Netflix teases Dracula’s dark Castlevania return as ‘end times’ draw nigh in Season 4 trailer

Let’s face it: when you’ve survived for thousands of years on the blood of innocents (and a legendary reputation for immortality), can you ever truly die? The fourth and final season of Netflix’s Castlevania anime series is getting set to grapple with that question in a big way, debuting a new Season 4 trailer that teases history’s most notorious bloodsucker may be hard to keep down for long.

Netflix’s well-received TV adaptation of Konami’s hauntingly hallowed game franchise looks like it’s setting up an all-out war for humanity’s soul in the new clip, teasing “the whole world’s gone crazy” as dark forces conspire to revive a (seemingly) deceased Dracula (Graham McTavish). Lopping off the head of the beast looks like it’s only created a new power vacuum, with Hector (Dracula’s deputy, voiced by Crispin Freeman) “manufacturing” night creatures in a bid to conquer Castlevania’s spooky eastern European haunts — once and for all.

“These are the end times,” teases Netflix, and the stakes are higher than ever in the new trailer.

Check it out (with an NSFW caution for language):

Season 3 saw the dark lord banished all the way to hell, though it left the door ajar for a sliver of possibility that the portal between the eternal realm and our mortal coil — a medieval dark-scape populated by Trevor Belmont (Richard Armitage), Sypha Belnades (Alejandra Reynoso), and the increasingly conflicted Alucard (James Callis) — might fling wide open as the series nears its apex. The teaser doesn’t give too much away on that front…but it’s a safe bet that Netflix and writer/creator Warren Ellis won’t let the opportunity for a good old fashioned fantasy apocalypse go to waste.

Even though the series is set to end with Season 4, Castlevania has been embraced by critics and fans alike, and Netflix reportedly may be eyeing a way to extend its dark dalliance in Konami’s iconic vampire-verse. Deadline reported earlier this month that a new Netflix spinoff could be in the works, featuring new characters and a new storyline set within the Castlevania mythos.

Castlevania is set to stalk the night with the series’ final 10 episodes on May 13, when Season 4 returns to Netflix to lay one last garlic garland at Dracula’s doorstep.