Castlevania Lords of Shadow Limited Edition

The Belmont legacy returned in grand fashion, and Konami made sure collectors had something worthy of the bloodline. The Castlevania Lords of Shadow Limited Edition on Playstation 3 arrived in special packaging with a stacked lineup of extras that reminded us why this franchise has commanded devotion for decades.

Inside you'll find a 30-plus page artbook documenting the reimagined gothic world that MercurySteam built from the ground up. Lords of Shadow was a bold reinvention, and the artbook captures the scale of that ambition with concept art and environmental designs that look stunning on paper. An 18-plus track soundtrack CD preserves the orchestral score that gave the game its cinematic weight. And then there's the bonus game disc, an extra that adds genuine playable value beyond the cosmetic extras.

The PS3 era was the golden age of disc-based collector's editions, and this one hits all the right notes. A quality artbook, a physical soundtrack, and bonus content on an actual disc rather than a download code. GameStop pre-orders even included a Lords of Shadow T-shirt, making the complete package even harder to assemble after the fact. Castlevania collectors are a dedicated bunch, and Lords of Shadow occupies a unique space in the franchise timeline as the game that divided the fanbase while winning over an entirely new audience. That tension makes the Limited Edition a compelling piece of franchise history. Complete copies with all inserts in good condition are getting harder to come by.