In an interview with GamesIndustry, CAPCOM Europe executives Stuart Turner (COO) and Antoine Molant (Marketing Director) talked about DMC5 and the decision to change some aspects of the latest installment (developed by Ninja Theory) that were criticized by fans at the time.
Antoine Molant
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.
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.
Turner and Molant also clarified that fan feedback was important, though CAPCOM doesn't take into account the extremes.
Stuart Turner
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.
Antoine Molant
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.
DMC5 is expected to launch by the end of March 2019 on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. We'll have the chance to go hands-on with the action game at Gamescom 2018, stay tuned for our impressions.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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