The studio did have more ”far out” designs for the new young Dante, like being shirtless. Capcom’s Inafune said ‘no’. DMC must ”update and mature”.
”The essence of Devil May Cry is all about ‘cool,’” noted Ninja Theory creative design boss Tameem Antoniades. Their studio has just been making Enslaved.
”It’s about Dante being cool and making you feel cool when you’re playing it, and so the combat and the style system and everything is integral to that. But, you know, what was cool 12 years ago – I think that was when the first game came out – isn’t cool anymore.”
Actually the first Devil May Cry game came out 9 years ago, not 12. ”If Dante, dressed as he was, walked into any bar outside of Tokyo, he’d get laughed out,” he continued.
”What Devil May Cry did when it launched was it brought everything that was great about action cinema like the fashion, music – it was like a cultural melting pot – and I feel like now, for Devil May Cry to have that same impact, it needs to draw on new things. New music, new ways of cinematography, new fashion.”
Did Ninja Theory push for this whole new Dante and DMC? No it was Capcom reveals USA lead producer Alex Jones. They told the studio to ‘go explore’ and the team ”came back with a very incremental look from what Dante had usually been,” said Jones.
”And we went, ‘No guys, go back to first principles and really do something,’ and then they went about 25-percent more down the field. And we’re like, ‘No, seriously! Do something that you think would make us angry with you,’ and that’s when we started making progress.”
The developers hinted that the Dante you see in the trailer isn’t necessarily going to be the same Dante by the end of the game, as this is his origin story of sorts. Much of the narrative is still in the works but his hair will mostly likely go that trademark white.
”Actually there is some white in the trailer, to all you guys on the forums saying it’s not,” said Jones. ”There’s… there’s some white in there. We weren’t trying to hide it.” Be grateful we didn’t end up with the shirtless Dante…
”We had a shirtless version of Dante, with just suspenders. That went nowhere,” he said. ”It looked like he had just stumbled out of a Clash concert. That was as far out as Ninja Theory went with the character design.”
”When Inafune saw it he said, ‘I don’t think so.’” The new Devil May Cry has no release date yet but it will arrive for Xbox 360 and PS3 for sure - no PC version it seems.
