Castlevania Developer Shutaro Ida Diagnosed with Cancer

Shutaro Ida, a lead developer on the DS Castlevania games and the designer of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, has been diagnosed with cancer. Due to the unfortunate news, Ida will be stepping down from Bloodstained 2 to focus on treatment.

“I, Shutaro, also known as Curry Boy and Curry Sage, have been diagnosed with cancer and have now begun my battle with the disease,” Ida wrote in a new X post. “I had already started discussing the sequel to Bloodstained and I have various ideas for the game. From now on, I will hand over this work to others. Thank you for your support.”

The post was quickly retweeted by Koji Igarashi, a producer on Castlevania and Bloodstained.

“Up until now, the DS [Castlevania] series and Bloodstained have been produced primarily by director Shutaro,” Igarashi wrote. “They can truly be called his works. It is a great blow that he is stepping away from the project, but we will do our best to make up for this. We hope that he will recover soon so we can work together again.”

In 2021, a sequel to Bloodstained was confirmed, though it was said to be in “very early planning stages.” Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was released in 2019 for PlayStation 4, PC, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. A mobile version followed in December 2020.

Ida began working at Konami in 1996, remaining there until 2015 and working largely as a programmer. He has also worked with 505 Games, Inti Creates, ArtPlay, and Armature Studio.