Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse Just Beat Lords of Shadow 2’s Peak Five Times Over

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse has set a new concurrent player record for the series on Steam. The game peaked at 21,745 players on October 18, more than five times the previous franchise high. It is also selling strongly on Switch, even as PC players report serious technical problems.

A Series Record on Steam

Según SteamDB’s charts, Belmont’s Curse hit 18,261 players on its October 15 launch day. Instead of fading, it climbed over the weekend, reaching 21,115 on October 17 and 21,745 a day later. Twitch interest also spiked, with viewership peaking above 46,000.

For comparison, TheGamer points out that Lords of Shadow 2 held the previous series record at under 4,000 players. Meanwhile, the recent Dominus Collection peaked just below 2,000. The free demo also drew a modest 2,398 players at its October 1 peak.

Switch Sales Are Surprisingly Strong

On Nintendo hardware, sales look healthy too, even without a dedicated Switch 2 version. TheGamer reported that Belmont’s Curse topped the Switch eShop chart shortly after launch. Nintendo Life has since confirmed the Switch version runs at 30fps.

On the physical side, it debuted third in the UK boxed charts for the week ending October 17. Only EA Sports FC 27 and Control Resonant ranked higher. As Nintendo Life reported, Switch accounted for 45 percent of those sales, close to PS5’s 50 percent.

The PC Launch Problems

The Steam record comes despite a rough PC debut. At launch, the game sat at Mixed on Steam, as players reported several recurring issues:

Black screens: Some players could not get past startup, especially on high refresh rate monitors. As a workaround, Konami suggested lowering the refresh rate and enabling V-Sync.
Steam Deck: Players reported frame rate drops, and Konami confirmed some UI elements could appear partly off-screen.
Controles: Reviews also flagged ghost inputs, freezes, stutters, and a mouse cursor that stayed visible.

Several players noted that some of these problems had already appeared in the demo. Konami apologized and said it is working on fixes. Since then, the Steam rating has recovered to around 70 percent positive across roughly 6,000 reviews, according to SteamDB.

Critics Are Far More Positive

Critics have been much warmer than Steam users. A review roundup on Yahoo noted the PS5 version scored 85 on Metacritic with no negative reviews. TheGamer gave it 4.5 out of 5, while Push Square was cooler at 7/10.

Not every complaint is technical, though. Some players argue the game does not feel like classic Castlevania, partly because of its music and combat feel. Even so, some of those reviewers still recommend it.

Why This Launch Matters

Belmont’s Curse is the first new Castlevania game since Lords of Shadow 2 in 2014. Konami revealed it at a PlayStation State of Play in February 2026 as part of the series’ 40th anniversary. The story follows Rose Belmont, daughter of Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades, in Paris in 1499.

Evil Empire was a natural pick, since the Dead Cells studio previously made a Castlevania crossover expansion for that game. Similarly, Konami has handed Silent Hill to outside studios to revive it.

Conclusión

A record five times larger than the old high proves that demand for 2D Castlevania never disappeared. Still, Konami shipped known demo problems into the full PC release, and that cost the game real goodwill. If the fixes land quickly, Belmont’s Curse makes a strong case for more classic-style entries.