Castlevania: Resurrection resurfaces with a playable prototype

The story of Castlevania: Resurrection is one filled with industry drama and rumors galore. Initially developed for the SEGA Dreamcast, the game got cancelled after disagreements between Konami of America and Japan. In an interview from 2007, Resurrection art director Greg Orduyan stated the game was internally sabotaged by “some people within Konami who had their own agenda.” The demise of the Dreamcast and rise of PlayStation 2 didn’t help matters either.

The game was shown at a closed-doors event at E3 1999, but nothing concrete was seen by the public until now. Dreamcast journalist Comby Laurent discovered a recently uploaded video, showing off Castlevania: Resurrection in all its prototype glory. The video shows off its playability, and a debug menu with different levels from the game. They include:

• Courtyard
• Stairs
• Hall
• Corridor
• Chapel

According to the original source, this is an earlier prototype of the E3 1999 demo. In addition to the five environments, there is also a boss fight featured on the disc. Unfortunately, it’s unclear if his source plans to dump the build on the internet. As of right now, they just wanted to show the world that it exists beyond myths and rumors.

This is quite a big deal for video game historians and preservationists, let alone Castlevania fans. Last month, we reported on the giant dump of over 700 PS2 prototypes that were released by game preservationists, and now this! I’ll be crossing my fingers and toes for a publicly available build, but I’m glad we can see it exists.

What do you think of this bombshell? Share your thoughts with us below!