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Story by Nathan Grayson

Wed, Jun 02, 2010 | 11:32 BST

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow to be mainstream-friendly, says Konami

Much as we enjoy games like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, we have to admit that the concept of pale, feminine-looking male spooks duking it out is a bit esoteric. (OH WAIT.)

So this time around, Konami’s decided to cast its net a bit wider.

“There was a desire in the company to make the game more mainstream and I think at that point we were thinking it needs to appeal to Western audiences outside of Japan,” Konami head of product planning Dave Cox told CVG.

“Castlevania had a quite Japan-centric look and feel to it and was appealing to a very small audience of people – it wasn’t breaking out there. Japan’s brief to us was to make it more mainstream, make it more Western, which is what we did.”

That, according to Cox, is why Metal Gear series creator Hideo Kojima took the reigns.

“[Kojima] kind of said that the story is quite moving and in order to convey that and get people to believe in that character he needs to be much more of an every man – someone people can identify with and not this muscle head type character,” Cox said.

Yep. Exactly. He nailed it. That’s why Gears of War never caught on in the West. Also, we really hope the Lords of Shadow team took Kojima’s advice in moderation. After all, let’s not forget what happened the last time Kojima decided a main character was a bit too manly.