go back and I think, if I were to start anew, I would take the same decisions and develop the same game."

Alvarez pointed to Castlevania's titans – huge bosses that rekindle memories of classic PlayStation 2 game Shadow of the Colossus – as one of the game's achievements.

"When we finally finished up we were tremendously proud of the result, and we even felt more admiration for the work of Team Ico with Shadow of the Colossus," he said.