Castlevania

If you have plans for Valentine’s Day, they better be with a fire-breathing boar. That’s who you’ll be tangoing with in two weeks, because Castlevania-inspired action game Lords of Exile finally has a launch date set for February 14, 2024. It’s been a while since we took a look at Lords of Exile, which initially smashed its relatively modest Kickstarter goal to the tune of 258% funding back in June 2020. Naturally, it grew into a more ambitious project in the months that followed, moving it well past the launch window…

The Nintendo Switch has had a lot of success in the nearly six years since its release. The console-handheld hybrid has been on the market since 2017, and a slew of fantastic games from first- and third-party developers have launched over the course of the system’s life cycle. Recently, heavy hitters such as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, and Super Mario Bros. Wonder have boosted the system’s appeal, while a healthy list of upcoming Switch games continues to drum up excitement.…

Retroware has officially announced the Programancer developed The Transylvania Adventure of Simon Quest, a side-scrolling action game based on the questionable Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest. It’s coming to PC, Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox sometime in 2025. Some people like the game and that’s okay, but Simon’s Quest is the sort of game I put up on the autopsy table to dissect it to find what went wrong. There’s definitely worse on the NES, but it’s pretty difficult to find a worse game in the Castlevania series. Uh,…

Photo: Russ Martin/FXTo quote Laszlo: “Well, fuck my old boots!” In its fifth season, What We Do in the Shadows still felt like a fresh delight, consistently finding new situations for the vampires to find themselves in–going to the mall, attending a Pride parade, becoming accidental stars on the local news, spending too much time at Panera Bread–and making them absurd and hilarious. Amid all the goofballery, the season’s emotional throughline saw Guillermo finally becoming a vampire (or a half-vampire, at least)—before…

Image: PeacockA lot happened this summer, so it’s easy to forget that Twisted Metal aired on Peacock over the summer. Based on the now classic car combat PlayStation series, the show got decent reviews and was nominated at the recent Game Awards for Best Adaptation. Ultimately it lost out to—and got overshadowed by—HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us, but it sounds like it was overall good, disposable fun on a weekly basis. Zillow Says You’ll Buy Your Next House With… AI? | AI UnlockedFans of the show will be pleased to…

The Last Faith is a 2D, Metroidvania-styled, Soulslike in a wintery and horrific gothic world. It's now available on console and PC.In the constellation of its genre, The Last Faith is distinctly Castlevania-tinged. However, rather than a straightforward quest to kill Dracula, protagonist Eryk must explore the margins of a disturbing world to discover the secrets behind his ailing memory and decaying conscience. Eryk's journey will put him in conflict with ancient gods and mysterious religious orders. As…

Ben Barnes as the Darkling and Jessie Mei Li as Alina Starkov in Shadow and Bone.Image: NetflixIt’s a sad day for fans of Netflix’ Shadow and Bone. The series adaptation of Leigh Bardugo’s fantasy novels—which was developed by Arrival’s Eric Heisserer and gobbled up by passionate viewers—will not return for a third season. This cancellation was just one of many announced by Netflix today.Netflix Passwords, ChatGPT Can’t Detect AI, and No More CoTweets | Editor PicksAlso getting the axe, as reported by Deadline: adult…

Image: NetflixAlthough the main Castlevania series ended after four seasons, Netflix and Powerhouse Animation announced they weren’t done with the IP. The sequel series, Castlevania: Nocturne, will follow Richter Belmont, a descendent of the vampire slayer Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades, and one of the main characters of the Castlevania video games Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night.Set during the height of the French Revolution, Nocturne follows Richter—traumatized by the death of his mother, herself a vampire…

When Netflix’s first Castlevania animated series drew to a close in its fourth season, the vampiric menace threatening to plunge the world into darkness had only been beaten into submission rather than outright destroyed. It was only a matter of time before Dracula and the demons under his thrall returned to terrorize ordinary humans helpless to stop them. But in the first trailer for Castlevania: Nocturne — a new spinoff series from showrunner Kevin Kolde and writer Clive Bradley — humanity isn’t alone in its fight…

When the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) launched, it was an instant success following some of the legendary Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Nintendo sold out of the system of the initial shipment of 300,000 systems within hours, making it one of the most successful console launches in history. Given the time of the system’s release, the SNES gave us a groundbreaking chance to play video games at home relatively inexpensively. The system offered now-classic games and follow-ups to some of the best NES…