Devil May Cry 5 Was Born Because the Fans Wanted it; Capcom Aims to Appease Fans, Within Reason

Devil May Cry 5 Was Born Because the Fans Wanted it; Capcom Aims to Appease Fans, Within Reason

Giuseppe Nelva August 6, 2018 9:47 AM EST

Capcom executives explain that Devil May Cry 5 was born out of the demand from the fanbase, but it still made sense business-wise.

After a long tail of rumors, Devil May Cry 5 was finally revealed at E3 2018, and today Capcom Europe Chief Operating Officer Stuart Turner and Marketing Director Antoine Molant talked about the game in an interview on Gamesindustry.

Molant acknowledged that while DMC: Devil May Cry by Ninja Theory was good, it also disappointed some fans, so the development team went back to the drawing board.

“The last game was very good, but there were a few unhappy voices because it wasn’t a direct sequel and other things. Because of that, the dev team sat down and asked: ‘Where do we take that next?’ And it was known that the community wanted Devil May Cry 5 to be closer to 1, 2 and 3. And so the project was born.”

While the current appeal of the hack and slash genre is debatable, the project was greenlit because the fans wanted it.

“We can debate whether that genre has the same appeal as it used to… that’s hard to say. The project was born because of what the fans want.”

According to Turner, while the publisher wouldn’t go too far in doing whatever the fans ask, there is still an underlying element of fan service. Capcom wants to give back to the fans and to support them, within reason.

“It’s fair to say that we are very focused on the audience and the feedback that we get. We have seen some horrible stories in the media recently about publishers bending to the will of the internet. We wouldn’t advocate going that far. But certainly, there is an element of fan service that runs throughout the company.” “DMC is an example of that. Fans weren’t happy, so, therefore, we went a different way. It’s part of giving back within the remit that we’re still a business, we still need it to sell. We want to give things to the fans, we want to support them, but it has to make sense. So we do it within reason. We don’t listen to the far extremes of the fanbase, shall we say.”

In fact, Molant explains that the project would have never started if it didn’t make sense in terms of business. While the forecasts aren’t crazy, Devil May Cry 5 is still aiming to please a fanbase that is still rather large.

“This project would never have been greenlit if it didn’t make sense business-wise. We rarely have crazy forecasts on any of our games. DMC 5 will please a fanbase that is still quite big.”

If you want to see and learn more about Devil May Cry 5, you can check out the announcement trailer, the first screenshots and details from E3 2018, and quite a few details shared recently.

The game will be playable at Gamescom, and it will come to PS4, Xbox One, and PC in the spring of 2019.