Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse — How to Break the Chained Barricades

Quick answer: Hit a chained barricade with your weapon until it breaks. It only breaks from one side, so if your hits do nothing, come back from the other side.

In the Main Hall of Dracula’s castle, chained wooden posts bar some doorways and floor sections; Rose has to destroy a post before she can pass through its opening.

How to break a chained barricade

Approach the barricade from its breakable side, stopping within range for your attacks to connect with the post.

Rose walking up to a chained post in a gothic hall of Dracula's castle — Rose approaching a chained barricade from its breakable side.

Attack the barricade with your weapon, and keep attacking. Interact (E) won’t open it. Only weapon hits work.

Continue striking the post until it splinters, leaving a wooden crate in its place; its destruction clears the route.

A broken barricade stays broken. That makes it a shortcut you can use in both directions from then on.

Why it won’t break

Each chained barricade breaks from one side only. From the wrong side your hits do nothing, and an Interact (E) prompt can still show on the post, but pressing or holding E does nothing.

Interact E prompt above a chained wooden post approached from the side that won't break — An Interact prompt on the wrong side of a chained barricade. Pressing E here does nothing.

If your hits aren’t doing anything, leave the barricade alone and keep exploring. Come back once you’ve found a route to its other side.

The two barricades around the Ballrooms

Two chained barricades sit between the Ballrooms and the Grand Hall. Each one breaks from a different side.

Barricade	Where it is	Breaks from
Lower Grand Hall barricade	On the lowest floor, in the stretch linking the Ballrooms and the lower Grand Hall	Ballrooms side (right)
Ballrooms barricade under the burning block	On the eastern side of the Ballrooms, beneath a block with burning braziers on top	Grand Hall side (left)

The lower Grand Hall barricade is straightforward. Approach from the Ballrooms and hit it. The one under the burning block won’t break from the shaft on its right, so you need to get over the block to reach its left side.

Climb to the shaft’s top ledge and stand at the doorway. The gold-framed painting hangs above the burning block from here.

Rose on the shaft's upper-right ledge, ready to cross over the block below — Rose on the shaft’s top ledge, the starting point for crossing the burning block.

Leap left, then grapple onto the gold-framed painting positioned above the burning block (see how the painting launch works).

Hold Left and press Jump. The painting launches you past the block, and you land on the floor to the left of the barricade.

Turn around and hit the barricade with your weapon until it breaks into a crate.

An axe knight attacks right after this barricade breaks, so be ready to fight.

After destroying both barricades, you can travel on foot between the Grand Hall and Ballrooms without launching from the paintings. The Ballrooms save point sits partway up the shaft; see how to reach the Ballrooms Mirror of Life.

The barricade beside Brauner’s Atelier

At Grand Hall level, chains block the route just beyond the Atelier’s upper exit on its right. This barricade breaks only from the Atelier side, so approach from the left.

Chained wooden barricade beside a red curtain on the Grand Hall level, right of the Atelier exit — The chained barricade on the Grand Hall level next to the Atelier.

Stand on the left and keep hitting it until it breaks down into a crate.

Rose standing next to the splintered crate left behind once the barricade breaks — The barricade reduced to a broken crate beneath the upper ledge.

With the barricade gone, the Atelier’s upper floor and the Grand Hall connect directly, giving you a shortcut in both directions.