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Was DmC: Devil May Cry The First Game To Ever Go Woke?

Shubh_C63

Member
XlJGhY.gif
"Not in a million years" and yet the same director did his hair white at the end of the game when he unlocks his devil-mode something.

This was definitely humorous attempt, trying to depict Dante IS a punk but by end of game he will grow.
DmC was never given a chance to flourish. I believe DmC-sequels progressively would have gotten more better, darker and edgier.
Screenshot-2025-02-17-104913.png
 
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Yerd

Member
So I replied once and I'm just here to add this. I'm not a big social media person, I don't really participate in the thumbs up/down type crap, very rarely. I don't know if this poster is even a real person now.

After seeing most responses to this thread I suspect this person is trolling. Or it's the equivalent of putting midpelled or completely different words in subtitled videos to get people to comment.

Whatever the case, I have been duped here. I am ashamed of myself for falling for this horse shit.
 

hemo memo

You can't die before your death
"Not in a million years" and yet the same director did his hair white at the end of the game when he unlocks his devil-mode something.

This was definitely humorous attempt, trying to depict Dante IS a punk but by end of game he will grow.
DmC was never given a chance to flourish. I believe DmC-sequels progressively would have gotten more better, darker and edgier.
Screenshot-2025-02-17-104913.png
DmC is one of the finest hack-and-slash titles I've ever experienced, full stop. I've sunk so many hours into it, I could probably play it with my eyes closed.
 
So I replied once and I'm just here to add this. I'm not a big social media person, I don't really participate in the thumbs up/down type crap, very rarely. I don't know if this poster is even a real person now.

After seeing most responses to this thread I suspect this person is trolling.
Although there are some members here that make me raise an eyebrow based on how often they repeat the same exact talking points over and over...and over with the exact same wording/verbeage (this specifically is the suspicious part), the OP's forum signup date is way too early to be a sophisticated bot.

Whether or not he's trolling is another question entirely 🤷‍♂️
 
It wasn’t the first.
Remember when Resident Evil 5 had to change the skin color of its zombies?
Hey now... I like RE5 as much as the next horror fan, but let's not go bringing it up as some sort of victim of pre-woke wokeness. I know that gamers like to push back and say there's absolutely nothing racist or questionable about RE5 cause der der African zombies should be African, and, honestly, even with the white savior thing, for much of the game, there isn't anything particularly offensive, but I'm sorry.... the tribal stuff is... problematic.

jUqRvvn.jpeg
TmjmVLH.png
9JHrNo6.png
 

xrnzaaas

Member
It tried to be edgy, not woke. Personally I didn't have a problem with it, but I was never a big fan of this series so there was no risk of being "offended" by how the game & Dante looked compared to previous games. In fact I remember liking the punk aesthetic (and the dubstep soundtrack) as something pretty fresh. The PS4 version is on my wishlist so maybe I'll have a second go and see if I still like it now.

If I had to pick I'd say Life is Strange 2 opened the doors for mainstream games to start being woke (even if it wasn't the first one). Since then more studios noticed that they can preach and press on modern issues and minority problems, rather than offer a good story with likeable characters.
 
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Utter nonsense and it was also a very good game too, much better than Parts 2 or IV IMO.
What hurt it was the 30 FPS on the consoles IMO its such a better game at 60FPS.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
The DE is a good game, I'll give it that. But it wasn't needed to outsource it. I would still prefer DMC4 which is much older, though it rehashes stages.

Taneem did disrespect the franchise. Who is he to decide whats cool? I still love the aesthetic of DMC1.
 

Shtof

Member
Hey now... I like RE5 as much as the next horror fan, but let's not go bringing it up as some sort of victim of pre-woke wokeness. I know that gamers like to push back and say there's absolutely nothing racist or questionable about RE5 cause der der African zombies should be African, and, honestly, even with the white savior thing, for much of the game, there isn't anything particularly offensive, but I'm sorry.... the tribal stuff is... problematic.

jUqRvvn.jpeg
TmjmVLH.png
9JHrNo6.png
I dunno, looks pretty cool to me.
If you think its problematic, I wonder why?
 
It wasn't woke. It was punk (poser variety). The marketing and narrative direction were antagonistic to the franchise's audience though.
This is what I think. The same attitude against pc gamers who complained about dumbed down franchises in that era too, for example. That seventh gen was the beginning of that kind of stupidity in the industry...and of course they didn't learn.

