Trivia / DmC: Devil May Cry

• Acting for Two: Mundus and Bob Barbas are both played by Louis Herthum.
• Approval of God:
  • In an interview by Devil May Cry 5 director Hideaki Itsuno, he calls Ninja Theory "style incarnate". Indeed, a lot of DMC5 borrows much from the art direction of DmC. Even back with Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition, the mainline series was already borrowing from the spinoff with Vergil gaining the option to teleport after a summoned sword, which was something DmC Vergil could do. This seems starkly in contrast to how Ninja Theory treated Hideaki during the development of DmC, at least in its early days. Of course, with the Broken Base being what it is, people think Hideaki's praise is either token professionalism, Japanese Politeness^note Itsuno was brought in midway through development of the game to assist in some design, or at the very worst, "contractual shilling", even in the face of DMC5 implementing some of the better features of DmC. Some have even brought up the middle ground that he might have actually been referring to the Definitive Edition update, which the Japanese team had more of a hand in working on.
  • Matt Walker, the producer of Devil May Cry 5, also mentioned in interviews that Capcom is proud of DmC, or specifically to Hideaki Itsuno, "DmC is just as important as any of the other titles in the series, and he's just as proud of it". There's also this statement mentioning how Itsuno took what he learned from DmC and applied them to DMC5, which many fans interpreted as gameplay elements from the reboot being implemented to the newer title.
    Matt Walker: "We learned a lot from working with Ninja Theory on that title, and we hope that they benefited in some way as well. Itsuno-san has stressed several times in conversations with me that he's taken what he's learned from working on DmC and applied what he's learned specifically to what we've done on DMC5."
  • Reuben Langdon, who voiced Dante since Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, was impressed with the game, although he was disappointed with Dante's characterisation.
• Colbert Bump: Industrial metal band Combichrist got a bit of a newbie boom when their music was one half of the main soundtrack to the game (consisting of both already-existing tracks like "Never Surrender," and new tracks made for the game like "No Redemption"). It probably helps that the soundtrack was one of the very few areas that even people who complained They Changed It, Now It Sucks! didn't have many complaints about (since past games also featured heavy metal soundtracks).
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: Controversy broke out over Dante reportedly killing an unborn child/pregnant mother in order to proceed during the game's plot — possibly forcing the hand of the player. That does not occur in the game at any point. The closest that Dante gets to anything that low is fighting a gigantic demonic "baby" ordered into battle by its equally-demonic mother, who can turn herself inside out to release it and is definitely evil; what's more, Dante makes a point of defeating them without killing them and taking them hostage. It's Vergil who kills them after they've already been disarmed, via sniper bullet, to Dante's obvious mixed horror and shock, in a cutscene that makes it clear that's what the audience is also supposed to be feeling.
• Dear Negative Reader:
  • Director Tameem Antoniades did not take the fan reception of DmC well, accusing them (among other things) of being blinded by their nostalgia.
  • The game's art director, Alessandro Taini, during a GDC 2013 presentation went on a rant with a slideshow where he, someone who had no part in designing the original Devil May Cry, tried to explain to the crowd what Dante really is and isn't, presenting images of scenes from Brokeback Mountain and Batman & Robin with DMC4 Dante photoshopped in, while comparing the reboot Dante to Tyler Durden.
• Dueling Games:
  • With Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance - both games in long-running Japanese franchises about white-haired, pretty, superpowered, vengeful young men with troubled pasts, stronger dark sides and acrobatic slicey-choppy skills. Both are developed by a studio and a creative director different from the traditional ones, hazily canonical, and contain fairly significant aesthetic departures. Revengeance had better sales figures and fan reception, but DmC received a better critical reception.
  • Within the same franchise, no less! Two Updated Re Release games - DmC: Devil May Cry: Definitive Edition and Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition were both released on 2015. The latter game from the original continuity ended up selling more and had a better reception than the former.
• Executive Meddling:
  • According to interviews, Dante's design was originally far closer to previous versions, before Capcom said the changes weren't extreme enough and told Ninja Theory to "go crazy with it."
  • Inversely, there were times when the Japanese team members had to rein in Ninja Theory, such as NT focusing a bit too much on "cool visuals first" instead of working to match the gameplay; and having to tone down the earlier concepts as the final product would've resulted in a Z-rating in Japan, the CERO equivalent of the ESRB's AO or 18+ only rating.
  • DmC Dante was designed from a Western perspective in contrast to the original Dante who was designed from a Japanese perspective. And as explained by Capcom's former Senior VP, Christian Svensson in a 2013 post, games such as DmC: Devil may Cry and Lost Planet 3 were driven by Keiji Inafune in an attempt at catering to a Western market.
