That shouldn't necessarily be the case though. First thing they need to do is to flesh out the DMC universe. Give it an actual past, a proper history. Then they can use that to introduce new characters and villains for Dante to fight and be challenged with, all the while expanding on the universe itself and moving story to an interesting direction.
As I've said, it really isn't that hard to do. Give me a week or two and probably even I can come up with a fine/interesting history for the world and I'm not even a writer.
What I think badcrumble is getting at is just something we've discussed on here before: you really can't hope to expand on the DMC expanded universe and lore until you do something more with Sparda (and Eva). And up to now, both of those characters really only worked in Kamiya and Itsuno's works because details on them have remained vague on purpose.
But if you want to throw off the veil, how do you do it? Go with the Sparda prequel idea that several proposed? Bring back Sparda into the current day plot somehow, so that we finally get the truth on just what kind of man he is (and maybe get a good fight between him and his sons/grandson)? Either way, special care would have to be taken, because once the mystique is taken away from Sparda, you can't put it back. The one good thing about DmC's attempts is that we can handwave it as taking place solely in that universe, but even that much hurts to think about what they did to both of those characters, and why there's likely so much at stake if Itsuno and crew were to ever visit their own version of the character.
Really, I think the main problem is that I wish that DMC had more outlets to tell stories and expand on the lore without having to try and do
everything in the games. RE's gotten stage plays, manga, novels, radio dramas, CG films, Wesker Report-style write-ups, plus the in-game lore entries, which do more to feed into those who want to soak up the lore. But things of that nature for DMC dried up rather quickly after the fourth game.
Even BASARA, as much "story" exists in those titles, has done a decent job of maintaining the lore in this way (manga, few animated adaptations, radio dramas, etc). And that series gets even worse in the way of budget and overall treatment than DMC does, so I can only hope DMC would get its due once it really does come back.