But beyond that, nah, there wasn't any woke in that reboot.
 
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Pandawan

Member
Was DmC: Devil May Cry The First Game To Ever Go Woke?
I don't think so. The thing with DmC was that the first 4 games were made in Japan by Capcom themselfs, and this reimagining was was made by Ninja Theory, western devs with their own vision. Thats why it its so different.
 

T-0800

Member
Before you are tempted to say no, hear me out.

Appealing Only to a New Audience

Disappointed with the sales of DMC 4, Capcom wanted to expand the audience by catering exclusively to the West in their next entry. This sounds to me like wanting to appeal to a "modern audience." Basically, disregarding the existing fanbase and favoring the new one.

Adding Political Commentary To Devil May Cry

Taking an established franchise about a badass demon hunter and turning it into a social commentary on how the government is evil and everyone is brainwashed by the media.

Changing The Character of Dante

A charming character with a great sense of humor is now a wise cracking cringe swearing jerk that's supposed to be cool but mostly ends up looking sloppy.

The New Dante is a Self-Insert For Tameem Antoniades

This is about the game's director. The original look for this new Dante resembled him way more. The final look doesn't as much. This obviously has never been confirmed, but it's fun to speculate.

Trashing The Legacy of Devil May Cry and Ignoring Fan Criticism

Not prepared for the backlash over the new DmC, the game's director Tameem, when asked about the fan reaction said "I don't care." He also said, "What was cool 12 years ago isn't cool anymore," and "If Dante, dressed as he was, walked into any bar outside of Tokyo, he'd get laughed out".

New Dante Mocking Old Dante/Fans

There's a scene in the beginning of the game where a white wig falls on top of the new Dante, and he delivers the line "not even in a million years." It's funny because a similar scene happens in Rocksteady's Suicide Squad game where Harley finds her old Arkham Asylum outfit and says, "Yeah, right."

Now, the original reveal look for the game was even more polarizing, making Dante look like a cracked out smoker that looked emotionally unstable. And, despite the team's resistance to the criticism, they did end up making some improvements to the final design of Dante and the look of the game, as well as giving Dante his iconic white hair and red jacket when activating his devil trigger.

Take in mind this game released in 2013.
Cary Elwes Disney Plus GIF by Disney+
 

Begleiter

Member
What the fuck is wrong with you man?! DmC pure garbage. DMC5 had one cringy character, everything about DmC was cringe. They couldn’t even do the gameplay right. Game is a fucking joke as is the developer who made it…sorry, this i really loath DmC.
There's an interesting pattern of people sticking up for DmC out of a kind of contrariness that honestly gets more embarrassing the further we get from 2013. When you actually think about the quality it's like preferring Yaiba to Ninja Gaiden Black.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
There's an interesting pattern of people sticking up for DmC out of a kind of contrariness that honestly gets more embarrassing the further we get from 2013. When you actually think about the quality it's like preferring Yaiba to Ninja Gaiden Black.

I thought the main issue at the time was it was 30fps in its original release? I got the impression that on reissue it 60 it was reevaluated quite positively.
 

Pedro Motta

Gold Member


Cool game, I understood the hate for a Devil May Cry, but it was a good action game with memorable sequences.

One of which is this sequence with music by Noisia, amazing.
 
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Begleiter

Member
I thought the main issue at the time was it was 30fps in its original release? I got the impression that on reissue it 60 it was reevaluated quite positively.

The framerate was the go-to example for why the engine choice was bad for the hardware it was running on, but that was just an obvious thing people could point to before release that showed how Ninja Theory was a bad choice of developer. There were other very real problems that were clear once the game actually saw release. Just off the top of my head you have colour-coded enemies that lock you into fighting them with specific weapons from the stance system (a wholesale import from Heavenly Sword), no hard lock on so inputs for some moves like Stinger were made worse, they removed the style button for a launcher button so you have less moves and options total, Devil Trigger was badly designed and implemented, and there are lots of little broken things like the scythe's launcher letting you lift and lift enemies forever.

People talk up how Itsuno wanted to iterate on it, but that's either Japanese politeness or a frustration with how limited his design space was in a post DMC4 world - OG Dante is at a ceiling for how powerful playable characters can be.
 

