| Edition | Price | What you get | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard (digital) | $29.99 / £24.98 / €29.99 | The game. Pre-orders add the Alucard Style Costume. | PS5, Xbox Series X|S + Xbox PC, Steam, Switch |
| Midnight Edition (digital) | $39.99 / £34.99 / €39.99 | The game + Digital Sound & Art Gallery (71 tracks) + Trevor Style Costume + Sypha Style Costume + Family’s Grace relic. Pre-orders add the Alucard Style Costume. | PS5, Xbox, Steam — on Switch the extras are separate DLC |
| Physical Midnight Edition | Retailer price | The Midnight contents on disc/cartridge; select EMEA retailers add a SteelBook and a Rose Belmont tarot card by Katsuya Terada | Select retailers |
The Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse release date is today, Thursday 15 October 2026, on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox PC, Steam and Nintendo Switch. Both the PlayStation Store and Microsoft’s own catalogue stamp the unlock at 04:00 UTC, which was 9 PM on 14 October on the US west coast. It costs $29.99, or $39.99 for the Midnight Edition. Reviews landed on 13 October and put it at 86 on Metacritic for PS5. It is not on Game Pass at launch.
This is a budget-priced game, so the wallet maths is simple. The $29.99 Standard Edition fits inside one $35 Nintendo eShop card. A $50 Xbox gift card or a $50 Steam Wallet code covers either edition. Below is every date, price and spec we could verify on Konami’s own announcement and the four storefronts, re-checked on the morning of launch.
Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse release date and unlock time
Konami announced the date in June 2026, when pre-orders opened, and the Switch version — originally “to be announced at a later time” — was later confirmed for the same day. When we opened the US PlayStation Store listing on 24 September, the product header read 10/15/2026 06:00 AM GMT+2, which is 04:00 UTC, and the page data still said 2026-10-15T04:00:00Z on launch morning. Microsoft’s product catalogue gives the same moment for the Xbox Play Anywhere version: both editions carry a release time of 04:00:00 UTC on 15 October. Steam’s page says “Coming Oct 15, 2026”, but Steam’s own store API returns 14 October for the US, which is what a 04:00 UTC unlock looks like from the Pacific time zone. Nintendo prints the date without a time.
Unlock time in your time zone
| Where | Local time | Day |
|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles (PDT) | 21:00 | Wed 14 Oct |
| New York (EDT) | 00:00 | Thu 15 Oct |
| London (BST) | 05:00 | Thu 15 Oct |
| Paris / Berlin / Warsaw (CEST) | 06:00 | Thu 15 Oct |
| Dubai (GST) | 08:00 | Thu 15 Oct |
| New Delhi (IST) | 09:30 | Thu 15 Oct |
| Tokyo (JST) | 13:00 | Thu 15 Oct |
| Sydney (AEDT) | 15:00 | Thu 15 Oct |
The free demo on 1 October
A free demo with the game’s opening chapter went live on 1 October 2026 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch and PC, as RPG Site reported from Konami’s announcement. Microsoft’s catalogue dates the Xbox demo to 04:00 UTC that day, the same hour as the full game, and it is still listed free on the PlayStation Store and Xbox on launch day. It runs at 60 fps on PS5, Xbox and PC and 30 fps on Switch. Your progress carries into the full release if you play both on the same platform and account, keep the demo save on the system, and update the full game to its latest patch before you load it.
With the full game at $29.99, the demo is still the best way to decide. If you finished the chapter, buying now drops you straight back where you left off.
Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse reviews and Metacritic score
| Platform | Metascore | Critic reviews | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Xbox Series X|S | 88 | 6 | Highest score, smallest sample |
| PS5 | 86 | 54 | The headline score: 51 positive, 2 mixed, 0 negative |
| PC | 82 | 29 | Four points under PS5 |
| Switch | 78 | 5 | Too few reviews to read much into yet |
Review embargo lifted on 13 October, and the Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse Metacritic page settled at 86 on PS5, rated “Generally Favorable”. When we opened the PS5 critic list on launch morning, 51 of the 53 reviews were positive, 2 mixed and none negative. Six outlets had given it a perfect 100, including Shacknews and PlayStation Universe, and RPG Fan gave 97. The PC version is lower at 82, and the Switch version, whose demo ran at 30 fps, has only five reviews at 78.
