Ninja Theory isn't pretending the game's Japan-focused or apologising for it
Ninja Theory, the developer of Heavenly Sword, Enslaved and Capcom's Devil May Cry reboot, has said the team isn't pretending the game's Japanese-focused and won't apologise for it.
Speaking in an interview with
OXM (which you can read in full in issue 82 of the magazine), creative director Tameem Antoniades and Capcom's Alex Jones reflected on the backlash from fans regarding the redesigned version of Dante.
According to Antoniades the furore is the result of different expectations surrounding Western games. Jones elaborated by pointing out a distinction between the way characters are designed in Japan and in the west.
"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/
"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."
Antoniades went on to explain the jumping off point for the design of Dante and DmC as a whole.
"We did a thought experiment [suggested by former Capcom exec Keiji Inafune] early on. It went like this: imagine this game as a contemporary movie. What would it look like? What would Dante look like? We went from there."
While the more Japanese aspects of the game haven't been completely ditched, the title will have more of a western flavour, owing to the Ninja Theory's influences.
"We've not so much done away with any of the Japanese aspects of the series," Antoniades continued "But are more 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."
Just when they were starting to act mature , Ninja theory has pretty much just lost my respect