We were just having a conversation about reboots the other day, and how it’s possible that Joel Schumacher is single-handedly responsible for the reboot phenomenon that has taken hold of both Hollywood and the games industry. It started with Schumacher making Batman “more colorful” with Batman Forever and Batman and Robin – leading to Batman Begins, the success of which led to Casino Royale, and trickling down to a million other film reboots. Videogames, always wanting to be interactive movies, jumped on the bandwagon. And now we have Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Is it a reboot? Yeah, we think so.

Did Castlevania need a reboot? Surely it has done the whole “go after Dracula in his huge castle for the millionth time” thing to death. But the series hasn’t exactly done the Batman and Robin, has it? Its forays into 3D gameplay haven’t set the world on fire (vꦰia flame whip, of course), but they didn’t really jump the shark, did they? It does feel, though, that the ol’ ‘vania could do with some freshening of🌼 its almost odiously familiar undead corpse.

Above: Get ready, because this shit is about to get real... epic