Castlevania: Lords of Shadow may have been a great game and the franchise's best selling entry, but the same simply cannot be said of its lackluster downloadable content.
"The problem was that the game's success caught everyone by surprise. It caught senior management by surprise and they wanted us to do DLC," Konami's Dave Cox told me during our lengthy interview in Los Angeles. "We never planned to do DLC, so we ended up doing DLC after the fact and in hindsight that was a mistake. It was rushed. We had to rush it to market."
The DLC in question consisted of "Reverie" and "Resurrection—both of which reviewed and sold poorly.
"I think we enriched the story that we wanted to tell, but I think if we were going to do DLC again it would have to be planned right from the get go. And it wouldn't be something that would try to build upon an ending—it would be something that's perhaps a side story that enriches the original story. If we were going to do DLC again it would be something much more carefully considered."
Cox and his team were not forced to create downloadable content for Lords of Shadow, but there was nonetheless pressure to do so.
"When you have success there's pressure on you to bring something else to market very quickly," he said. "And I think it was wrong of us to do that."
As to whether there will be DLC for the upcoming Lords of Shadow 2, Cox can't say. But if the tight lipped producer does have DLC up his sleeve—it will be much better than what was offered up for the first game.
"I'm not a big fan of most modern day DLC. I think if DLC is going to be done it has to compliment the main game—not be a continuation of the main story but more of a side story," he said.
"It should add to the experience, not take away from it."
As for his thoughts on the current DLC trends being pushed by the likes of EA, Cox says: "Well, there's a market for it—but I think people want to get value for their money so I think that in that respect you need to give them an expansion of the universe you've created. Like what they've done with Skyrim.
"Instead of giving players a part of the story and giving them the other part as DLC, I think the DLC has to expand the universe of an already whole product."
You can dive back into the universe of Castlevania with Mirror of Fate, which comes out for the 3DS later this year. Lords of Shadow 2 will be out on consoles in 2013.
