Devil May Cry

The Resident Evil 4 that never was, and the Soulslike precursor we never saw coming

- CALLUM BAINS

Had you been of school age in the early 2000s, you might have picked up hushed rumours of a peculiar new videogame from Japan. Available to only those children whose parents didn’t pay much attention to age ratings – or satanic imagery and voluptuous silhouetted women – this was a game so joyfully violent, so relentlessly fiendish, so twisted in its grotesqueries, the older kids claimed, that even Satan himself would break down in frightened sobs should he ever put its disc in his PS2. It was so scary, in other words, that from sight alone, even the devil may cry.

If such overly literal interpretations of Capcom’s demon-hunting slasher could only ever belong to impressionable primaryschool children, they did inadvertently reflect Devil May Cry’s struggle with selfidentity. Even its creators didn’t seem to know what game they were making. Originally conceived as Resident Evil 4, its gothic setting, faintly inspired by Christian demonology, and mixed melee/ranged combat system that put style over survival was eventually deemed too far removed from Capcom’s staple horror series. At the advice of studio general manager and future Resident Evil 4 director Shinji Mikami, the game was spun off into its own property.

Those origins aren’t difficult to spot. Much of the game sticks neatly to