Sammy Corporation
The development of the game began in the summer of 2002, when Sammy Studios' first internal development team, informally called "Team 1", decided to "bring a refreshing theme to a genre riddled with the stereotypical sci-fi, fantasy, and military themes," an idea soon approved by the Sammy Corporation president Hajime Satomi. The original game concept was not very dark and the vampires "felt more like a cartoon property". In the early derivatives of the project, the game "looked more like something from Pixar" and its protagonist was supposed to be Chaz Bartlett, a "vaguely bumbling sort of comic relief character", described as an "Eastern dude who was a card cheat" similar to Bret Maverick.