Meanwhile, Devil May Cry would be handed to the stewardship of Hideaki Itsuno from the tail end of development of Devil May Cry 2 up through the latest offering. It’s been 18 years since Capcom gave birth to the Devil May Cry franchise under the directorship of Hideki Kamiya, who would go on to launch a thousand discourses (and some very good writing and discussion too) about sexuality and objectification in games with the landmark Bayonetta. It’s loud, colorful, and revels in the ridiculousness of a world where hot dad bods are frequently impaled with unreasonably large swords as a matter of course. But Devil May Cry 5 is big and brash enough that perhaps it deserves to be discussed in the same terms. That’s a big statement for mid-March, and a bigger statement for me, generally. Aside from the graphical potential of the RE Engine, it’s just not what a AAA game looks like in 2019.Īnd, real talk? It might be one of the best games I play this year. In a lot of ways, Devil May Cry 5 feels like an anachronism. It’s a mission-based character action game that comes in well under 20 hours of playtime. There are no major puzzles, and the narrative is entirely linear-it doesn’t even fork. There are meaningless corridors filled with meaningless rooms where enemies spawn in waves. There’s no crafting system, or the dozens and dozens of loot types that would feed it.
It’s not open world, and there are no outposts or incidental world quests to pick up.