What critics praised and criticised
“A fantastic action game, a less than stellar Metroidvania.”
— Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Review headline, 13 October 2026
That headline sums up the split in the reviews we read. The review excerpts on Metacritic praise the combat, the level design and the music, and Region Free’s 100 calls it one of the best Castlevania games ever made. The complaints are about exploration: Gameliner, which still gave it 90, docked points for “frustrating mechanics and a lack of guidance”, and ComicBook wanted more interaction with the Arcana spells. If you played the demo and liked the fighting but got lost in the map, expect more of both in the full game.
Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse price and Midnight Edition
What the extra $10 buys
Almost everything in the Midnight Edition is cosmetic or a keepsake: two costumes that dress Rose as her parents, and a sound-and-art gallery with 71 tracks from the game. The one gameplay item is Family’s Grace, a relic — and relics in this game trigger offensive and defensive effects, so it is the only part of the upgrade that touches play. Konami has not said how strong it is. If you want the soundtrack, $10 is a fair price for it; if you do not, the Standard Edition loses you nothing you need to finish the game.
The pre-order bonus: Alucard Style Costume
Every edition on every platform gets the Alucard Style Costume for a pre-order or an early purchase. The PlayStation Store lists it as “[Pre-order Bonus] Alucard Style Costume”, and the Xbox and Nintendo listings name the same item. Konami’s wording — “pre-ordering or early purchasing” — suggests buying in the first days after launch may still qualify, but no storefront gives an end date, so if the costume matters to you, pre-ordering is the only safe route.
The physical Midnight Edition
The boxed version is the Midnight Edition only, with the same digital extras inside. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa, select retailers add an exclusive SteelBook and a premium tarot card of Rose Belmont illustrated by Katsuya Terada. Konami did not publish a physical price, so it varies by shop.
Is Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse on Game Pass?
No — Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse is not on Game Pass at launch. On 30 August 2026, during gamescom, a reel on the official Xbox Game Pass Instagram account showed Belmont’s Curse among games coming to the service. The video was deleted shortly afterwards. Launch week settles it: Xbox Wire’s “New Games for October 12 to 16” post lists it for 15 October as an Xbox Play Anywhere game at $29.99, with no Game Pass label. In the same post, Deep Dish Dungeon is tagged “Game Pass”.
Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse FAQs
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Is there a Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse demo?
Is Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse on Game Pass?
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Is Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse on Switch 2?
PC requirements and download size
| Minimum | Recommended | |
|---|---|---|
| OS | Windows 11 | Windows 11 |
| Processor | Intel Core i5-8400 | Intel Core i5-10400 |
| Memory | 16 GB RAM | 16 GB RAM |
| Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 |
| DirectX | Version 11 | Version 11 |
| Storage | 10 GB | 10 GB |
Two things stand out. The storage is small. Steam asks for 10 GB. Microsoft’s catalogue lists the packages at 8.0 GB on Xbox Series X|S and 6.6 GB on Xbox PC, and Nintendo’s final Switch size is 3.5 GB. This is not a game you need to clear space for. But both tiers list Windows 11 and 16 GB of RAM, which is a steep floor for a 2D game; we would expect it to run on Windows 10 and 8 GB machines in practice, but that is not what Konami promises, so check your system before you buy on Steam. The game has full controller support, a keyboard-only option, and Steam Family Sharing enabled. Voice acting is in English and Japanese, with text in 11 languages.
