Dante (Devil May Cry) - Conception and Design

Conception and Design

Dante debuted in Devil May Cry, a game originally intended to be a part of Capcom's Resident Evil franchise. Series' creator Hideki Kamiya has said that the titular character from the manga series Cobra by Buichi Terasawa served as the basis for Dante's personality. Kamiya based his idea of Dante on what he perceived as "Stylish" – wearing a long coat to make the character "showy" and a non-smoker, as Kamiya saw that as more cool. The character wears red because in Japan it is a traditional color for a heroic figure. Kamiya has also stated he perceives Dante as "a character that you would want to go out drinking with", someone who was not a show-off but would instead "pull some ridiculous, mischievous joke" to endear people to him. He added that this aspect was intended to make the character feel familiar to audiences.

In the prequel game Devil May Cry 3, Dante's attitude was emphasized to reflect a younger and more arrogant character than in previous installments. The Devil Trigger forms for Dante was designed by Kazuma Kaneko. Devil May Cry 4's producer Hiroyuki Kobashi noted prior to the release of that game that they wanted to make Dante seem significantly more powerful than the game's other protagonist, Nero. This was done in order to create an evident difference between the strength of a "veteran" when compared to a "rookie". Another reason for this portrayal is based on the series' continuity, which dictated that Dante display the power he would possess after the events of the first game and its prequel, Devil May Cry 3.

For DmC: Devil May Cry, the as-yet unreleased fifth game in the series, Dante was completely redesigned as a result of comments by the Capcom staff. Dante's original design was originally meant to be similar to the ones from previous games, but Capcom told the Ninja Theory staff it had to be completely different in order to appeal to a younger demographic. While the original Dante was design from a Japanese perspective, the new one was made from a Western perspective. Despite knowing that they would receive negative fan feedback, the decision was made to reshape his character. After several drafts of Dante's new character, the designers settled on a look as inspired by Christopher Nolan's film The Dark Knight. Tameem Antoniades from Ninja Theory stated that Dante is about "being cool and making you feel cool when you're playing it," and, as such, they felt that his attire from previous games would be found comical in real life. Antoniades responded to criticism stating they would not change it as it is supposed to fit within the game's setting.