Dracula: Dark Reign is an upcoming GameBoy Color title from developer Spacebot Interactive and publisher Incube8 Games. It is based on events surrounding the famous Bram Stoker novel and the subsequent Dracula The Return comic book series. We previewed the first portion of the game in April this year, and feel this is looking to be one of the best GBC indie games in recent years.

The game is due for release at the end of November, although the physical cart pre-order has already sold out. As with most other Incube8 Games’ releases, we anticipate that a digital download for ROM carts and emulators will also be available.

The game is a metroidvania-style title with characters levelling up and discovering new routes through each level as they do, with secrets about Dracula’s origins to find and with new lovecraftian twists, directly inspired by Stoker‘s Jewel of Seven Stars.

Dacre Stoker, the great-grand nephew of Bram Stoker, said. “This is the first time that the Stoker family has endorsed and worked on a video game. This pushes the StokerVerse into another new media platform – I’m very proud of this game, those who play it will get to play through sections of Dracula that were removed from the original script of my great-grand uncle’s gothic masterpiece.”

The opening of the game features Jonathan Harker escaping the castle, but we don’t really see how he fully escapes in the published novel. Castle Dracula, in Bram Stoker‘s original vision, was placed over a gateway to hell, and this plays a part in the prologue of this game. The rest of the game is set after the comic series Dracula The Return and catapults the player into WW1 with a variety of characters to play as.