Netflix’s 10/10 Fantasy Universe Makes The Witcher Look Small

Although The Witcher is Netflix’s most complex and immersive live-action fantasy show, one of the streaming service’s other offerings dwarfs its ambitious setup with the scope of this show’s even bigger story. From Prime Video’s Critical Role shows The Legend of Vox Machina and The Mighty Nein to the franchise’s official spinoffs The House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the success of HBO’s Game of Thrones can be held accountable for a lot of expensive, ambitious, R-rated fantasy shows.

Ever since 2011’s HBO hit proved that mature fantasy could be profitable, everything from Outlander to AMC’s acclaimed Interview with a Vampire has offered viewers ambitious, adults-only stories in the genre. Although the biggest fantasy franchises, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, are still family-friendly ones, Netflix’s The Witcher was a rare Game of Thrones follow-up that truly matched the HBO show’s ambitious scope. An adaptation of the novel series of the same name by author Andrzej Sapkowski, The Witcher followed the titular monster hunter Geralt of Rivia.

Although the show had one lead character unlike the sprawling world of Game of Thrones, no one could accuse The Witcher of lacking the earlier fantasy hit’s ambition. The show was massive in terms of scale, with its astounding live-action world-building creating an entire fictional world for viewers to immerse themselves in. The world of The Witcher felt as real, if not realer, as any fantasy blockbuster movie series, which makes it all the more impressive that Netflix’s Castlevania and Castlevania: Nocturne managed to make this scope feel limited.

Castlevania and Castlevania: Nocturne Highlighted Animation’s Potential In Fantasy Settings

Since the show and its spinoff were both animated, Netflix’s acclaimed video game adaptations Castlevania and Castlevania: Nocturne could go to places that not even a big-budget show like The Witcher could manage. While The Witcher franchise remains a benchmark for just how far big-budget live-action fantasy worldbuilding can be taken, Castlevania and Castlevania: Nocturne proved that animation will always be able to take things even further. Adapted from 1989’s hit video game Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse, Castlevania’s story also incorporated elements of the rest of the franchise’s games.

The show followed Trevor Belmont’s battle against Vlad Dracula, as Castlevania’s plot saw Graham McTavish’s Dracula wage a violent war on the people of Wallachia. Like The Witcher’s protagonist, Belmont is a monster hunter who is tasked with freeing the city from the choke hold of the vampire’s army. Dracula’s dhampir son, Adrian “Alucard” Tepe, becomes an increasingly pivotal player in the show’s sprawling story, which expands the world of the series massively after a surprisingly brief four-episode first outing.

Castlevania Isn’t The Only Fantasy Franchise To Avail Of Animation

Consistently beloved by critics who were blown away by the show’s ambition, Castlevania took advantage of its animated format to stage massive battle scenes that would have been prohibitively expensive for any live-action show. Rather than simply aping the style of the video game series, the show instead justified its animated format with a lush visual landscape that felt as border-less as it was believably realized. However, Castlevania wasn’t the last fantasy show to take this clever approach.

While Castlevania and The Witcher were both big investments for their streaming service, Netflix’s fantasy hit Arcane was an even riskier and more ambitious affair. Set in the League of Legends universe, Arcane‘s story follows Hailee Steinfeld’s Vi and Ella Purnell’s Powder, two sisters locked in a battle between the rich and the poor in the cities of Piltover and Zaun.

One of the most expensive TV shows ever made, Arcane’s ambition was staggering. The show was incredibly immersive and visually inventive within its animated format, and it is hard to imagine how much it would have cost to realize the series in live-action. Fortunately, Netflix’s Castlevania and Castlevania: Nocturne‘s choice to utilize animation to outdo The Witcher franchise gave this series the perfect blueprint for success a few years earlier.