- Shape
- 2D, exploration-led, with abilities from bosses opening earlier areas (Konami; every preview).
- Arcana
- Defeated bosses are sealed into tarot cards that grant spells and actions (Konami).
- Weapons
- Seven categories, each with its own moves; relics equipped alongside them (Konami, PlayStation Blog).
- Saving
- Mirror rooms restore health, reset enemies and serve as fast travel.
- Difficulty
- No named modes published; modifiers for damage and boss respawns exist.
Moving through Paris
🪝 The whip as a grapple
The PlayStation Blog puts the whip on R2 on a PS5 pad and calls it the Arcana Whip: a grapple that chains into an attack or into a swing across a gap. Previews describe launching from fixed points to cross gaps and reach high platforms, and launching off an enemy to stun it and reach somewhere new. One says chaining swings between enemies to stay airborne is the best part of it, and that Rose only gets the whip after the first major boss — before that, according to another, she fights with a sword.
🤸 Slide, backflip, wall jump
Rose can slide and wall jump from the start, according to one preview. The PlayStation Blog puts dodge and slide on Circle, with a double tap for a backward flip, and says the dodge has invincibility frames worth learning. Another preview describes sliding under enemies and swinging around them as the basic rhythm of a fight.
🗺️ A map that gates you
The PlayStation Blog calls the map massive, with destructible secret walls and areas you can plainly see but cannot reach until you have the right skill. Press accounts add an auto-filling map, save rooms and fast travel points, and describe standard metroidvania gating by skills and items.
🪞 Mirror rooms
Previews call them magic mirrors that act as save and fast-travel points, and compare them to bonfires: they restore your health and put every enemy in the area back.
👻 Ghosts instead of waypoints
One preview says the game leans on environmental storytelling rather than markers, and that ghosts tell you grim fragments of story which hint at where to go next.
The Arcana system
Beat a boss
Konami's own description is that familiar and new bosses are sealed into tarot cards on defeat. One preview describes the boss becoming a presence that stays with Rose afterwards — The Fallen's voice arrives in her head once it is beaten. Boss defeats reportedly also give experience.
The card becomes an ability
Each Arcana grants a spell, a skill or a special action. The PlayStation Blog names three it used: a bludgeoning Holy Cross from The Fallen; Joan's Holy Light, held on L2, which carries Rose through Chaos Shards and deflects attacks if the timing is right; and a Cursed Flame that makes a fireball bigger and heavier. One preview says the Arcana take the place of the series' traditional sub-weapons.
Spend mana, refill it by fighting
Spells are on Triangle on a PS5 pad and cost mana, which comes back by damaging enemies (PlayStation Blog). Another preview describes the same loop for relic abilities: dealing damage refills the meter that powers them.
Works of Mercy
Each Arcana carries up to three tasks called Works of Mercy. Completing them unlocks Blessings and bonuses called Gifts (PlayStation Blog). One preview describes these as combat challenges that improve the ability — its example is adding knockback to a spell. Arcana can be levelled up, according to previews.
Weapons and relics
- Seven weapon categories, each with its own style and special moves — Konami states the number, and Steam repeats it. Only two have been named in a preview: the longsword, which does extra damage after a backdash, and the cestus gauntlets, which combo faster and hit harder the longer the chain runs (PlayStation Blog).
- Weapons can be levelled and empowered. One preview calls it light RPG work in the mould of Symphony of the Night.
- Boss weapons drop from boss fights: the PlayStation Blog names Joan's Burnt Sword of Fierbois, which has a charge attack.
- Relics are equipment, and up to three can be worn at once out of what the PlayStation Blog calls dozens. Its example is the Crypt Key, which refills health and mana whenever you open a chest. One twenty-minute demo had three available. Konami describes them as serving both attack and defence.
- Healing is by potion, and one preview says you get three of them and that drinking takes long enough that finding the opening is part of the fight. The PlayStation Blog puts healing on L1.
- No source lists the other five weapon categories, the full relic list, or how many Arcana exist.
Fighting, and how hard it is
⚔️ Pattern-reading, not mashing
One preview says even small fights ask you to read an animation and react. The PlayStation Blog describes bosses as pattern-based and punishing without being unfair, won by learning the timings and the dodge's invincibility frames. Another describes backstep and slide as the core defensive tools.
💀 It is genuinely hard
The longest preview session anyone reports found the base difficulty of the build harder than expected, and the first major boss killed the writer repeatedly — enough that the developers pointed them at the modifiers. Konami's stance, given in an interview, is that the game is meant to be difficult and that being simple or easy would not be Castlevania.
🎚️ Modifiers, not named modes
Two previews describe damage scaling and automatic respawns outside a boss door: modifiers that let you change damage or respawn at boss doors if you need them. Neither reproduces the menu, and Konami has published no named difficulty settings, so what the final options screen holds is not known.
🎲 Not a roguelite
Three previews make the point unprompted: despite Evil Empire's Dead Cells work, there is no permadeath and no procedural generation here. One compares the feel to Evil Empire's The Rogue Prince of Persia; another names Dead Cells and Hollow Knight as the reference points for the exploration.
The bosses the previews fought
| Boss | Where | What it did |
|---|---|---|
| The Fallen | The sewers (PlayStation Blog) | A large creature with a spinning holy cross and whip attacks that reach across the screen. Gives the Holy Cross Arcana. |
| Joan of Arc | A rooftop (PlayStation Blog) | Flaming sword swipes, backstabs and fireballs. Drops Joan's Burnt Sword of Fierbois and gives the Holy Light Arcana. One preview calls her a reimagined Joan of Arc. |
| The Guardian | PAX West preview build | A three-hit melee combo, a swing from a chandelier and fire blasts. No other source uses this name. |
| A warrior boss | A guard tower | Unnamed in the preview; yields an Arcana like the others. |
How it looks and sounds
- The art is 2D over layered and 3D elements. Previews call the result 2.5D and describe hand-painted, almost storybook backgrounds with anime-styled sprites in front of them, hand-drawn work mixed with 3D assets, and a much brighter palette than earlier Castlevania games: painterly gothic.
- One preview says it went in sceptical about the 2.5D character work and came out convinced.
- The music reworks series themes electronically. Press coverage confirms an arrangement of Bloody Tears, which first appeared in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, and describes pulsing electronic versions of classic themes. No composer has been credited.
- The reservations are about the long run, not the moment-to-moment. One says it does not appear to reinvent the genre; another that parts of it feel like a greatest-hits set; two more say the open question is whether the systems stay balanced and interesting across a full game, which no preview was long enough to test.
Cross-checked
Cross-checked on 22 September 2026 against the PlayStation Blog's hands-on report (the source of the button mappings above, on a PS5 pad), Konami's own pages, and the coverage of Kotaku, RPGFan, MP1st, Shacknews, CGMagazine, VGC, Noisy Pixel, Wikipedia and GamesRadar+. The previews disagree on how much the whip is a combat weapon, which is recorded on the What We Know page. Not from a playthrough: nobody here has played it, and what the sources do not describe is not on this page.