Dante's Inferno Goes For The Tried and True

Keane Ng

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Sep 11, 2008
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Dante's Inferno Goes For The Tried and True



Unlike most games nowadays that try to pass themselves off as "innovative," Dante's Inferno is more than happy to sit squarely within its genre and not try anything crazy or new.

Though it's happy to take liberties with its literary source material, Dante's Inferno has no intentions of pushing the boundaries when it comes to game design. No, its developers have very clear goals for the game to stick to its genre and just do that as well as it can. Where other titles talk a big game about being "innovative," Dante's Inferno sticks to the tried and true.

"I'd say we're working pretty squarely in this action adventure fighting genre," developer Jonathan Knight told VG247 [http://www.vg247.com/2009/05/08/dantes-inferno-is-squarely-in-this-action-adventure-fighting-genre/]. "It's a great genre, we love the genre, and it's more important to us to deliver a great game in that established genre than it is to particularly branch out and try too many new things."

Knight and the EA Redwood Shores (oh wait, I mean Visceral Games [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/91447-EA-Redwood-Shores-Now-Known-As-Visceral-Games]) team took a somewhat similar approach to design in the development of its last hit, Dead Space, which borrowed liberally from survival-horror standards. Likewise, Dante's Inferno takes its cues from other action game precedents.

"The combination of the cross power that has range to it and the scythe for heavy melee, I would say, is giving us more of a Devil May Cry, Japanese feel... We're working squarely in that genre," Knight described.

Where Dante's Inferno does innovate, Knight said, is in its mythos and setting. "The game has a lot of unique stuff about it that hasn't been seen before, in terms of the story, the fiction, the medieval Christian mythos," he explained.


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PedroSteckecilo

Mexican Fugitive
Feb 7, 2008
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Well as long as they try to push forward some creativity in their visual, level and narrative design. No game should be completely creatively bankrupt, when you do that you get games like Two Worlds.
 

kaiser_what

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Feb 19, 2009
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Wow, the environment in this game is really "colorful". Judging from that picture, at least.
 

SharPhoe

The Nice-talgia Kerrick
Feb 28, 2009
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PedroSteckecilo said:
Well as long as they try to push forward some creativity in their visual, level and narrative design. No game should be completely creatively bankrupt, when you do that you get games like Two Worlds.
Two Worlds... why doesn't that sound familiar?
 

Baby Tea

Just Ask Frankie
Sep 18, 2008
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The Shade said:
Now if only they'd take that philosophy to their source material. Yeesh...
EXACTLY what I was thinking.
Oh no, they won't reinvent the genre but they are happy to massacre the first of the Divine Comedy. They probably read the cliff notes and figured themselves experts. Why did they need to base it on Inferno in order to have an excuse to have some guy killing demons in hell? Just make up your own stuff! Stay away from the classics! Especially when they are completely unrelated except by name.
 

RebelRising

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Jan 5, 2008
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So first they mutilate the story, and now they tell us that they aren't going to bother doing something creative with gameplay?

No. Thank. You.
 

Ilosia

The faceless
Mar 10, 2009
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Now they can stop calling it 'Dante's Inferno' despite it having nothing to do with the classic piece of literature.
 

ChromeAlchemist

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Aug 21, 2008
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Baby Tea said:
The Shade said:
Now if only they'd take that philosophy to their source material. Yeesh...
EXACTLY what I was thinking.
Oh no, they won't reinvent the genre but they are happy to massacre the first of the Divine Comedy. They probably read the cliff notes and figured themselves experts. Why did they need to base it on Inferno in order to have an excuse to have some guy killing demons in hell? Just make up your own stuff! Stay away from the classics! Especially when they are completely unrelated except by name.
Cue someone cutting in and commenting on how it is a much needed reboot of a classic piece of work.
 

DeadlyYellow

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Jun 18, 2008
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Ilosia said:
Now they can stop calling it 'Dante's Inferno' despite it having nothing to do with the classic piece of literature.
Agreed, I was mildly disgusted when I learned they were going to be bastardizing part of the Divine Comedy into a game.
 

ryai458

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Oct 20, 2008
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SharPhoe said:
PedroSteckecilo said:
Well as long as they try to push forward some creativity in their visual, level and narrative design. No game should be completely creatively bankrupt, when you do that you get games like Two Worlds.
Two Worlds... why doesn't that sound familiar?
becaue you obviously never fell down suffered major brain damage and decided to make a game.
 

meatloaf231

Old Man Glenn
Feb 13, 2008
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MaxTheReaper said:
Keane Ng said:
Where Dante's Inferno does innovate, Knight said, is in its mythos and setting. "The game has a lot of unique stuff about it that hasn't been seen before, in terms of the story, the fiction, the medieval Christian mythos," he explained.
Sort of defeats the point of basing it on something, doesn't it?
Honestly, if you can come up with your own "unique" mythos, you don't need to rape a masterpiece.
Seriously. I'm more disgusted by this game than I am by Bayonetta.

Just rename it Hell Justice Awesome II: Return of the Venginator and it'd be more fitting to the game.
 

scotth266

Wait when did I get a sub
Jan 10, 2009
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Finally: someone will admit that you don't NEED to have something revolutionary to have something good.

Still hoping that this turns out to be good...