Trivia / Devil May Cry

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• Acting for Two:
  • Trish and Eva are both voiced by Sara Lafleur.
  • Howard Jerome voices Griffon and Phantom.
  • Dante and Vergil's younger selves are played by Jonathan Malen.
• Blooper:
  • As Dante and Trish walk out of the Devil Never Cry shop in the epilogue cutscene, the former has the Force Edge on his back while the latter has the Sparda sword on hers, which wouldn't make sense because the Sparda is the awakened form of the Force Edge and not a separate weapon.
  • The phrase "FOR TONY REDGRAVE BY .45 ART WARKS" etched on the slides of Ebony & Ivory has a spelling mistake ("WARKS"), but the novel tried to justify it In-Universe via the character who wrote it being a bad speller. It's only until almost two decades later in Devil May Cry 5 and its Before the Nightmare novel when this was retconned to correctly spell "WORKS" as intended, and even the in-game models of Ebony & Ivory have been updated to reflect this fix in that game. The lore justifies this as the character's son having fixed this when Dante went into his shop.
  • Mundus' Enemy File contains a typo which misspells the word "moment" as "moement".
• Development Gag:
  • There are some leftover references to DMC's history as one of the many RE4 prototypes:
    • Dante's alias, Tony Redgrave, serves as one to the version that was retooled in the original game, which featured a protagonist named Tony who has superhuman abilities spawned by biotechnology. "Redgrave" is a nod to Resident Evil mainstay protagonist Chris Redfield and the name remains canon as it is etched onto both of Dante's handguns as part of the inscription "For Tony Redgrave By .45 Art Warks [sic]".
    • Although many enemy designs have been overhauled from B.O.W.s (when the game was still an RE4 prototype) to demons, monster designer Sawaki Takeyasu said the design of the Beelzebub enemy type existed way back the RE4 prototype days, yet was "completely unchanged" during the transition to DMC1 aside from just having a lower polygon count.
    • The Game Over text of DMC1 is "You Are Dead", which is based from the recurring "You Died" game-over texts of the early Resident Evil games. Ironically enough, most RE games released since 2002 also use "You Are Dead", while the next DMC games have their own distinct game-over phrases in order to move on from the series' RE prototype origins.
    • For posterity, the Vault Gallery of the HD Collection officially preserved many of this game's earliest/unused Concept Art back when it was still an RE4 prototype. Ever wondered why the Vault has an artwork for a character named "Spencer", or why an insignia resembles the Umbrella Corporation's logo? These can only be understood if you look back to the game's early development days.
  • Karnival was the game's Working Title before it was used as the name of the red biplane in the final version.
• Divorced Installment: Devil May Cry started as an early concept for Resident Evil 4 built around "Stylish" action rather than Survival Horror. It was deemed to be too much of an Actionized Sequel to work as a Resident Evil game, but had enough merit that it was decided to use the idea and concepts built for an original property.
• Doing It for the Art: As mentioned in the interview section◊ from Dreamwave Production's DMC1 comic, Director Hideki Kamiya has gone on record admitting Devil May Cry wasn't meant to appeal to all gamers in the "mainstream" market; he'd already be content if DMC made its mark to only a portion of gamers, for as long as those fans really love what he made.
  Hideki Kamiya: In short, I would say that I personally wanted to have 10% of all gamers to love DMC, rather than 100% of gamers "like" DMC. For the mainstream market, the games can be dull and just not as special. I wanted to create this game so it burns on the heart of those 10% of game players that really relate and understand it, that can live in its world. I think I achieved my purpose, what do you readers and gamers think about it?
• Inspiration for the Work:
  • As mentioned in an official interview◊ from an Electronic Gaming Monthly page, Hideki Kamiya has confirmed that the titular Cobra from Space Adventure Cobra, and Joseph Joestar from the Battle Tendency part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure were influences behind Dante's personality of snarking even if he faces immense trouble. Dante's Cobra influences are also mentioned in page 200 of the 3142 Graphic Arts artbook; according to Motion Artist Yuichiro Hiraki, Dante was being imagined as Cobra when Ifrit's light footwork and boxing moves were being designed. From Kamiya's YouTube video on November 2023, he would re-iterate Dante being based on Cobra, and recommends his viewers to read the Cobra manga.
  • As explained by Motion Artist Yuichiro Hiraki in the 3142 Graphic Arts interviews, firing a shotgun with two hands is not stylish at all, so they decided to make Dante fire it one-handed because that's how it was done in Mad Max.
  • As re-iterated in a series of tweets covering the behind-the-scenes aspects of the game, Hideki Kamiya was inspired to include the mechanic of sending enemies flying in the air due to a bug that caused enemies to float in the early versions of Onimusha: Warlords.
    Hideki Kamiya: "I want to hit enemies and see them fly into the air!"
• International Coproduction: The game was developed in Japan and the English dialogue was recorded at Toronto's McClear Digital.
• Killer App: After a relatively dry post-launch spell, the PlayStation 2 received many killer apps later in 2001, including but not limited to: Onimusha (the first game to reach one million units on the system), Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec, Twisted Metal Black, Final Fantasy X, Devil May Cry, Dynasty Warriors 3, Silent Hill 2, Grand Theft Auto III, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: When the Resident Evil 4 prototype was being developed, executive producer Shinji Mikami decided that it strayed too far from the Survival Horror genre, so Mikami persuaded the developers to turn the concept into Devil May Cry.
• No Dub for You: Despite being developed in Japan, the game was only released with the English-language audio.
