How French Indie Studios Are Reimagining Castlevania and Fantasy RPGs

In just a few years, France has gone from a strong-but-quiet player in game development to one of the most talked-about creative hubs in the industry. A new wave of studios is putting French history, architecture, and cultural identity at the center of big, ambitious games. Two projects in particular capture this shift: a Parisian spin on Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse from Evil Empire, and the dark-fantasy JRPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from Sandfall Interactive.

Both studios are leaning into the idea that it is not only acceptable, but powerful, to make games that are unapologetically local: French teams making deeply French games. Instead of hiding behind generic fantasy backdrops, they are building worlds shaped by Notre Dame, the catacombs, and even alternate-history versions of national icons like Joan of Arc.

The Rise of a Confident French Game Identity

France has long been home to major studios such as Ubisoft and Dontnod, but the recent surge in attention around smaller and mid-sized teams shows a new confidence. These studios are:

• Drawing openly from French art, architecture, and literature.
• Positioning their work alongside Japanese and North American giants.
• Turning national history into a playground for action, horror, and role-playing.

Government support has helped create this environment. The French CNC (Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée), which traditionally funds film and audiovisual projects, expanded support to video games years ago, with tax incentives and grants aimed at fostering domestic development.¹ This gave local teams a safety net to experiment with riskier themes and settings, including historically grounded or culturally specific projects.

From Dracula’s Castle to the Streets of Paris

Castlevania is historically tied to Eastern European castles, Gothic vampires, and monster-laden strongholds. Shifting that formula to Paris is more than a visual refresh: it changes the emotional texture of the world. Evil Empire’s take on a Castlevania action game leverages iconic French locations to give players new kinds of Gothic spaces to explore.

Why Paris Works as a Gothic Playground

Paris brings its own kind of dark romanticism that fits the series’ DNA. Consider what the French capital offers as raw material for level design and worldbuilding:

• Notre Dame: A towering piece of Gothic architecture, complete with spires, gargoyles, and a cultural aura of tragedy and resilience.
• The Catacombs: A network of ossuaries beneath the city, already famous worldwide as a macabre tourist attraction.
• Revolutionary history: Uprisings, barricades, and executions give writers fertile ground for supernatural reinterpretation.
• Myth and legend: Figures like Joan of Arc blur the lines between historical hero and legendary icon, making them perfect for dark fantasy remixes.

For Evil Empire, setting the game in France is not just a stunt; it is an assertion that their own cultural heritage can be as evocative and commercially compelling as traditional fantasy or Japanese horror motifs. Instead of inventing another nameless kingdom, they are saying: this city, our city, already has centuries of myth built into its stones.

Evil Empire: From Rogue Legacy to Belmont’s Curse

Evil Empire built its reputation as the studio continuing development on Dead Cells, the acclaimed action-platformer that fused roguelike structure with tight combat. That experience has turned the team into specialists in fast, responsive 2D action, and now they are applying that expertise to a licensed Castlevania project.

Carrying a Legacy While Making It Their Own

Taking on Castlevania comes with baggage:

• Fans expect precise, satisfying combat.
• Visuals need to feel atmospheric and ornate without losing clarity.
• The series has decades of lore and iconography, from whips and crosses to familiar monsters and bosses.

Evil Empire’s challenge is to respect those expectations while also making something that unmistakably reflects their voice as a French studio. The decision to set the game in Paris is the clearest signal of that intention. The game’s enemies, level layouts, and narrative stakes can all grow out of the city’s geography and history rather than a generic medieval backdrop.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 — A Parallel French Success Story

While Evil Empire reimagines Castlevania through a French lens, Sandfall Interactive has been drawing attention with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a turn-based RPG heavily inspired by JRPG traditions yet thoroughly grounded in French aesthetics and themes.

Developed by a relatively small core team, Expedition 33 presents a dark, surreal world influenced by Belle Époque art and architecture. The narrative follows a group of volunteers confronting the “Gommage,” a mysterious event that annually erases everyone above a certain age. The game’s combination of narrative urgency, painterly visuals, and hybrid combat (turn-based strategy with real-time elements) has resonated with players and critics alike, leading to strong sales and awards recognition.²

French Culture as Worldbuilding Foundation

Where many JRPG-inspired games lean into anime tropes or quasi-medieval kingdoms, Expedition 33 draws from French artistic movements and social anxieties:

• Belle Époque influence: Ornate interiors, lavish cityscapes, and fashion-like costumes evoke late 19th-century France.
• Philosophical undertones: The Gommage can be read as a metaphor for generational conflict, mortality, and societal renewal.
• Language and naming: From the title “Clair Obscur” (light-dark) to in-world terminology, the game wears its French roots proudly.

This parallel success matters because it shows that Evil Empire is not alone. There is a broader movement of French studios embracing their own heritage, and audiences around the world are willing to follow them into these locally flavored worlds.

