Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 is an action-adventure game, the sequel to the 2010 game Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, and part of the Castlevania franchise. The game was developed by MercurySteam and published by Konami. It was released late February 2014 in both North America and Europe and in March 2014 in Australia. Lords of Shadow 2 was released on September 4, 2014 in Japan. A downloadable chapter has also been released in March from the same year.
The story is set in both medieval and modern worlds and follows a weakened Dracula on a quest to defeat his former enemy, Satan. Gameplay takes place after the original Lords of Shadow but this time through an open world. The player controls Dracula who uses multiple powers and weapons to achieve his goals. Lords of Shadow 2 received mixed opinions from critics, who praised its combat and boss fights, but criticized its pacing and stealth sections, while its visual design received polarizing opinions.
Plot[]
The game starts out with a recap of Lords of Shadow and Mirror of Fate, detailing Gabriel Belmont's (Robert Carlyle) transformation into Dracula and his encounters with his son, Trevor (Richard Madden), whom he kills and subsequently resurrects, and grandson, Simon. The game starts with knights attacking Dracula's castle. He swiftly dispatches all of them before being confronted by the revived Trevor, now known as Alucard.
A thousand years have passed and Dracula awakens in a cathedral in modern times, weak from starvation and with no memory of the circumstances that led to him being there. He is warned by his former enemy, Zobek (Patrick Stewart), of the return of Satan, who until then was deterred from doing so by Dracula himself. Zobek offers him his old weapon, the Vampire Killer (the Combat Cross from the first game), the only relic capable of ending his cursed existence, in exchange for him vanquishing the "acolytes" trying to bring Satan (Jason Isaacs) back. The key to him regaining his power lies in his castle, which the cursed blood that kept it alive for centuries attempts to deter Dracula of his quest. Throughout his journey, Dracula is aided by various allies, including Zobek's bodyguard and specters of his deceased wife Marie (Natascha McElhone) and a younger Trevor. He also encounters the Brotherhood of Light and its current leader, Victor Belmont (Anthony Howell).
Having destroyed two of the acolytes and tracked down the third, Dracula prepares to ambush him but is stopped by the bodyguard, flashing back to his last encounter with Alucard. It is revealed that centuries ago, Alucard had come to Dracula with a plan to destroy both Zobek and Satan, using his sword, the Crissaegrim (created from a shard of the Vampire Killer), on him to induce a deep sleep and thus setting the current events into motion. The truth now known, the bodyguard reveals himself to be Alucard. Zobek discovers their treachery and angrily confronts them both. Dracula kills him just as the third acolyte summons Satan, who proceeds to summon a flying monster to destroy the human world. Dracula and Alucard are able to kill the beast, only for Satan to possess the latter, forcing father and son to battle. Dracula gains the upper hand and prepares to stake Alucard with the Vampire Killer, despite Satan's insistence that he would not and forcing him to vacate the body. Having anticipated this, Dracula kills Satan once and for all while saving his son. Dracula then destroys the Mirror of Fate and walks back inside his cathedral with Alucard as the sun rises on the city.