Trivia / Devil's Third

• Creator Killer: Many games journalists and commentators called this game and its poor financial performance the final nail in the coffin of Tomonobu Itagaki's career, and it is currently the last game for which he held a directing or game design role. Valhalla Games Studios would be reorganized and merged into one of its own subsidiaries (Soleil) in 2021, and while Itagaki would go on to found a new studio afterwards, said developer has yet to release a title.
• Lying Creator: When a Steam listing for Devil's Third Online, a free-to-play PC port of the game's multiplayer mode, appeared, Itagaki said the listing was false. This was later confirmed untrue when the game released months later, for a short amount of time in limited areas before it was retooled into Rockshot. Which itself was also short-lived.
• Not Screened for Critics: Review codes were sent out for the European release of the game, but not for the North American release. But given NoA executives' own dislike of the title, and the poor reception of the European release, this isn't surprising. Itagaki even blames the game's poor reception in North America on this, stating that it would have reviewed well if journalists got the chance to play the multiplayer modes rather than just the single-player campaign. This is despite the fact that most negative reviews still listed the quality of the multiplayer as one of the title's few positives.
• Saved from Development Hell: Devil's Third was originally planned as an Xbox 360 exclusive that would be published by the platform holder. However, the partnership fell through and the title shifted to being a multiplatform game published by THQ. When THQ went under in 2012 and was forced to liquidate its assets, ownership of the IP transferred back to Itagaki's studio and work continued on, with Valhalla finding a new Korean publisher for the title... only for that publisher to also shut down due to bankruptcy. At this point, Valhalla approached Nintendo, who agreed to publish the game in order to strengthen the struggling Wii U's online offerings. The game resurfaced at E3 2014, with its new trailer quietly appearing during the Nintendo Treehouse show following that year's presentation.
• Screwed by the Network: Nintendo of America were even reluctant to publish the game in the first place, with them planning to give North American publishing duties to XSEED Games before backlash towards the leaking of this information prompted them to reconsider. Not that this raised their expectations for the game's success, as the retail version was given a limited release (a report claims GameStop only received 420 copies to sell on their online store for the entire U.S). Not much of a surprise, considering the game released months earlier in Europe to poor reviews and low sales, and even the Japanese retail release ended up being an Amazon-exclusive.
• Stillborn Franchise: The game was envisioned as part of a trilogy but the game's abysmal performance made sure that won't be happening.
• Troubled Production: In addition to all the publishing issues listed above, the game also changed engines multiple times. After Nintendo picked up the title, the developers were stuck trying to get the current engine up and running on the Wii U in less than a year, and it shows.
• What Could Have Been:
  • During its development under THQ, the game's E3 2010 trailer demonstrated a considerably different product with three operatives working together using the game's three play styles. These three are still seen in silhouette in the final game's logo.
  • Itagaki had plans for Devil's Third to become a franchise that would even expand into anime and manga, but the game's poor reception and low sales will likely mean this will never come to pass.
  • Itagaki revealed that Valhalla Games Studios planned to release Devil's Third Online in the West, but this never happened and the game ended up shutting down in March of 2017 anyway, with its short-lived spiritual successor RockShot effectively taking its place in both Eastern and Western markets the following year.