Open letter to Ninja Theory and Capcom, concerning DmC.

Dear Ninja Theory and Capcom.

This is an open letter to you regarding the DMC reboot.

Firstly, does the Devil May Cry franchise require a reboot?

It is an almost 10-year franchise which invented and popularized the Stylish Action subgenre, it’s recognizable, carries a large fanbase and has had an influence on many other games and spawned numerous imitations.
Reboots are usually done in hopes of reviving a dead or unpopular franchise or adapting something old to modern stylistic standards while accepting that it’s current state is stylistically and/or technically obsolete. Is Devil May Cry incapable of holding it’s own in the market? Is it’s style out-of-place in 2010/2011?

The lead character Dante became quite iconic and a frequent guest of top 10s. When Marvel vs. Capcom 3 chose Dante to appear in the crossover the fandom rejoiced and Capcom knew that they were bringing in one of their major franchises.

I think that a reboot is of no need for this franchise.

And come to think of it, DMC once had something of a reboot to it. Devil May Cry 2 was a sort of a disappointment to the fans of the series for not holding up to the first game. It still had nice sales though. Nevertheless Capcom decided to renew the series by doing a prequel and changing the gameplay by polishing the old system and expanding with new features. It also saw a slight change in visuals. It brought us a younger version of Dante, which while different was still immediately recognizable and introduced a new charismatic antagonist. The cutscenes became famous and later many games were said to be similar to “the over-the-top cutscenes of DMC3”. It relaunched DMC and is regarded as the best in the series.

But the new reboot done by Ninja Theory?

It is drastically different and even unrecognizable.
The iconic and instantly familiar protagonist was redesigned in a very strange way. In fact the only things he shares with the DMC 1-4 version is his name and the colors of his handguns.
Even the trademark sword didn’t make an appearance.

The tone of the game, which was always about Heaven and Hell with direct Divine Comedy influence and usually included epic and gothic settings while using the modern world as a rare backdrop is now distinctly urban. The dark epic tone is swapped for a noir faux-realistic feel.

The monsters are perhaps a play on the puppets seen in DMC1 and DMC4 but in fact look like they were lifted from Silent Hill 2 or Resonance of Fate.

And the over-the-top and many times humorous style which Dante showed us before is swapped for “mental institution” and “patient” setting invoking parallels with American McGee’s Alice and the Address Unknown segments in Max Payne 2. Also it should be noted that Dante’s redesign has been called “emo” and brought some people thoughts of Twilight.

All of this while not negative on it’s own, it is very different from the Devil May Cry familiar to the fans of the series. As a matter of fact, the only things connecting DmC to Devil May Cry are it’s name and the protagonist’s name.

I don’t know why the decision of a reboot was made or whether it was done by Capcom or Ninja Theory, but it is viewed very negatively right now by me and many other people.

The only reason I can imagine the reboot was decided is that Ninja Theory, realizing that as an outside studio it cannot deliver something “too similar to the series” due to lack of skill and experience with this particular series. Thus they decided to “do something different” and avoid comparisons to the previous titles.

But the end result is unrecognizable. And the fans instead of wondering how it matches up to the best of the series are enraged by the changes.
Perhaps if there were even major changes to the gameplay system and framework, but the style was retained it could’ve sold “on name and characters only”.
But as it stands, it only distances the fans, who are even threatening to boycott the game.

Also I see a missed opportunity of mutual promotion between DmC and Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of the Two Worlds. The Dante seen in MvsC3 will only serve as a reminder of how memorable and lovable the old design was, while the reboot is something nobody knows and many dislike.

So I could only recommend looking at the actions of game developer Sucker Punch who redesigned the protagonist’s look in inFamous 2 but after meeting mixed fan reactions changed it back to it’s old version.

Also it might be a nice piece of history that Devil May Cry itself came out of a Resident Evil 4 prototype that was considered “too different” for the series and instead made into a different one.

So please, Ninja Theory, listen to a humble and harmless request of a DMC fan.
1) Scrap the current look and style of “DmC” and start over.
2) Change the name of the game and develop it as a wholly different franchise, “inspired by DMC”.

I’ll send a similar copy to Capcom…

Best wishes and respect.