Let's be real: mentioning DmC Devil May Cry in a room full of character action fans is a great way to start a fight. Or at least it used to be. Back in 2013, the internet basically had a collective meltdown over a haircut. People saw a Dante who didn't have white hair, who didn't eat pizza in his office, and who looked more like he belonged in a British punk club than a gothic cathedral. They hated it.
Honestly, the vitriol was legendary. But if you actually go back and play it now—especially the Definitive Edition—you might realize we were a bit too hard on Ninja Theory. They were handed an impossible task by Capcom: "Make Devil May Cry, but don't make it like the old ones."
The Reboot That Nobody Asked For (But Kind of Needed)
Capcom was in a weird place in the early 2010s. They were obsessed with "Westernizing" their big Japanese franchises. They looked at the sales for Devil May Cry 4 (which were actually pretty good at around 3 million at the time) and decided it wasn't enough. They wanted Call of Duty numbers. To get there, they tapped Ninja Theory, the UK studio known for Heavenly Sword and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.
The mandate was simple: reboot it. Make it edgy. Make it contemporary.
Ninja Theory didn't just change the hair; they changed the world. Limbo City isn't just a backdrop; it’s a living, breathing antagonist. The way the environment warps and screams "KILL DANTE" in giant floating letters across the walls? That was inspired. It felt like a fever dream. Instead of the usual "demon invasion" plot, we got a satirical take on consumerism. Mundus wasn't just a big statue; he was a debt-bloated banking mogul who controlled the world through soft drinks and 24-hour news cycles.
It was heavy-handed? Yeah, sure. But it had more personality than most action games released in the last decade.
Why the Combat Is Better Than the Purists Admit
If you listen to the hardcore "DMC" veterans, they’ll tell you the combat in DmC Devil May Cry is "shallow." They point to the lack of a lock-on system in the original release and the color-coded enemies.
Look, I get it. The color-coded enemies (blue for angel weapons, red for demon weapons) were a mistake. They killed the "freestyle" flow that makes this series great. If you have a massive arsenal but can only use two specific tools to kill a specific grunt, that’s not stylish—it's a chore.
But here's what they forget.
The weapon-switching in this game is incredibly fluid. You aren't cycling through a menu or clicking a d-pad. You just hold a trigger. Left trigger for Angel mode (Osiris, Aquila), right trigger for Demon mode (Arbiter, Eryx). It allowed for some of the most intuitive aerial juggling in the entire genre. You could pull an enemy toward you with an Ophion whip, launch them, switch to an axe mid-air to slam them down, and then grapple back to them before they even hit the ground.
By the time the Definitive Edition rolled around on PS4 and Xbox One, Ninja Theory fixed almost every mechanical complaint. They added a manual lock-on. They removed the "deflection" penalty for hitting colored enemies with the wrong weapon. They even added a "Hardcore" mode that rebalanced the style system to be more punishing, much like the original Japanese games.
The Dante Problem: Was He Really That Bad?
We need to talk about "Donte." That was the nickname fans gave this new Dante to distance him from the "real" one. This Dante was foul-mouthed, lived in a trailer, and didn't seem to care about anything.
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Early trailers showed him smoking and looking miserable. The fan reaction was so toxic that Ninja Theory actually had to tone it down. But if you actually play through the story, there’s a genuine arc there. He starts as a nihilistic loner and ends as someone who actually gives a damn about humanity.
Is he as charming as the "Wacky Woo-Hoo Pizza Man" from DMC3 or DMC5? Probably not. But he fit the world they built. And Vergil? This version of Vergil was a revolutionary leader of a hacker group called "The Order." It was a wild departure from the "I need more power" katana-wielder we knew, but the final betrayal still stung.
The Legacy: Where Does It Stand in 2026?
Interestingly, DmC Devil May Cry didn't kill the franchise. If anything, it saved it. The backlash was so loud that Capcom finally understood exactly what fans loved about the original series. It paved the way for the masterpiece that is Devil May Cry 5.
But look at the DNA of DMC5. You can see Ninja Theory's influence everywhere. The slow-motion "zoom-ins" on the final kill of a combat encounter? That started here. The dynamic music that ramps up in intensity as your style rank climbs? That’s a DmC innovation. Even the more photorealistic art direction of the newer games owes a debt to the experiments Ninja Theory did with Unreal Engine 3 back in the day.
The game eventually moved over 4.8 million units across all versions. It wasn't the "failure" people like to claim it was. It just wasn't the "Gears of War-sized" hit Capcom's suits were dreaming of.
Should You Play It Now?
If you haven't touched this game since the 2013 controversy—or if you've never touched it at all—you're missing out on a top-tier action game. It runs at a buttery smooth 60fps on modern hardware and the art direction still looks incredible.
Here is the move if you want to jump in:
- Get the Definitive Edition. Do not play the original PS3/360 version if you can help it. The 30fps lock and lack of mechanical fixes make it a much worse experience.
- Turn on Hardcore Mode. Even if you aren't a pro, it makes the style ranking feel "earned" rather than just handed to you.
- Ignore the "not my Dante" noise. Treat it as an Elseworlds story. Like a "What If?" comic. Once you stop comparing it to DMC3, you’ll realize it’s one of the best feeling brawlers ever made.
The game is a fascinating time capsule of an era where Japanese publishers were terrified of their own shadows and Western developers were trying to prove they could play in the big leagues. It's messy, it's loud, and it's occasionally cringe-inducing, but it has a soul. And in an era of sanitized, safe sequels, that's worth a lot.
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Go grab the Definitive Edition on a sale. It usually goes for pennies these days. Play through the Bob Barbas boss fight—which is basically a battle inside a literal news broadcast—and tell me this game didn't have vision. It did. We were just too busy looking at the hair to see it.