The wait for a brand-new 2D Castlevania is down to its last day. Castlevania: Belmont's Curse, the exploration-driven action game Konami built with Evil Empire and advisory help from Motion Twin, launches on October 15 across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, Steam and Nintendo Switch. It costs $29.99 on Steam, it runs at 60fps everywhere but Switch, and it asks for surprisingly little disk space. Here is everything worth knowing before you buy.
When and where you can play it
Konami's official date is Thursday, October 15, 2026, and it applies to every platform. The Switch version was the last to be locked in: when pre-orders opened in June, Konami only had dates for PlayStation, Xbox and PC, and confirmed in July that Switch would launch on the same day rather than later.
One quirk to know about: Steam's US storefront currently lists the game for October 14. That is not a different launch. It is the usual effect of a midnight release landing on the evening of the day before for players in the Americas. If you are on the West or East Coast and the game appears in your library on Wednesday night, that is why. Players in Europe and Asia should simply expect it on the 15th.
The Xbox version covers both console and Xbox on PC, so Xbox players who move between a Series X|S and a Windows machine are covered by the same store listing.
Price and editions
The Standard Edition is $29.99 on Steam, a notably low price for a series revival from a publisher of Konami's size.
The Midnight Edition comes in both digital and physical form and adds:
- A Digital Sound & Art Gallery, including 71 tracks from the game's soundtrack
- A Trevor Style Costume for Rose Belmont
- A Sypha Style Costume for Rose
- An in-game relic called Family's Grace
Every edition bought before launch or in the early-purchase window also comes with an Alucard Style Costume. In Europe, select retailers are bundling a SteelBook case with the physical Midnight Edition, and some are also offering a premium tarot card of Rose drawn by manga artist and illustrator Katsuya Terada, who painted the game's key art.
Your demo save carries over
If you played the free demo that arrived on October 1, don't delete it yet. Progress from the demo, which covers the game's opening chapter, transfers into the full release. That only works if both are on the same platform and the same account, and the demo save data is still on your system when you start the full game. Clearing the demo to free up space before tomorrow will lose that head start.
PC specs: a modest ask
The Steam listing asks for a 64-bit copy of Windows 11 on both tiers, along with DirectX 11 and 10GB of free storage.
Minimum: Intel Core i5-8400, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650.
Recommended: Intel Core i5-10400, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060.
The only part that stands out is 16GB of memory even at minimum. The GPU floor is a card that is now seven years old, so most gaming PCs should run it comfortably.
File sizes and frame rates
Konami's official product page gives install sizes that will please anyone short on storage:
- Standard Edition: 8GB (4GB on Nintendo Switch)
- Midnight Edition: 10GB (6GB on Nintendo Switch), with the extra space going to the soundtrack and art gallery
The game targets 60fps on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC. The Nintendo Switch version runs at 30fps, a notable trade-off for a game built around fast whip traversal, but one that keeps it on the original hardware rather than limiting it to Switch 2.
Voice acting is in English and Japanese. On-screen text covers English, Japanese, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Korean and both Simplified and Traditional Chinese. The game is rated PEGI 16 in Europe.
What you are getting into
Belmont's Curse is set in Paris in 1499, twenty-three years after Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. The city is on fire, monsters are pouring out of a castle looming over it, and Trevor Belmont goes in with his daughter Rose. Rose is the playable lead, and the conspiracy behind the attack is hers to uncover. It is the first new 2D Castlevania in more than a decade, and Konami is positioning it as a centrepiece of the series' 40th anniversary year.
The combat is built around the Vampire Killer whip, which Konami pitches as a movement tool as much as a weapon. You can latch on, swing like a trapeze artist and turn that momentum into an attack. It is a deliberate break from the slow, committed whip of the classic games. The Dead Cells pedigree of the studios behind it shows in the emphasis on speed and fluid chaining.
The progression hook is the Arcana system. Beat a boss and it is sealed into one of Rose's tarot cards, which becomes a usable skill: a spell or a special action drawn from the creature you just defeated. The boss line-up mixes series regulars such as Death, Medusa and Carmilla with new faces, including Joan of Arc.
Build variety and the map
Alongside the Arcana, Rose can equip weapons from seven distinct categories, plus Relics that trigger effects on offence and defence. Konami's pitch is that combining gear found while exploring lets you shape your own playstyle, so expect the familiar Castlevania loop of returning to old areas with new tools and finding new loadouts as you go.
The map draws on both new ideas and nods to earlier entries, set across the burning streets and catacombs of Paris as well as the halls of Dracula's castle. The art direction swaps the pixel look of the 2D classics for a painterly style with bold colour, from the orange glow of a burning Notre-Dame skyline to the blood-red halls of the castle.
With the launch only hours away, the practical checklist is short: keep your demo save, make sure you have 8 to 10GB free, and on Switch, go in expecting 30fps. Everything else is down to the whip.
