Originally work began on porting Castlevania to the Atari XL/XE way back in 2022 by AtariAge forum member, Thelen but things went dark around 2024. That is a hazard of these types of projects, fans do them in their spare time and sometimes, life just gets in the way of the fun stuff. Earlier today, November 11th, 2025, Thelen dropped a big announcement on the AtariAge forums – a new updated demo of their work porting Castlevania to the Atari computer.
Keep in Mind This Is a Work in Progress
For a Work in Progress, this is impressive. Just check out the embedded video by YouTuber Saberman but be warned, they left in the loading screens, which sadly, pad out the A LOT of the video. I suggest skipping through those and getting to the action as the loading noise can be grating on the ears.
Skip through the video to the actual gameplay and you will see what looks quite amazing. Gameplay starts around the four-minute mark, everything prior is the intro and then an extremely long, and loud, loading screen.
Started with the NES in Mind but Quickly Forked
According to the original post on the AtariAge forums, Thelen mentions they planned to use the Nintendo Entertainment System version as the base. As you can see by Saberman’s video above, there have been some major improvements in the graphics department.
Obviously, there are more colors onscreen, a higher resolution, and parallax scrolling in the backgrounds. I am sure there are further improvements, these were just the ones that stood out to me while watching the video.
If you are a fan of Castlevania, particularly the NES version, and want to play a slightly better looking version then here you go.
Which version of Castlevania is your favorite? Is it an official port or a fanmake? Let me know in the comments below.