New Devil May Cry is focused on Western tastes, says Ninja Theory

26 Jan 2012 at 14:33:52 by John Robertson

Developer of the upcoming Devil May Cry (dubbed simply DmC), Ninja Theory, has said that the game is in no way focused on trying to please a Japanese audience.

In an interview in the latest issue of the UK's OXM magazine, DmC creative director Tameem Antoniades said that the team are "tapping into" influences that they hold dear to themselves.

"We've not so much done away with any of the Japanese aspects of the series," said Antoniades. Instead, Ninja Theory are "building on the foundations of the franchise to develop a game that has a different flavour. We grew up on US and European movies, comics, music and general culture. That's what we're tapping into. We're not pretending we are Japanese nor making apologies for that."

Many fans of the franchise have expressed a distaste at the new look and style of protagonist Dante, but Capcom's Alex Jones (in the same interview) highlighted the fact that Japanese and Western characters are designed in a different from the earliest stages of conception.

"Japanese style ethos does tend to involve making characters look cool for the sake of looking cool, adding odd accessories, crazy hairstyles and colour, cowboy boots and so on simply because they look cool," said Jones.

"We in the West tend to be more functional adding things that have meaning and being able to explain that meaning. Why does Dante have white hair? I want to make a little story around that and explain it. And so on for the rest of his design choices."

Source: OXM Issue 82

Comment