In an internal interview with Ninja Theory creative director, Tameem Antionades, and Capcom producer, Motohide Eshiro, Capcom share various points of DmC Devil May Cry’s development, and also tease features that haven’t been shown yet.
Antionades says the game is at a stage where all of the missions have been designed. Ninja Theory and Capcom are currently primarily focusing on tweaking the game’s combat, and making revisions to the various missions, and bringing the game’s art up to standard. The latest footage for the game from Capcom’s Captivate event reflected some of these ongoing changes. Ninja Theory and Capcom say they’re now in a listening phase, where they’re taking feedback from people that have had a chance to go hands-on with DmC Devil May Cry.
With regard to weapons, Capcom have shown off the scythe and the sword so far, but say that there will be more weapons in the final game. Like the sword and shield, the other weapons in the game will be specific to Dante’s angel or demon forms. For combos, you’ll be able to switch between angel and demon forms in real-time, and also further switch between the different weapons for each form to create different kinds of combos. Weapons in DmC will be a bit more grounded in reality, so you won’t see things like a guitar, but the developers promise cool weapons nonetheless.
Advanced moves like jump-cancelling, enemy step and parrying are mentioned once more. Antoniades once again emphasizes that Capcom are heavily involved with the combat aspect of the game and give Ninja Theory guidance in order to make sure that Dante is as responsive as he needs to be. The idea to have DmC Devil May Cry focus more on verticality with air combos came from Capcom as well, as they felt it would be the logical progression for the series.
Also with regard to combos, the new style ranking system is the same as it has been in previous Devil May Cry games but is meant to make it easier for players to understand how combos work and grow into advanced players if they so choose. Overall, the intention is to make the rules of the combo system clearer.
Something else that Capcom Japan are playing a heavy supervisory role in is Dante’s body animations in DmC, even going as far as giving Ninja Theory guidance on a frame-by-frame basis in order to make sure that Dante maintains a somewhat similar feel to the original Dante in his body language. Antoniades reveals that motion capture is only done for the game’s cutscenes. All of the combat animation work is being done by hand in order to give it as much character as possible.
Finally, while he doesn’t go into detail, Antoniades says that there’s also an emphasis on making DmC Devil May Cry replayable. During the course of a single playthrough, you can go back to older levels and challenge previous bosses with new weapons. There’s also some sort of exploration aspect to the game, by which you can discover new areas that you hadn’t come across before.
