In a new and mysterious video (h / t Polygon), an off – camera player navigates what appears to be a prototype of Castlevania: Resurrection, a Sega Dreamcast game canceled since the early 2000s. If legitimate, this is the first time game images have been released.
The short video appeared on a newly created YouTube channel and has no description. The disc is marked as “11 ‘5 ’99” and looks like a typical rewritable GD-ROM of the Sega type that is commonly used for development and is distributed to the press in the Dreamcast era. It is unclear where the person in the video got the record.
The player loads several areas from a debug menu, but only moves the character with one hand, so it is unclear whether combat or other functions are implemented. And while the main character takes damage from a few enemies, he also traverses a lava pit without having an obvious bad effect, suggesting that it remains very unfinished.
In accordance with Invisible64, Castlevania: Resurrection would have followed Castlevania Legends the protagonist Sonia Belmont and a new character named Victor Belmont as they traveled to the past to deal with Dracula before the events of the first game. Although the game appeared during a private exhibition at E3 in 1999 and at the September 1999 issue of the United Kingdom Dreamcast Magazine, Konami quietly canceled it in March 2000.
“Castlevania: Resurrection it was a doomed game from the start, “said Jason Lee Elliott, a former Konami artist write on your personal website. “The team itself had a lot of problems when I got on board. Most of the team had only ever worked on sports games, so they had no idea how to create a 3D action game. The art team was not very cohesive and did not agree in one direction. The game had been in development for almost two years and had little to show for it.
Since its cancellation, several Castlevania: Resurrection resources have appeared online, included conceptual art i music—Thanks to the people who helped develop the game.
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I don’t think the world missed anything amazing when Konami sent Castlevania: Resurrection go out to graze, but that doesn’t mean archiving efforts like this aren’t vital to preserving video game history. We lose much more than a few hours of play when a major studio cancels a project. Congratulations to the fans who keep looking for information; only with their efforts do we continue to learn about these games.