It's more likely than you think. Of course, you -should- have thought it was very possible, considering the three Castlevania games on the DS were all pretty well-received as well as big draws of a known franchise. And it has been one of the fairly conspicuously missing franchises on the 3DS which, well, isn't that surprising, given the rather long stretch of port games and all. Of course, I'm not about to turn this into one of those posts, but I think I am fairly justified in saying that the 3DS is not yet a home for the franchises that were fairly big for and/or on the DS. (Just look at how Animal Crossing isn't even on it yet. It's been a year. People complain about things not being on the Friggin' Vita, grumble grumble.) So, bringing Castlevania to the handheld is not so much as a surprise, but something that's quite long overdue. Though, looking it up on Wikipedia, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow was released on the DS about a year after the latter's release too, so maybe that's just a thing.
It's not all cut-and-dry simple, of course, as things never are. Already tapped for the project, according to this leak from a Dutch site, are David Cox and Enric Alvarez of Lords of Shadow fame which....has apparently been received poorly from fans? I thought people liked it and, while one should never pay attention to comments on things anywhere ever (except nice blogs like this one and The Games of Chance), it seems like a lot of hate is levied at the game in dark corners of the internet that I haven't been exposed to. Because it's apparently just a clone of God Of War which is apparently a crap game and clones are bad, logic be damned and blah blah, god my head hurts. Anyway, they're apparently attached the the game in the leak, but they're kind of denying it? At least, someone asked them about "Mirror of Faith", the apparent Subtitle for the Castlevania game, and the guy said "Nah, not really" in so many words.
What this means, of course, is that whether or not the Castlevania game bound for the 3DS is going to be 2D, ala the previous Castlevania DS games, or 3D, as in the Castlevania games that haven't fared so hot, is kind of up in the air. Being that MercurySteam only has 3D Castlevania experience, a lot of people are assuming their inclusion means just that, but it's not always that simple, of course. For that matter, I do expect that what perspective the game is set in will have a very broad impact on its initial reception and sales, as I imagine not too many people are interested in a 3D Castlevania, no matter who's behind it. Nor do I expect the 3DS could do one justice, but that may just be me underestimating the thing. Regardless, it could all be a sort of a farce, as MercurySteam has sort of hinted at working on a Lords of Shadow sequel, meaning they wouldn't really be available for a 3DS outing.
Regardless of whatever lack of details surround it, I do wholly expect that a Castlevania game will be announced for the 3DS at Nintendo's E3. Though they'll be focused on the Wii U, they need a few things to throw out at the 3DS since it started to pick up steam and ports of their back-catalog won't keep it afloat forever. (Looking at Ocarina of Time 3D and Star Fox 64 3D specifically) Some actual release dates for things would be nice as well, as I have said that when the 3DS has both Animal Crossing and Rune Factory 4 on it in North America, I will look into getting one. Perhaps the new purple one or a flare red one, even though I would -love- to find one of those Legend of Zelda ones, but they're, uh....rather rare and fairly expensive to boot. Still, it would seem that I have quite a bit of time to spare in that category as I can't recall a date for either game in question. Which is good, since I don't need anything else on my list this year.
Anyways, my prediction is that the game will be another attempt at the Metroidvania style, no matter who's at the helm, which means the 2D style. This seems to be the best course of action, of course and I imagine they'll try and do something neat with the 3D, but I don't really care about that. The franchise pretty much has proper use of touch screen fine enough I think, though this is only with experiences with Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin under my belt. While I haven't picked up Order of Ecclesia, I've heard it's the best of the three which....doesn't surprise me in the least. The first two don't set the bar very high, you see, as I remember them both being fairly short with limited options in terms of replayability unless you really just like opening up Dracula's Castle. So whatever comes with this new installment, I'm sure it can't be too bad, but we won't really know anything til E3. Or maybe just before E3, since you know, leaks and such. Like this. But bigger.
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