Switch and Switch 2
On the Nintendo eShop the game is a single $29.99 Switch release, playable on Switch 2, with the Alucard costume for early purchases. There is no Midnight Edition bundle on Switch: the extras are split into two DLC items, a Bonus Contents Pack and the Digital Sound & Art Gallery. The download shrank before launch: Nintendo’s page data now gives a final size of 3,754,950,656 bytes, which Nintendo displays as 3.5 GB, against the 4.2 GB estimate it showed in September. If you are paying with a $35 Nintendo eShop card, keep in mind the Switch demo ran at 30 fps against 60 fps elsewhere, and it has the lowest Metacritic score of the four so far. Try the free demo first.
Where it sits in the Castlevania timeline
“Set 23 years after Castlevania Dracula’s Curse — follow Rose Belmont’s journey in an all new 2D Action-Exploration title.”
— Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse Steam page, Konami’s store description, read 24 September 2026
Belmont’s Curse is set in Paris in 1499, and its lead is Rose Belmont, daughter of Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades from 1989’s Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. It is a side-scrolling exploration game in the Symphony of the Night mould, developed by Evil Empire with advice from Motion Twin, the studio behind Dead Cells. Bosses include Death, Medusa and Carmilla alongside new ones such as Joan of Arc, and defeated bosses become tarot “Arcana” that give Rose new spells. It was revealed at a PlayStation State of Play in February 2026 and is the first brand-new mainline Castlevania in more than a decade — which is why the demo will matter more than any trailer.
More gothic 2D action we stock
We searched our own catalogue again on launch morning and still do not stock Belmont’s Curse. We do stock several 2D exploration games in the same gothic, whip-and-blade tradition, all delivered as instant digital keys: Blasphemous, whose Spanish-Catholic horror is the closest in tone; its sequel in the Blasphemous 2 Deluxe Edition; the hand-drawn Afterimage; and GRIME, a darker, heavier take on the formula. If Belmont’s Curse leaves you wanting more of the genre, start with Blasphemous.
Another launch in the same stretch is Phantom Blade Zero on 29 October. If you are paying with store credit, our guides to redeeming a PlayStation gift card on PS5 and redeeming a Nintendo eShop card cover the common failure cases.
Sources & how we checked this
Every price, date and spec above was first read from the publisher or the storefront on 24 September 2026, with each store set to the United States; UK and eurozone prices came from Steam’s store data for those regions. We re-checked prices, unlock times, download sizes, Game Pass status and review scores between 02:00 and 02:30 UTC on 15 October 2026, before the unlock. The store screenshots are from 24 September; the Metacritic screenshot is from 15 October. We have not played the game, so everything about how it plays is Konami’s description or attributed to the critics who reviewed it.
- Konami’s release-date and Midnight Edition announcement — platforms, developer credits, edition contents, the Alucard pre-order costume and the EMEA SteelBook and tarot card.
- Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse on Steam — $29.99 / $39.99, UK and EU prices, PC requirements, languages and the store description quoted above.
- PlayStation Store listing — the 04:00 UTC unlock stamp, both editions, the pre-order bonus and the ESRB Teen rating.
- Xbox store listing — prices and Xbox Play Anywhere; launch-day unlock time and package sizes from Microsoft’s product catalogue data behind it.
- Xbox Wire, New Games for October 12 to 16: the 15 October listing without a Game Pass label.
- Metacritic: scores per platform, review counts and the review excerpts quoted above.
- Nintendo eShop listing — $29.99, Switch 2 support, the final 3.5 GB size (4.2 GB estimate in September) and the two DLC items.
- RPG Site on the 1 October demo — platforms, frame rates and save carry-over.
- Wolf’s Gaming Blog on the deleted Game Pass reel — the 30 August video and its removal.
- Wikipedia — setting, characters and announcement history.
How we work is set out in our editorial policy. We will add Steam user reviews and any day-one patch notes once they appear.
Rayyan covers console and PC gaming wallets for Virtwave, with deep specialism in PlayStation Network, Xbox, Razer Gold and Steam. He has been writing about digital gaming commerce since 2020.
