Uploaded September 2026 | Updated September 2026, 4 hours ago
Playing DmC: Devil May Cry again was something approached with genuine curiosity. When it was first played at release, it was the most recent game in the franchise — originally dropping for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC in early 2013. But now we live in a post-Devil May Cry 5 world, and that changes the context significantly. The damage fans thought DmC would do to the franchise is now irrelevant. You can simply play the game and evaluate it on its own terms, free of existential anxiety about the series' future. That's what this video is about.
The Context: Why This Reboot Happened
If you're a Devil May Cry fan or someone who followed gaming discourse in the early 2010s, you're no doubt familiar with what DmC was and why it generated such intense reaction. The brief recap: Devil May Cry 4 came out on PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2008 as an attempt to bring a larger audience to the DMC franchise. The game was a success, but not to the degree Capcom was hoping for. Their solution was to bring in external talent — specifically Ninja Theory, the British studio behind Heavenly Sword — to develop a full reboot aimed at broadening the series' appeal.
The initial teaser upset people immediately. It was following the late 2000s and early 2010s trend of making things as aggressively edgy as possible within the constraints of a T-rating, and the culture was already growing tired of this approach. The fan anger wasn't purely the reflexive hostility that sometimes accompanies changes to beloved IP. The series itself wasn't in a position where a reboot was a natural creative choice. Devil May Cry 4 had an open ending with more stories to tell for Nero and Dante, and it left enormous room for improvement on the gameplay front — DMC4 is one of the most mechanically complex action games ever made, but that complexity was tethered to a campaign that didn't do it justice. The potential for a sequel that built on those foundations was palpable. Instead, Capcom was going with a straight reboot — new Dante, new gameplay, new everything — and the direction seemed to be toward generic, serious, gritty territory.
The developer comments during promotion didn't help. When Ninja Theory representatives gave a talk suggesting the older version of Dante wouldn't look out of place in a film like Brokeback Mountain compared to their version, there were multiple problems with that framing beyond the obvious. Their underlying point — that they saw the bombastic colors and theatrical personality of the original Dante as surface affectation rather than genuine character — may have had some merit. But the way it was communicated managed to insult both the legacy character and basic standards of discourse simultaneously. Getting fans on your side by suggesting the previous version of their favorite character was somehow lesser is simply not an effective strategy, regardless of what you're trying to say.
This is just a brief outline of the pre-release controversy. The full history of DmC's development is covered thoroughly elsewhere and is worth seeking out separately. What matters for this video is that the game came with an enormous weight of expectation and resentment attached to it — and revisiting it now, with DMC5 firmly established as the continuation of the original continuity, offers the chance to evaluate the game for what it actually is rather than what it represented...
Playing DmC: Devil May Cry again was something approached with genuine curiosity. When it was first played at release, it was the most recent game in the franchise — originally dropping for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC in early 2013. But now we live in a post-Devil May Cry 5 world, and that changes the context significantly. The damage fans thought DmC would do to the franchise is now irrelevant. You can simply play the game and evaluate it on its own terms, free of existential anxiety about the series' future. That's what this video is about.
The Context: Why This Reboot Happened
If you're a Devil May Cry fan or someone who followed gaming discourse in the early 2010s, you're no doubt familiar with what DmC was and why it generated such intense reaction. The brief recap: Devil May Cry 4 came out on PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2008 as an attempt to bring a larger audience to the DMC franchise. The game was a success, but not to the degree Capcom was hoping for. Their solution was to bring in external talent — specifically Ninja Theory, the British studio behind Heavenly Sword — to develop a full reboot aimed at broadening the series' appeal.
The initial teaser upset people immediately. It was following the late 2000s and early 2010s trend of making things as aggressively edgy as possible within the constraints of a T-rating, and the culture was already growing tired of this approach. The fan anger wasn't purely the reflexive hostility that sometimes accompanies changes to beloved IP. The series itself wasn't in a position where a reboot was a natural creative choice. Devil May Cry 4 had an open ending with more stories to tell for Nero and Dante, and it left enormous room for improvement on the gameplay front — DMC4 is one of the most mechanically complex action games ever made, but that complexity was tethered to a campaign that didn't do it justice. The potential for a sequel that built on those foundations was palpable. Instead, Capcom was going with a straight reboot — new Dante, new gameplay, new everything — and the direction seemed to be toward generic, serious, gritty territory.
The developer comments during promotion didn't help. When Ninja Theory representatives gave a talk suggesting the older version of Dante wouldn't look out of place in a film like Brokeback Mountain compared to their version, there were multiple problems with that framing beyond the obvious. Their underlying point — that they saw the bombastic colors and theatrical personality of the original Dante as surface affectation rather than genuine character — may have had some merit. But the way it was communicated managed to insult both the legacy character and basic standards of discourse simultaneously. Getting fans on your side by suggesting the previous version of their favorite character was somehow lesser is simply not an effective strategy, regardless of what you're trying to say.
This is just a brief outline of the pre-release controversy. The full history of DmC's development is covered thoroughly elsewhere and is worth seeking out separately. What matters for this video is that the game came with an enormous weight of expectation and resentment attached to it — and revisiting it now, with DMC5 firmly established as the continuation of the original continuity, offers the chance to evaluate the game for what it actually is rather than what it represented...