• Fake American: Australian Tim Phillipps and New Zealander David de Lautour respectively as Dante and Vergil.
• Flip-Flop of God: Capcom originally announced that DmC was a Continuity Reboot, then Ninja Theory said it was a Prequel, and then an Alternate Continuity, meaning basically a reboot that's still canon to the original series yet takes place in an alternate universe (like the condition of the J.J. Abrams Star Trek series). Capcom's stance as of October 2017, as given in the store description for the DmC Dante skin for DMC Dante in Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, is that it is a full-on Alternate Universe.
• Inspiration for the Work: From this interview with Motohide Eshiro, Hideaki Itsuno and Alex Jones^note  Not the infamous host of the InfoWars conspiracy podcast, the latter explains that Ninja Theory was chosen to make the game because their prior work on Heavenly Sword was the standard setting in terms of cutscenes, and it would be essential to a DMC game.
• No Port For You: The Definitive Edition was never released on PC.
• The Other Darrin: Due to the game being a Continuity Reboot of the series, every role was inevitably recast.
• Prequel in Another Medium: The Chronicles of Vergil, a prequel graphic novel which depicts Vergil's first meeting with and recruitment of Kat, as well as his subsequent efforts to find the missing Dante.
• Real Song Theme Tune: Combichrist's "Never Surrender" already existed as a track from their Making Monsters album on 2010 before this game launched on 2013.
• Refitted for Sequel: Vergil's DmC design was based on the Devil May Cry concept art of Vergil that never made it into the final game.
• Stillborn Franchise: Even though DmC failed to break DMC4's sales in Japan or America (The DMC4: Special Edition still also outsold DmC: Definitive Edition when both were released in 2015) and Capcom returned to the classic continuity with Devil May Cry 5 (which would later outclass it’s sales by shipments alone in only two weeks), Hideaki Itsuno and Matt Walker have gone on record that they were still interested in continuing the DmC timeline, but not without Ninja Theory. Ninja Theory being purchased by Microsoft, however, makes it safe to say that any attempt to continue DmC timeline is dead for good outside of its version of Dante appearing as things like DLC costume recolors for mainline Dante in other games, such as Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite and DMC5.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Some of the early title logo designs used the all-uppercase DMC abbreviation, but DmC was chosen in the end to distinguish this game from the rest of the series.
  • As mentioned in page 223 of the 3142 Graphic Arts artbook, Vergil's Yamato was originally going to be a cane sword.
  • The initial reveal trailer suggests the plot and characters underwent significant changes. Among other things, it showed Dante as a smoker, sporting a thin build and not speaking.
  • The 2010 reveal trailer showcased Dante utilizing Twosome Time in combat, the move has been scrapped for the retail release of the finished game.
  • Pages of concept art have been published revealing a couple of extra levels, unused enemies (including two, the Wisp and the Imprisoner, who wound up in Vergil's Downfall), cut content and alternative designs. The Order was initially going to play a bigger part as a very morally dubious organization - capturing and vivisecting live demons, for instance - and Kat's first incarnations were a lot closer to the classic series female roles; she would've been an adult, sexualised but to a mildly absurd degree, uses weapons concealed in a violin case, and has blue hair.
  • The narrative designer for Vergil's Downfall joined the Devil May Cry subreddit's Discord server and gave some ideas for where a sequel would have gone if it got greenlit: Vergil would have returned with his demon army and attacked Dante and Kat, savagely beating him and kidnapping Kat. Dante only survives because his angelic uncle saves him and brings him to the angel world, where Dante would have faced opposition from the angels due to his Nephilim background.
  • Apparently, there was supposed to be a movie adaptation based on DmC, but due to the game's contentious presence in the franchise, it's unknown if it'll be continued.
  • According to Hideaki Itsuno in an interview, a sequel was hoped for but never got off the ground.
• Word of God: Why is the letter "m" lowercase in the title DmC? In page 222 of the 3142 Graphic Arts artbook, Hideaki Itsuno and Motohide Eshiro said it's simply just to distinguish the game from the rest of the series which used the abbreviation DMC. But because a three-letter title can't be trademarked, they also gave it the full title of DmC: Devil May Cry instead. The DmC in the title logo also looks like spray-painted graffiti to represent the "Delinquent" and "Rebel" motifs of this game's Dante.
• Working Title: DmC, but as simple as that. The subtitle wasn't originally meant to be there, but Word of God says it was necessary as a workaround because a mere three-letter title like DmC can't be trademarked.

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