One of the big pieces of news coming out of E3 this week is the announcement of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, scheduled to drop sometime next year and looking positively amazing. Here’s the kicker, though: while Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is new, Lords of Shadow is not – Mercurysteam, the developer doing the heavy lifting for Konami this time around, actually announced Lords of Shadow at E3 2008. At that time, it looked like a bland Castlevania knockoff. Here, check out the trailer:

Not to be too harsh about it, but this trailer is a study in boring – the entire first half-to-two-thirds is a slow pan around the character. Ooh, a Gothic-looking dude who resembles a Belmont. We get it. One tiny flash of action at the end, a slowly-assembling logo, and that’s it? Uh, okay. The whip coming out of the crucifix is a nice touch, but aside from that… Meh.
Fast-forward a year to 2009 and suddenly it’s a beautiful example of what happens when you take a decent idea and throw all kinds of talent at it. Now it’s an official Castlevania game instead of a knock-off, Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear) has been brought in to produce (!) and somewhere along the line the game picked up a whole host of top-notch voice talent, including Robert Carlyle (Stargate: Universe, 24) (!) and Patrick Stewart (oh c’mon now) (!!!). The trailer alone is jaw-dropping:

Is it too early to preorder this thing?