Why Localized Settings Are Resonating Globally

At first glance, building a Paris-set Castlevania game or a Belle Époque-inspired JRPG might seem niche. In practice, these culturally specific games are finding large international audiences. This aligns with a broader trend in entertainment: viewers and players increasingly seek distinctive, authentic perspectives rather than watered-down, “for everyone” settings.

Key Advantages of Culturally Specific Games

This is consistent with research on cultural diversity in media, which suggests that audiences value representation and authenticity as part of their engagement with entertainment.³ Games anchored in specific places and histories can feel more grounded and memorable, even when they feature vampires, monsters, or reality-bending magical events.

Balancing Familiar Mechanics with New Cultural Flavor

Both Evil Empire and Sandfall Interactive are making games that rely on well-known mechanical templates:

• Evil Empire: 2D action, platforming, and precise combat in the tradition of Metroidvanias and their own work on Dead Cells.
• Sandfall Interactive: Turn-based battles with real-time elements, party management, and cinematic storytelling inspired by JRPGs.

What distinguishes their projects is not mechanical innovation alone, but the combination of familiar gameplay with a distinctly French worldview. This blend is crucial for accessibility: players can recognize the genre, then discover a new cultural perspective layered on top.

Design Strategies for Cultural Integration

French teams are integrating culture into game design in several ways:

• Environmental storytelling: Using real landmarks and historically inspired interiors to convey narrative context without exposition.
• Enemy and boss design: Reinterpreting local myths, saints, or historical figures as supernatural foes.
• Sound and music: Incorporating motifs from French classical music, cabaret, or chanson into orchestral or electronic scores.
• Language: Maintaining French terminology or accents for certain characters, even in localized versions, to preserve flavor.

These decisions do more than decorate existing systems; they give players reasons to care about the world beyond loot and progression.

The Role of Funding and Infrastructure in French Game Ambition

France’s game boom is not only a creative story, but also a structural one. The country has introduced policies designed to keep creative industries competitive and innovative. Game studios can access tax credits and selective funding if their projects meet cultural criteria, such as promoting French or European themes, supporting local talent, or experimenting with new forms of interactive storytelling.¹

In parallel, global publishers and platform holders are increasingly willing to back non-Anglophone studios with ambitious visions. Sandfall’s success with Expedition 33, for instance, reflects a broader industry shift toward supporting mid-sized teams that can deliver premium experiences without the overhead of blockbuster budgets.²

How This French Wave Could Influence Future Castlevania-Likes

If Evil Empire’s Parisian Castlevania and Sandfall’s Expedition 33 continue to perform well, they may encourage other developers to treat local heritage as a strength rather than a marketing risk. We may see more action-platformers, RPGs, and horror games rooted in:

• Nordic sagas imagined by Scandinavian studios.
• West African folklore brought to life by African developers.
• Latin American magical realism adapted into interactive narratives.

The success of non-English European films and series on global streaming platforms has already shown that language and cultural specificity are no longer major barriers to reaching worldwide audiences.⁴ Games are increasingly following that pattern.

Practical Lessons for Developers Worldwide

For teams outside France looking at Evil Empire and Sandfall Interactive as case studies, several practical lessons stand out.

1. Own Your Setting

Instead of defaulting to a fictional kingdom or a ready-made universe, consider building your world from local landscapes, history, or legends you understand intimately. That doesn’t mean making a documentary; it means using real-world texture to enrich fantasy.

2. Pair Cultural Specificity with Familiar Genres

Completely experimental mechanics and unfamiliar cultural frameworks can be a hard sell together. Many successful culturally rooted games use recognizable genres—Metroidvania, JRPG, tactics—to give players a familiar entry point.

3. Build Landmarks into Game Design

Don’t treat real-world monuments, districts, or historical sites as simple background art. Make them:

• Key traversal spaces with unique platforming challenges.
• Boss arenas shaped by the real-world architecture.
• Quest hubs that reflect social or economic dynamics tied to that location.

4. Let Humor and Self-Awareness In

Cultural pride doesn’t require solemnity. French teams often mix irreverent humor, self-deprecation, or playful twists on national icons. Turning Joan of Arc into a corrupted boss, for example, is both bold and tongue-in-cheek. This approach can make heavy themes more approachable.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion: A New Gothic for a New Generation

The decision by French studios to set games in their own cultural backyard marks a turning point in how we think about location and identity in game design. Evil Empire’s Parisian Castlevania project and Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 are part of a broader movement that sees local culture not as a constraint but as a powerful asset.

By climbing Notre Dame instead of a nameless castle, navigating Parisian catacombs instead of generic dungeons, and engaging with reimagined national icons, players are invited into worlds that feel both fantastical and grounded. This fusion of the familiar and the particular—classic gameplay structures infused with specific French character—could define a new era of globally resonant, culturally rooted games.