It’s been over five years since we’ve had a new entry in the Devil May Cry series, so it’s no wonder fans are eagerly awaiting the fifth installment, due to be released in March of next year. So, in preparation for the long-awaited return of the series, let’s take a look at how it all began. Welcome to MojoPlays. This is the story of Devil May Cry.

It’s been over five years since we’ve had a new entry in the Devil May Cry series, so it’s no wonder fans are eagerly awaiting the fifth installment, due to be released in March of next year. So, in preparation for the long-awaited return of the series, let’s take a look at how it all began. Welcome to MojoPlays. This is the story of Devil May Cry.

Believe it or not, the first DMC game actually started life as the fourth installment in the Resident Evil series in 1999. After the release of RE2 the previous year and RE3 receiving positive reviews from critics, Capcom was eager to develop the fourth installment, but ran into some obstacles as it was being developed for a new console Bos5000, the PS2. RE4’s difficulties continued for a while, with several versions scrapped before arriving at the final product. But fortunately, the story of Devil May Cry went a lot smoother. It all started when longtime Resident Evil producer and director Shinji Mikami hired Hideki Kamiya to take the survival horror series in a different direction from the first three. Kamiya then turned to director Noboru Sugimura, the screenwriter behind RE2, to create a story that was cooler and more stylish than any previous Resident Evil game, resulting in the creation of Tony, a protagonist with biotechnological superhuman abilities and shrouded in great mystery.

But Tony’s character didn’t stand out enough from the pre-rendered backgrounds that Capcom was using at the time. So a new dynamic camera system was developed to capture all the splendor and style of this new game. But more splendor and style meant less survival and even less horror. As the game developed, Kamiya was able to convince the team that the game needed to be a standalone title. So Kamiya rewrote the story of Tony and the Umbrella Corporation into the story of Dante and demons and demons that we know today, removing all references to Resident Evil. He also emphasized the cool factor that Capcom was so keen on in the early stages of development, imagining Dante as the type of person you’d want to go drinking with on the weekend, mixing in some of the epic poem The Divine Comedy. Just to be on the safe side! A team called “Team Little Devils” is developing the game, and it’s being redesigned from the ground up to take Dante’s speed and skill into account. One key gameplay element came from a bug in Onimusha: Warlords, which allowed developers to keep enemies in the air by constantly punching them upwards. The bug was removed from Onimusha, but added as a feature to Devil May Cry, and the rest is history.

Devil May Cry was first released in November 2000, by which point its Resident Evil roots were a distant memory. The game was meant to be challenging, given a mission-based structure that allowed for leaderboards and ratings based on performance. It also added the Devil Trigger to make Dante more fearsome and destructive in his mission to hunt demons and stop Mundus from returning to Earth, taking on the role of part fighter, part puzzle solver and part platformer. After its release on the PS2 in 2001, the first game was a huge commercial success, selling 2 million copies in the US alone. It was praised for its innovative gameplay, graphics, sense of style and camera control. In fact, these elements (especially the original Devil May Cry) are often cited as the beginning of the “extreme combat” genre of games, also known as “hack and slash”.

Work on the second game began almost immediately after the success of the first, but Team Little Devils disappeared for some reason, as did director Hideki Kamiya. With the new team, Capcom didn’t like the direction of the second title, so with only four months left in the development cycle, they replaced the original director with longtime collaborator Hideaki Itsuno, and still managed to finish the game. Time. Essentially, Devil May Cry 2’s only mission was to be bigger and better than its predecessor, and physically it did, as its environments were nine times larger than the original, but the character of Dante and some of the puzzle and platform elements (as well as the difficulty) were significantly scaled down, disappointing fans of the original, and it was named the most disappointing game of 2003 by Gamespot. Other critics were also divided on the game, stating that it sacrificed style for size and significantly watered down Dante as a character. The addition of a second CD featuring the character of Lucia was largely dismissed as a gimmick to make the game seem even bigger than it actually was. Despite sometimes harsh criticism, the game still sold nearly 2 million copies and was still a financial success for Capcom.

Devil May Cry 3 also sold well in 2005, and the Special Edition the following year sold another million copies, but critics were more forgiving of the game this time as it was a throwback to the old days. It was also a prequel in which a young and cocky Dante discovers the Tower of Temen-ni-Groo. After the critical failure of “DMC2”, Capcom revamped the series, focusing on innovation and style by adding a combat system that allowed for new uses of weapons, such as switching weapons during a combo. It also added playstyles that dramatically changed the way Dante attacks enemies, such as the Trickster, Swordmaster, Gunslinger, and Royal Guard. This would be the final “DMC” game released on the PS2 and the first game in the series to be ported to the PC.

Again, development of the next title began immediately after the success of the previous title. At the time, Devil May Cry 4 was developed exclusively for next-gen systems, and was the first game in the series to be released on both PS3 and Xbox 360 as well as PC. Hideaki Itsuo returned as director and wanted the game to have a significantly different atmosphere from the previous three titles, but he didn’t know how to achieve that without drastically changing Dante or adding a new protagonist. Therefore, he and Capcom decided to add a new character, Nero, not only to revamp the gameplay but also to attract new followers and fans to the series. However, the development team of the fourth title thought it would be better not to leave out Dante because fans would undoubtedly protest, so they made him a playable character as well. Therefore, DMC4 contained two characters with different game mechanics. The changes were well received by critics, who liked the addition of Nero, as well as the game’s better graphics and challenging difficulty. It was also a financial success, selling over 3 million copies, making it the best-selling of the series to date. In 2015, a special edition of the game was released for the PS4 and Xbox One, further increasing sales. As an aside, original “DMC” director Hideki Kamiya used the game as research and inspiration when creating the first “Bayonetta” title in 2009, further linking the two hack-and-slash titles in gaming history.

However, Capcom made further changes to the series, wanting a more Western atmosphere for the next game in the franchise, so rebooted the series and entrusted development to American game developer Ninja Theory. Although Devil May Cry 4 was the best-selling title in the series up to that point, Capcom wanted sales to be on par with other triple-A action games like Assassin’s Creed. They also didn’t want to fall behind direct competitors like Bayonetta, so they commissioned a reboot from another developer that used the Unreal Engine and was aimed at a younger audience. The hope was to attract new fans as well as satisfy older ones, but only (mostly) critics embraced the Devil May Cry reboot, praising its treatment of gameplay, story, and design, as opposed to long-time fans of the series, who praised Ninja Theory. It didn’t go well with Dante’s more emo and westernized personality. Gameplay changes included the addition of angel and demon modes that changed Dante’s fighting style, but overall it still played like a Devil May Cry game. It continued to sell well, but didn’t meet Capcom’s financial goals until it was re-released as the Definitive Edition for PS4 and Xbox One in 2015.

After fans were hesitant about the DMC reboot in 2013, we worried the series would never return. But that all changed at E3 2018 when Capcom Studios announced they were working with longtime director Hideaki Itsuno to return to development on Devil May Cry 5, which would run on the Resident Evil 7 engine. Set after the events of DMC 4, the game will continue the storyline and feature the return of Dante and Nero, as well as a new character named “V”, who will once again dive into the demon world.

With the release of Devil May Cry 5 scheduled for next year, Capcom is looking to win back their disappointed fans and make them forget about their 2013 reboot attempt. With nostalgia selling very well right now, there’s no better time for Dante, Nero, and the gang to return, and we’re praying the series regains form after years of silence.
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