• Prequel in Another Medium: The DMC1 prequel light novel provides additional backstory, mostly about Dante's mercenary life as "Tony Redgrave", his encounters with the gunsmith Nell Goldstein, his partner Grue, his informer Enzo Ferino, and the mysterious man called "Gilver".
• Preview Piggybacking: The PS2 version of Resident Evil – Code: Veronica X came with a demo for Devil May Cry.
• Throw It In!: The "software guys" in the development team loved to ad-lib ideas that they thought were cool, and were eventually kept in the game because director Hideki Kamiya also loved those ideas. In page 200 of the 3142 Graphic Arts artbook, motion artist Yuichiro Hiraki detailed some motions and mechanics that were implied to be unintentional, or were actually discarded motions recycled by the software team into new moves. These include Enemy Step, and the charged version of High Time.
• Troubled Production: In page 222 of the 3142 Graphic Arts artbook interviews, producer Motohide Eshiro and director Hideaki Itsuno detailed the difficulties in developing the HD Collection port of DMC1. Because some of the backup data for this game were missing, the team had to recreate parts of the game while watching the original version, especially since the people who made the original were no longer there to help. In contrast, the HD versions of DMC2 and DMC3 were easier to develop because their backup data and Itsuno (who worked on both games) were already available.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The first E3 2001 trailer for the first Devil May Cry had a few differences compared to the final version, such as Dante having just a red jacket instead of his iconic long coat; Sparda as his demon self was exactly the same as what ended up being Alastor. Dante may have been originally planned to be strictly a swordsman and gunslinger warrior, as in no melee fighter mixed in the form of Ifrit, yet the early E3 demo build had Dante's inventory include an identical sword to Alastor but was fire-themed. However, that build didn't allow the player to access it, and thus "Fire Alastor" was never playable. The "Trial Edition" of DMC1, released in Japan, was based on this E3 demo. Here, Alastor was called "Air" and the flaming form was called "Terra". Hacking into this Trial Edition reveals that by force-equipping "Terra", it gives Dante a hand-to-hand moveset similar to Ifrit, sans the gauntlets themselves. He just channels fire through his bare fists instead.
  • Hacking into the Japanese Trial Edition reveals a handful of unused rooms as well, such as a daytime version of the Castellan's throne room that you face Nelo Angelo in for the final time. Likewise, there are more doors in the Trial Edition that are stated to be locked, indicating that much more of the castle would have been explorable. In the retail version, these locked doors were simply removed entirely.
  • The game was originally developed back in 2000 as a prototype of Resident Evil 4, specifically its "Stylish version". There were several intended plans that would've connected it to Resident Evil lore, but eventually, the game became the Stylish Action codifier we know and love.
    • Instead of starring Leon, it starred a cop named Tony Redgrave, whose superhuman characteristics were results of biotech (The Progenitor Virus that originated the T and G Viruses from prior games) instead of demon blood. The concept for Tony eventually became Dante. He also had a twin brother named Paul, who became Vergil.
    • The Big Bad was originally the Earl Spencer, an early version of Oswell Spencer. His role was separated into two characters when the game was retooled: Sparda as the father and Mundus as the antagonist.
    • Mallet Island was originally an Umbrella facility of the same name. Its castle was originally Earl Spencer's castle, which was also home to an underground lab. The Vault gallery of the HD Collection also contains a character design for him, labeled as "Spencer".
    • The demons were originally B.O.W.s. The Vault gallery of the HD Collection contains prototype designs for the demons which look more like lab experiments gone wrong from Resident Evil. The Blades look like demonic Hunter βs, and the concept art for the Shadow looks like a rotting, decayed, panther/tiger hybrid. And as elaborated further by monster designer Sawaki Takeyasu in the 3142 Graphic Arts interviews, the early "B.O.W." prototype of Phantom had blood running through his body's exterior instead of flames.
  • There was originally going to be just one Sin Scissors enemy type. According to motion artist Tomoya Ohtsubo, it started out as one enemy with four different moves, but the team ended up with four different enemy types – Sin Scissors, Sin Scythe, Death Scissors, and Death Scythe.
  • Some demons had creepier early designs than their final versions, even outside of the intended Resident Evil connections. One artwork has the Marionettes looking more like dried out, rotting corpses, all hanging from nooses on the ceiling; implying that the Marionettes were not puppets made of wood possessed by demon spirits, but were once humans now possessed by demons.
  • The Vault gallery of the HD Collection also labels several demon concept arts as "Unreleased", implying the game would've gotten more mooks or bosses, but were scrapped.
  • Pieces of concept art show Dante wielding a submachine gun and a cannon. These can be viewed in the Vault gallery of the HD Collection.
  • The early gameplay samples had Quick-Time Events as specified by Hideki Kamiya, but the development team pleaded not to have QTEs in the end because of time constraints.
• Word of God:
  • When starting the game, the boot-up cutscene shows Trish forming the silhouette beside the Devil May Cry title. However, the actual opening cutscene shows that Dante's shop already had the same silhouette even if he hasn't met Trish yet. Fans wondered if there's a continuity error regarding the shop's logo, and Hideki Kamiya answered "It's just a cool girl's silhouette."
  • According to Hideki Kamiya, the dragon that Dante summons against Mundus is named Puff. Yes, this is a real post. However, a portion of the fandom prefers to take it with a grain of salt, given Kamiya's tendency to make jokes in between providing serious answers.
• Working Title: The game was called Karnival during its early development, a name that was later used for the red biplane in the finished product. And as mentioned by two motion artists in the 3142 Graphic Arts artbook interviews, Director Hideki Kamiya was adamant in spelling it with a "K" (and not a "C") because it sounds cooler that way.

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