Gamescom: Devil May Cry Takes 'Liberties' with the Franchise

17.08.2011
The new raised a few eyebrows when it was first announced thanks to its seeming change in direction. By featuring a significantly younger Dante and being developed by a Western team, fans of the series were quick to cry out that it could never be what it once was.

Whether or not that's the case is still to be seen, but Capcom did take the time to show off some gameplay at Gamescom today, and Ninja Theory admitted that they had taken "several liberties" with the franchise's established mythology.

Devil May Cry makes use of the Unreal Engine. Rather than being a brown-tinted game about sweaty space marines, though, this is a game about color -- Ninja Theory made a conscious decision early on in development to distinguish the "real world" from the demon world of Limbo through the use of color. And it's not the way round you might expect -- the real world is drab, dull and grey, while Limbo is awash with color and life.

The "life" bit is key; Limbo is alive, and it tries its very best to kill Dante repeatedly through some impressive real-time environmental distortion and destruction. Over the course of the demo, we saw Dante running through twisting, crumbling buildings, watching the streets literally closing in on him, and in one memorable scene, attempting to reach the end of a church which perpetually extended itself, vast chasms opening in the floor just as the player thinks they're getting to the end of the obstacles. The team describe it as a "malignant world," and that's very much the case; Dante is at much risk of being obliterated by something the world does as being defeated by monsters in combat.

Speaking of combat, Ninja Theory showed off a little of how that works. Dante can shift between three "forms" -- angel, devil and human. Each has its own combination of weapons and special abilities. Series purists pricking their ears up at the mention of "angel" and Dante in the same sentence are right to take note; this is one of several liberties the developer has taken with the series established mythology in order to allow them greater flexibility to do what they're doing. It's apparently been worked into the narrative, however, though we'll have to wait and see exactly how.

Combat is stylish and technical, just as Devil May Cry should be. There's a new-found focus on aerial combat, however, with a number of Dante's new abilities focusing on drawing enemies into the air for some skyborne pummelling. Dante has a chain weapon with which he can draw enemies in for a smackdown. A ranking system hasn't yet been implemented, but fans of the series will be happy to note that it will be present and correct in the final release.