FreeY$L

Member
There's an interesting pattern of people sticking up for DmC out of a kind of contrariness that honestly gets more embarrassing the further we get from 2013. When you actually think about the quality it's like preferring Yaiba to Ninja Gaiden Black.
What was so abhorrent about DmC? On an objective metric, its a tighter experience than any DMC game bar DMC3. They designed it a way that makes very easily to style on enemies and land sick combos without having to learn asinine mechanics such as inertia. Sure DMC is deeper, but is it fun to dig up that depth? Hell no.
Unfortunately, there is no objectivity with DMC fans, the moment you mention DmC’s merits they go “reeeereeeee”, a bunch of edgy 14 year olds.
 

taizuke

Member
I asked the question because if you take into account all the points I brought up, it sounds so familiar.

So, yes, DmC wasn't woke. As many of you pointed out, it's the opposite of it. But why does it have all the trappings of one? Like catering to a new audience, adding social commentary to a franchise that wasn't political, new Dante looks like a self-Insert for the director, trashing the legacy of the series, and mocking/ignoring/unable to handle fan criticism.

It's just an interesting parallel with many of the "woke" games we see today. A game that is probably considered misogynistic and heavily sexualised and yet it feels like it got the same reaction as say Dragon Age: The Veilguard if you consider the similarities. The only difference is that one is progressive and the other is not.
 
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Begleiter

Member
What was so abhorrent about DmC? On an objective metric, its a tighter experience than any DMC game bar DMC3. They designed it a way that makes very easily to style on enemies and land sick combos without having to learn asinine mechanics such as inertia. Sure DMC is deeper, but is it fun to dig up that depth? Hell no.
Unfortunately, there is no objectivity with DMC fans, the moment you mention DmC’s merits they go “reeeereeeee”, a bunch of edgy 14 year olds.

You can read my other post, which helpfully outlines some of the (many) ways in which DmC DMC turned out bad. The only mainline game Ninja Theory managed to best in any way was 2.

It's also really funny to characterise DMC fans as edgy 14 year olds given the content in DmC. Sniper rifle abortion during a hostage exchange, fedora Vergin, Slurm and the Slurm Queen boss dialogue, Bill O'Reilly boss fight, none of these are "edgy"?
 

EN250

Member
Changing The Character of Dante

A charming character with a great sense of humor is now a wise cracking cringe swearing jerk that's supposed to be cool but mostly ends up looking sloppy.
Never understood this point, physical appearance aside, Dante was always kind of a douche, for some reason he just managed to pull it off and people like him enough for some odd reason, then again, licked DMC1, hated 2 and by the time 3 came out idgaf about it, so I can't comment much on the character

New Dante Mocking Old Dante/Fans
This is the only point I can concede, I never got why devs thought it was a good idea to mock from the very first 5 minutes, the original Dante (well maybe DMC3 version of it) with the wig and all that, they should have embraced in some way the original game, not antagonize it
 
This is the only point I can concede, I never got why devs thought it was a good idea to mock from the very first 5 minutes, the original Dante (well maybe DMC3 version of it) with the wig and all that, they should have embraced in some way the original game, not antagonize it.
From memory, I recall so many original fans and journalists being pissy and angry about the change, which would normally be fair if done in a mature manner, but nope. They threatened Ninja Theory and Capcom etc in the typical spoilt little unbalanced fuckheads way.
The number of times the head guy was interviewed by journalists and they kept bringing up the backlash, and he tried to do his best de-escalation, people just attacked him more and even saying at point he made Dante look like him (think they both had black hair and a slight gith style, seriously)

So them putting a tongue in cheek reply back in the game was completely fine imo. The game was out, no more PR needed, and wasn't exactly anywhere near the same level of shit they got. I think the ones upset about it should look at what they posted etc
 

EN250

Member
From memory, I recall so many original fans and journalists being pissy and angry about the change, which would normally be fair if done in a mature manner, but nope. They threatened Ninja Theory and Capcom etc in the typical spoilt little unbalanced fuckheads way.
The number of times the head guy was interviewed by journalists and they kept bringing up the backlash, and he tried to do his best de-escalation, people just attacked him more and even saying at point he made Dante look like him (think they both had black hair and a slight gith style, seriously)

So them putting a tongue in cheek reply back in the game was completely fine imo. The game was out, no more PR needed, and wasn't exactly anywhere near the same level of shit they got. I think the ones upset about it should look at what they posted etc
Alright, I didn't know about that and it's fair to them to do that if fanboys got too damn annoying, I remember playing and not getting those "references" to the old games in a mocking manner
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
No, woke is a matter of intention, besides there's nothing of it that would be woke these days, WTF?

