Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2

Lords of Shadow 2 concludes the trilogy from studio MercurySteam and moves the story of Gabriel Belmont, now cursed as Dracula, into a present day full of skyscrapers and military units hunting for his blood. The game combines a combat system inspired by the God of War and Devil May Cry series with stealth sections in which Dracula can transform into a rat or mist to sneak past guards, and with exploration of an interconnected castle and modern city, as the player switches between vampiric abilities and the classic whip arsenal of the Belmont bloodline, supplemented by magical powers drawn from blood and shadow.

Compared to the previous entries in the trilogy, this version is noticeably darker, more mature, and less linear - Dracula's castle functions as a central hub the player keeps returning to, gradually unlocking new paths using acquired abilities, similar to the metroidvania genre, a clear departure from the more straightforward Lords of Shadow from 2010, which was built on clearly separated chapters without free return to earlier areas. The story also interweaves two timelines, a past taking place shortly after the events of the first game and a present with modern technology, armed forces, and its own faction of vampire hunters, culminating in the closing of the whole arc the series began with Gabriel Belmont. Supporting characters like Zobek or Alucard appear in both timelines in different roles than in previous entries, giving players who have followed the whole trilogy from the start further reason to piece the entire story together.

Why play: Lords of Shadow 2 is for players who finished the previous entries and want to see how Gabriel Belmont's story concludes in a darker, more interconnected world than the first Lords of Shadow offered, and who don't mind trading the gothic castle for partly modern settings and a more elaborate, less linear level design with returns to already visited areas.