On a new mysterious video (h / t Polygon), an off-camera player navigates through what appears to be a prototype of Castlevania: Resurrection, a Sega Dreamcast game canceled from the early 2000s. If legitimate, this is the first time footage of the game has been made publicly available.
The short video appeared on a newly created YouTube channel and lacks a description. The disc is marked “11 ‘5 ’99” and looks like a typical rewritable GD-ROM of the type that Sega commonly used internally for development and distribution for printing in the Dreamcast era. It is unclear where the person in the video obtained the disc.
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 features are implemented. And while the main character takes damage from some enemies, she also walks through a lava pit with no obvious harmful effects, suggesting that much is unfinished.
According to Invisible 64, Castlevania: Resurrection would have followed Castlevania Legends the protagonist Sonia Belmont and a new character named Victor Belmont while traveling to the past to deal with Dracula before the events of the first game. Although the game made appearances during a private screening at E3 1999 and in the September 1999 edition from UK Dreamcast Magazine, Konami silently canceled it in March 2000.
“Castlevania: Resurrection it was a doomed game from the start, “former Konami artist Jason Lee Elliott writes on his personal website. “The team itself had a lot of problems when I joined. Most of the team had only worked on sports games, so they had no idea how to make a 3D action platform game. The art team was not very cohesive and was unable to agree on a direction. The game had been in development for almost two years and had little to show for it. “
Since its cancellation, several Castlevania: Resurrection assets appeared online, including conceptual art and song– thanks to the people who helped in the development of the game.
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I don’t think the world lost anything mind-boggling when Konami sent Castlevania: Resurrection for pasture, but that doesn’t mean that archival efforts like this are not yet vitally important in preserving the history of video games. We lost much more than a few hours of play when a large studio cancels a project. Congratulations to the fans who continue to look for information; it is only through your efforts that we continue to learn about these games.