Contra Reboot Next Up for MercurySteam?
“I know there’s going to be pressure on us to do another Castlevania game, but I don’t want to rise to that pressure. I want to do something else. I love Contra. I’d love to do Contra. At MercurySteam we’ve got an original idea that I think is really awesome. We’d love to bring that idea to market and I’m hoping that the success of Lords of Shadow 2 will allow us to do that.”
Dave Cox, Konami EU’s head of development, on MercurySteam’s future post Lords of Shadow.
Like Castlevania before Lords of Shadow brought the series back to seven-digit prominence, Contra has fallen into obscurity, sometimes making a tiny splash as a handheld title (like Wayforward’s fantastic Contra 4) and sporadic downloads (like that Contra: Hard Corps successor).
I’m sure whatever vision MercurySteam has for Contra will absolutely divide series fans. Unless the game adheres strictly to the hardcore side-scroller format, it’s going to call down some hate upon itself (LoS definitely has its detractors – actually, correction: every reboot ever has its detractors). But there’s so much potential in the studio spearheading Contra. Love them or hate them, MercurySteam puts forth solid work and they’re able to bring interesting ideas to the table – and interesting ideas is all the ammo Contra needs to get back into action.
Of course, as Cox has pointed out, if LoS2 is another monolithic hit (fun fact: the original is the best selling Castlevania game in history), Konami will probably try to commission yet another sequel. But Cox and MercurySteam don’t want to budge, “Somebody else can do that. I don’t want to be known as Mr. Castlevania, and we don’t want the team to be known as the Castlevania team,” says Cox, adding, “We want to work on other projects. We’ve got other ideas.”