Castlevania: Nocturne Makes Big Changes to Richter's Design

Castlevania: Nocturne is the next chapter in Netflix's supernatural animated series, based on the long-running video game franchise. Many of the Castlevania games would routinely swap out its protagonists, with the majority focusing on the Belmont Clan as they attempt to put Dracula in the ground time and time again. Richter Belmont is the star of the Castlevania games, Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night, and will look a little different from how gamers had originally seen the vampire slayer in his debut. 

In Rondo of Blood, Richter Belmont first picked up his whip and fought against the lord of the vampires in the late 1700s during the French Revolution. Like many of his predecessors, Richter found himself entering Dracula's castle and making his way past countless creatures of the night for the chance to place a stake in Vlad's heart. Unlike many of his predecessors, Symphony of the Night saw Richter switch sides and seemingly work to resurrect Dracula as Alucard stepped into the driver's seat. Nocturne is clearly taking inspiration from these two video game entries though it has yet to be seen if certain events from the games will arrive in the animated series.

Castlevania: Richter's New Look

In speaking with IGN, the creative minds behind Nocturne, including director Sam and Adam Seats, Showrunner Kevin Kolde, and Character Design Supervisor Katie Silva, discussed Richter's big changes. While the newest Belmont might look a tad different from his original look, there are a number of aspects that were ripped straight from the games, 

"From a character standpoint for Richter, we tried to work in a number of attributes for him from the games, but also flush those things out. Richter is younger, he's not as experienced so there's room for growth. When we went in creating the character and designing him, we absolutely wanted to make sure we invoke the spirit of the character. The design specifically is a combination of his Dracula X remake design plus the original PC engine design. There's a third design in the mix that got passed around that was from the Pachinko game and one from Smash Bros. There are little nods to everything, along with subtle adjustments to pay homage to Trevor and Sypha."

They then humorously mentioned Richter's headband, which will also appear in the upcoming animated series, "The elephant in the room is the headband *laughs*. We actually had a lot of debates about whether or not the headband should go on him after Chronicles X. It not only plays well in the story moment, but it makes the little kid in me joyous."