DmC: Devil May Cry

Ah, DmC: Devil May Cry. The infamous Western reboot of a legendary franchise. The PS360 era certainly was a weird time when it came down to Japanese studios. They tried so hard to please the Western audience that they hired Western studios to westernize their franchises. DmC: Devil May Cry is probably the culmination of all these efforts and one of the most divisive games of all time. Ninja Theory’s emo-edgelord take on an already pretty “edgelordy” franchise certainly caused some heated discussions back in the day. And honestly, there is some stuff in this game that would absolutely not fly nowadays like the whole baby demon stuff. And there is tons of cringe dialogue and character interactions that mostly consist of F-bombs and flying middlefingers. But much worse is the straight character assasination they committed with this game. Dante looks like a seedy stroller, Vergil leads a rebellion that apparently only consists of him and a witch named Kat and he also is a cool hacker(!). Speaking of Kat, whatever they tried to do with that original character didn’t work out. A trauma-ridden emo witch that regularly tells you of her demon-stepfather visiting her at nights. But the worst offender is probably villain Mundus. They turned the cool demon king of the original Devil May Cry into a fat stockbroker that controls humanity through money, the media and energy drinks(!). He also likes to have a lot of hard sex with his demon companion Lilith which is of course shown in some cutscenes. You see, DmC: Devil May Cry is really drab, vulgar and grubby. There are no likeable characters in this and it is very questionable if anything of this qualifies as “cool” in a franchise that defined the world “cool” in videogames in 2001. Also, the story sucks. Like it really badly sucks and it also kinda has no real ending and was certainly hinting at a sequel that never came. I absolutely hated everything about this in 2013 when I first played it. I already hated the announcement trailers and marketing campaigns for it. But nowadays, in 2026, I can watch this with more distance and also a little drop of nostalgia. Some AAA games truly were wild back in the good old days. But what about the game itself? Is it really that bad? No it isn’t. It’s a somewhat competent character action game with good combat. Honestly, the combat system itself is really good with how easy you can switch between weapons. Your standard melee weapon is the sword, but holding down R2 or L2 activates alternative weapons like an axe, a sickle or demon boxing gloves. The sidearms like Dante’s dual pistols and the shotgun are there as well. During the course of the game new moves and stronger versions of these moves can be unlocked. Combining all the weapons and skills to pull off crazy combos is quite easy and satisfying. The problem is that enemy variety isn’t all that great and that later in the game there are some truly annoying enemy types like the Dreamrunner. There are also only six boss fights spread across 20 missions. And these bosses are mostly tied to gimmick mechanics and a cinematic presentation instead of technical combat that makes the most out of the combat system. The presentation of these bosses is top-notch, but the actual gameplay behind them is very lacking and often overly simple. But a bigger problem of the game is the insane focus on mundane platforming segments and swinging mechanics. Over the course of the eight to ten hours long campaign it felt to me that I spent more time on grapple-hooking through the linear levels and accomplishing overly simple platforming segments than participating in the stylish combat. And that is very bad for a series that got famous for its over the top combat. If at least the level design was interesting, but it is not. Overly long corridors, a weirdly slow running speed of the main protagonist and quite some backtracking make the pacing during most levels nose-dive. It helps a bit that some of the stages offer some genuinely nice visual styles like an inverted city where trains run above your head or a giant demon disco parallel world. But the actual gameplay in most of the levels can get painfully boring while you yearn for the next combat encounter. All in all, let's call DmC: Devil May Cry an “interesting” game. It’s neither very good nor very bad. It has some strong points like the combat system but also very weak points like the level design and painfully boring ever-present platforming segments. The story and presentation are divisive for good reasons. In my opinion there isn’t anything to like about this grubby take on Dante’s and Vergil’s adventures, but it is also a nice reminder of times where AAA games tried new stuff and went into downright offensive places. I won’t recommend this game to anyone, but if you are curious check it out for yourself. It’s super-cheap during Steam sales.