At a Glance: DmC - Devil May Cry

Devil in a New Dress

Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste

I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a mans soul and faith

And I was round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain

Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name

But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game - The Rolling Stones, Sympathy for the Devil



The Devil's In The Details
If you make a deal with the devil, don't complain about the heat afterwards. This is something that both Capcom and Ninja Theory are all too familiar with after first introducing their new collaborative effort on redefining the Devil May Cry franchise to the world. The first of which was introducing everyone to the new look that series protagonist Dante would be sporting.

To say that fan backlash was..........almost demonic would be putting it mildly.

"I have to say that it has been pretty eye opening to see some of the creative ways in which people have chosen to vent their hatred. We didn't expect death threats in comic book form or anti-DmC death metal songs," admits Ninja Theory co-founder Tameem Antoniades. But, like any professional, he handles the criticism as best he can, taking the good with the bad. "I just have to put up with the rage," he says. "Though I must say, lots of people have come and said that they are now interested in DmC where they had previously lost interest in the series. We'll see how this plays out."

Being a collaborative effort between Ninja Theory, Capcom America, and Capcom Japan, the new DmC story will be a retelling of Dante's origin, how he became the man he is, that beloved icon fans the world over have grown to love. And although he may look different this time around, Project Manager Alex Jones (Capcom America) assures us it's the same Dante those same fans still love. "When you see the Casino Royale remake," Jones explains, "you see Bond before he's actually killed anyone, and it's a really traumatic event. He's rough-hewn, he's not polished or debonair, but you can see the essence of what that character will become. That's what we want to do with Dante. The core of him is there, it's just a rougher version. It's a becoming. He's not fully actualized...this is the same Dante - just younger."

Wanting to expand the franchise to a larger audience is something that just about every developer in the business wants to do. It helps them stay afloat in hard times, it helps them expand and grow. It helps them mature. With so many developers shuttering their doors because they simply can't, or won't, learn to adapt to the changing times, all three developers know full well what's at stake with taking such a drastic and controversial decision. But it is a decision that, in this ever changing environment of innovation and change, must be taken. And while Capcom is being as respectful as they can with the series, they know that change is something it needs right now. Which is why they called upon Ninja Theory, which seemed like a natural and perfect fit to help them give their DMC franchise a much needed shot in the arm.

"Capcom Japan came to Capcom America and said, 'We want you to explore a new direction for Devil May Cry,'" explains Jones. "They didn't give us any mandate as to whether it had to be a sequel or something else, and we had people in our office who had had previous positive experience working with the guys at Ninja Theory. If you played Heavenly Sword and some of their previous games, a lot of their core competencies are in line with what makes Devil May Cry special. They seemed like a natural fit. So we approached them, and then we brought on our partners from Japan once we were sure that these were the right guys for the job. The idea of doing a reboot honestly just came organically out of working together with these guys over five or six months."



Dance With The Devil

On board with the idea is Capcom Japan Producer Motohide Eshiro, who is equally excited to see what the collaboration will unleash when it drops some time this year. "We want to make a new Devil May Cry that still retains and takes advantage of the current game world, and I thought it’d be best to leave that task to a team that understood what makes DMC fun while being able to approach it from a different viewpoint than a Japanese outfit," Eshiro says. "Ninja Theory has a great deal of talent when it comes to visuals, and I figured that combining that with Capcom’s action-game experience would give us that new game we’re looking for...One of our goals for this game is to create something new and fresh that keeps the old fans but also catches new people, so that we can increase our overall appeal...."

And although the new game will be a major new chapter in the series, the teams are careful not to refer to DmC as a reboot, and are even hesitant to even use the word rebirth in any hard fashion. "When we say rebirth, part of our goal is to go back to the roots, dig deeper, and try to expand upon those ideas to make the series accessible to a wider audience. We want to give the series a fresh, new standard.." Eshiro says.

"It used to feel current, but things are different now," Antoniades was quite frank to point out, "a lot of games have now copied what DMC did back then. So we have to invent it in a totally new style that maybe doesn't even look at other games, in terms of the visuals, the music, the fashion, but which looks at popular culture, at what's on the ground now in places like London, New York and Berlin, try to impart that youthful energy, and back it up with a great story......so we're [exploring] Dante's early years in the narrative, meaning that if you're entirely new to the series you won't start the game with a disadvantage or feeling that you need to catch up with the story of the previous games first."

The first thing the team at Ninja Theory took a look at was DmC's combat engine. And while the team promises to keep the essence of the experience alive, they will be making some subtle (and not so subtle) additions to the experience. "Combat is something that we are taking very seriously and is one of the areas that we're working closely with Capcom on," Antoniades says. "Technical, fluid combat with depth is one of the key pillars of the Devil May Cry series and as such is right at the top of our list of priorities. We wouldn't be making a Devil May Cry game if this wasn't the case. There is of course an expectation from the fans, which is something that has always been firmly in the minds of both ourselves and Capcom, The franchise is well established and much loved, so we want to keep the essence of what makes the series unique."

"It’s a major challenge we’ve undertaken," Eshiro adds. "It’s a different team and so naturally it’ll be a different game from before, but the entire team is working hard to ensure the play feel is the same. It’s a brand-new DMC born from the DNA of the rest of the series."  Mr. Antoniades agrees. "From my perspective, Dante has been the center-point of DMC. There's just something about the character – it's a stylistic element, like action cinema, and an attitude that I think is quite special. We've got to preserve that. We've got to make it current, but we've also got to preserve what made it special in the first instance," he says.

Devil May Cry is still TBD 2012.