This article was originally published on May 1, 2026 - read the full issue

By Marie Dealessandri

When Evil Empire spun off from Dead Cells developer Motion Twin circa 2019, no one could have predicted this would lead it to making the next Castlevania. Its original expertise was publishing, and yet the Bordeaux-based developer boldly made its way to become the studio Konami chose to make the first entry in the original series since 2008's Order Of Ecclesia.

What started as "three guys working on the ninja publishing of Dead Cells" – as COO Benjamin Laulan puts it – is now a studio employing 60 people.

Evil Empire has been handling all live ops for Dead Cells since 2019, building its credibility and reputation along the way, then making The Rogue Price Of Persia for Ubisoft. It recently announced that it was picking up the reins for Brotato and, of course, creating Castlevania: Belmont's Curse.

"It was hard because we tripled in size in one year," Laulan tells Knowledge. "We went from 15 to 45. We had Prince Of Persia, we had Dead Cells, and we had the Castlevania game that was also starting at the same time. A lot of projects that we couldn't say 'no' to. It was a tough one, but we did manage to get over it."

Laulan initially met with Konami at BitSummit when he was looking for a publisher for Dead Cells' physical release in Japan. He thought he'd also mention Evil Empire's desire to create an Alucard skin or a rapier weapon for Dead Cells, as an homage to its roots. "I remember saying to myself: 'It's too big. They will never say yes'," he recalls. But Konami was immediately enthused about the idea.

Evil Empire ran with it, made mock-ups of iconic levels from Castlevania adapted with Dead Cells' art direction, and Laulan went back to Konami pitching a full-on Castlevania DLC. That proposal ended up being 2023's Return To Castlevania.

"They said, 'Let's do it, and would you also be interested in doing the next Castlevania game?'" Laulan laughs, adding he still can't believe it's happened and that he's now able to talk about it, without any info leaking prior to the announcement in February at Sony's State Of Play. "I'm stoked. Sometimes you've just got to ask the question, and you can be surprised by the answer."

Returning to Castlevania

Working on such an iconic franchise can be treacherous, in particular working out the balance between injecting your own identity as a studio and making sure it feels familiar to returning players.

"We proved our love for the franchise through Return To Castlevania, because there was so much fan service," Laulan says. "For Return To Castlevania, [Konami] basically gave us carte blanche. We put every character we wanted, we were able to use all the songs. Even if discussions [about Belmont's Curse] started at the same time, [the DLC] was the rite of passage, to move on with the full game.

"It's great because Konami really wants to stay true to the genre, and what made Castlevania such an iconic franchise, and yet is super open to our modern takes. We put a lot of emphasis on the game feel, the fastest action, the moment-to-moment combat system – it's something really important for us. We experienced it with Dead Cells, The Rogue Prince Of Persia, and now Castlevania. It's great to be working on such an iconic franchise, and being able to modernise it while still remaining very truthful to its origin, and not trying to reinvent the wheel or make something completely different. We want to be really respectful of the original experience."

Replicating the Dead Cells model

In addition to Castlevania, Evil Empire has recently taken over live ops for Brotato, Blobfish's 2023 shoot-'em-up that sold over ten million copies.

"Personally, it's been years since I've wanted to reproduce the Dead Cells model with another game," Laulan confesses. "We had this idea that if we could do it with Motion Twin and Dead Cells, we could do it with other games. Sometimes, when you make a hit, it's hard to go back to the drawing board. This is where I thought we could come in and say, 'The game is still played by thousands of players, and you want to give them more – we could be that partner'."

Laulan says that he's not trying to build this extensive business model around the idea, but that it makes sense for games that have potential and that the team cares about. There's certainly more on the horizon, he adds.

Three million cumulated wishlists

Laulan tells us the idea of working on Brotato first came up during a chat he had at Gamescom with its original dev, Thomas Gervraud, off the back of Evil Empire's first Triple-I showcase. "It's one of the many good things that came out of this," he smiles. The Triple-I Initiative is another project that the studio has been hard at work on for the past three years. The concept is simple: a digital showcase for the cream of the crop from the indie sphere. No ads, no hosts. Just trailers.

The third edition took place last month, and performed twice as well as the previous year, Laulan says: the games featured gathered three million cumulated wishlists in a week.

"That's a 60,000 wishlist median increase per game," Laulan adds, saying wishlists really are the main focus of Triple-I, as a way to help an indie industry in dire need of better visibility. "We are making sure that we're putting the right games in front of the right people rather than [seek] big viewing numbers. It's not that we don't care about how many people are watching the show, it's more that we care that all the people that are watching the show are interested in the type of games that we are going to show them. This way, we can transform very well."

Sustainable and independent

As our discussion comes to an end, we reminisce about the last time we chatted to Laulan, back in 2023. Evil Empire almost feels like a different studio now. At the time, it was all about stepping out of Motion Twin's shadow. While still collaborating very closely with its sister studio, Evil Empire has now resolutely come into its own. But one question mark remains, which returns to a theme Laulan was keen to discuss three years ago: what about the studio creating its own IP? He immediately lights up when we raise the topic.

"You know, Dead Cells helped us to be sustainable and, especially for a young studio, it's very important to make sure you're building on strong foundations. That's what gave us the opportunity to work on the Price Of Persia and Castlevania IP, so we're building our house very cautiously. It gave us this safety net.

"But we do know that creating your own IP is also what makes you able to be fully independent. We actually started prototyping a few things and I think our next cycle of production – or the next one – will probably be our own IP. We just want to make sure we build it in the best way, without taking too much risk; maybe with a smaller production to start with. It's the next step for Evil Empire to really be sustainable as a studio."

This article was originally published on May 1, 2026 - read the full issue