It’s been a rough few weeks for Konami. First the company’s probably firing of Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima and now its confirmed cancelation of Silent Hills has brought up a rather negative air around the Konami name. You might think of Castlevania as the last Konami series you’d see referenced, but now series creator Koji Igarashi is teasing something in the vein of it at the very least.
It was last year at PAX 2014 when when a flyer bearing a Satanic pentagram and the mantra “There Will be Blood” was distributed to guests at former Capcom designer Keiji Inafune’s Mighty No. 9 panel. NeoGAF users deciphered a message from the runes, which allegedly reads “What a wonderful night to have a KS.”
Folks have assumed that the”KS” refers to Kickstarter, i.e. a soon-to-be-launched Kickstarter campaign.
A mysterious teaser site also went live as of late, starring a small, pixelated Igarashi clone asking the viewer to choose their weapon: a sword or a whip. Once you’ve voiced your opinion the first time, he invites you to return and vote again. The hashtag #igavania teases us at the bottom of the page.
The throne, the whip, the sword, the Dracula-esque imagery – gamers are hoping this is the surest sign of a Castlevania spiritual successor that we’ve gotten yet since Igarashi departed Konami last spring.
“I’ve decided to break out on my own to have the freedom to make the kind of games I really want to make,” he said at the time, “the same kind I think fans of my past games want as well.”
As for Castlevania, we liked its 3D debut of Lords of Shadow back in the day and didn’t like its sequel so much. The series originally released in America way back in May of 1987, so it might be quite the monumental month to launch something big. While we’ll have to wait for anymore official word, but in the meantime, which would you choose: the sword or the whip?