Castlevania: Belmont's Curse Reviews: Scores & Embargo
Castlevania: Belmont's Curse has not released yet, so there are no review scores. This page tracks what hands-on coverage has said so far, and will carry the score roundup the moment reviews publish.
Last checked 2026-08-02 · Game releases 2026-10-15
When will reviews appear?
Publishers typically lift review embargoes between a few days before launch and launch day itself. No embargo time has been announced for Belmont's Curse, so we are not going to print a date we cannot source. Press hands-on sessions have already happened — PlayStation Blog published its report in July — which usually means preview builds are circulating well ahead of review code.
We will update this page with the score roundup once reviews publish, rather than filling it with a placeholder number now.
Where scores will land
| Aggregator | Status |
|---|---|
| Metacritic | No score yet |
| OpenCritic | No score yet |
What previews have highlighted
These are impressions from hands-on preview coverage of unfinished builds, not review verdicts. Treat them as signals about direction, not quality judgements.
Encouraging
- PlayStation Blog's July hands-on praised fast, fluid combat: versatile evades, a chainable Arcana Whip grapple and seven distinct weapon types with their own special moves
- The Arcana system — defeated bosses merge into Rose's tarot deck and unlock spells, skills and traversal powers — was singled out as the game's freshest idea
- It is a classic-structure Castlevania, not a roguelite: a large hand-crafted map with destructible secret walls and skill-gated areas, a direction Konami's producer says was deliberate
Open questions
- The same hands-on calls the difficulty punishing — 'hasty mistakes are punished fast and hard' — with survival resting on pattern learning and dodge timing
- Only an early slice and two bosses (The Fallen and Joan of Arc) have been shown, so how the curse story arc and full map hold up across the whole game is unproven
- No double jump was available in the demo; traversal depth depends on abilities the developers have only hinted at
Deciding before reviews land
At $29.99 this is priced below a full retail release, but the same logic applies as ever: no edition includes early access, so pre-ordering buys a costume unlock rather than time. If you are undecided, waiting for scores costs nothing — and the gameplay page covers what the hands-on sessions actually confirmed.