Oh and it's a great game BTW.
 

FreeY$L

Member
You can read my other post, which helpfully outlines some of the (many) ways in which DmC DMC turned out bad. The only mainline game Ninja Theory managed to best in any way was 2.

It's also really funny to characterise DMC fans as edgy 14 year olds given the content in DmC. Sniper rifle abortion during a hostage exchange, fedora Vergin, Slurm and the Slurm Queen boss dialogue, Bill O'Reilly boss fight, none of these are "edgy"?
It is edgy, same with the Mundus characterization as an evil businessman. Its not shakespeare, but the gameplay was sensational. For these types of games, gameplay is king, but it has to be wrapped in proper levels that are designed well. Capcom gave up on dmc level design, in 4 you play half the game, and then you make a u-turn and play through the same shitty levels with a dye, and then they make you repeat that before the final boss, same with 5, half the game is a colonoscopy procedure. I’m not enduring shit level design for the “peak of combat”.
 

N30RYU

Member
Is inFamous2 too then? Since they changed badass first game Cole to an average dude that was even worse in the first gameplay shown to "please" more audience?

Almost all woke games have bad character design... but not all games with bad character design are woke
 
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FeralEcho

Member
In regards to the way they treated the audience it's definitely in that same tone deaf range as current woke titles but when it comes to any material in game,I wouldn't say it's woke in any way,just detached from the franchise's image at the time in an attempt to "modernize" it. Which....is kind of what woke products do nowadays, it's just lacking the political messages that's all.

So in a way it is on the surface level but not really politically.
It's kindof:

James Franco GIF


I thoroughly enjoyed it though despite the changes and I love Devil May Cry and hate DEI shit in my games so idk what to think about it.
 

Same ol G

Member
My son (13) played DMC 1-5 and DmC over the last 18 months. He spent a lot of time with 5 and I assumed that was his favorite. I asked him a few weeks ago and he said "No, no - DmC is the best, then DMC3, then DMC5. The other ones are just okay."
I don't wanna be rude but your son has bad taste, where did you go wrong??
 
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FeralEcho

Member
It is edgy, same with the Mundus characterization as an evil businessman. Its not shakespeare, but the gameplay was sensational. For these types of games, gameplay is king, but it has to be wrapped in proper levels that are designed well. Capcom gave up on dmc level design, in 4 you play half the game, and then you make a u-turn and play through the same shitty levels with a dye, and then they make you repeat that before the final boss, same with 5, half the game is a colonoscopy procedure. I’m not enduring shit level design for the “peak of combat”.
I agree with this,DMC 4 and 5 have garbage level backtracking. The cutscenes and gameplay are what's saving them. DMC4 still has arguably the greatest cutscene cinematography I've seen in any game.
 

Same ol G

Member
Hey now... I like RE5 as much as the next horror fan, but let's not go bringing it up as some sort of victim of pre-woke wokeness. I know that gamers like to push back and say there's absolutely nothing racist or questionable about RE5 cause der der African zombies should be African, and, honestly, even with the white savior thing, for much of the game, there isn't anything particularly offensive, but I'm sorry.... the tribal stuff is... problematic.

jUqRvvn.jpeg
TmjmVLH.png
9JHrNo6.png
Sorry but there was nothing problematic about RE5.
And that outfit? a good reason to find all the emblems.
 
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The DMC game was the first time I ever played and beat a DMC game. I loved it. I didn't realize how hated it was until I started reading online communities about it. Seems to be just die hard fans though because even on Steam this thing is rated 90%+. I did think the story was kind of throw away. Also is it just me or do all the DMC stories involve someone close to you betraying you at some point in the story? I haven't played them all but seems to happen a lot.
 
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I only played DmC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition and Devil May Cry 5 and I actually like DmC a lot, more than 5. DmC had very interesting level designs and imaginative setpieces (the nightclub level, and news anchor level), while a good part of 5 took part in like generic video game underworld or destroyed city. Don't remember anything particular about 5, besides the fact that you were forced to switch characters every few levels, so you have to go through the different levels with characters and their move sets I didn't like much.
 
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