Recently I was able to throw some questions by the Lead Level Designer Mike Cheng and Lead Combat Designer Vincent Napoli of one of my most anticipated games "Dante's Inferno", being developed at Visceral Games. Bringing one of the literary world's most prominent stories into the realm of video games would seem to be no easy task but the guys at Visceral really seem to know what they're doing. You'll be able to tell from the questions below that these guys really are familiar with the source material and tried to make a faithful interpretation of the text. Though I won't be wholly convinced the game will totally work until I play it on Feb 9th, I'd gladly put money behind these guys due to the amount of passion they have for the project. It's refreshing to see developers tackling such a novel (get it?) idea with little hesitation. Read on.
Dante created a trilogy with the Divine Comedy but you're focusing on Inferno. Are there plans for a sequel?
How'd you guys decide to make DI into a hack and slasher?
What do you think some of the challenges were in modernizing it for "gamers?"
How does Inferno more or less cover the same ground as Bayonetta, have you ever been influenced by games of the same genre whilst developing?
Has there been backlash impress that you all have gotten due to subject matter?
Dante's Inferno was sort of a commentary, are Dante's political messages in the game?
The PSP Version, which is being co-developed by A2M, to what extent are you working on the PSP version? Are there many differences?
Of all the changes you made, how'd you decide what to alter from original? Did all the stories' characters make it in?
Did you have influences to adapt main character to be more badass?
How do you feel about the negative backlash Dante's Inferno is getting for its marketing campaign? What some see as gutsy and fearless is skewed as reckless and insensitive for others. You obviously tried to combine your marketing tools with the seven deadly sins and the themes of the poem. Some went over well, others didn't. If you had to go back and change anything about the way you've done PR and advertising, what would you change, if anything?
What gameplay features distance it from God of War?
Are there multiple endings even though there are multiple progressions?
Did any of the circles change dramatically during development?
How much is the studio involved in the cross marketing such as the animated movie and such?
Any special or super fun achievements?
Will it be very difficult to obtain a 666 combo?
Dante's Inferno, the book, have you actually read it?
From a creative standpoint, what made you think you could take the narrative of Dante's Inferno and make a thrilling gameplay experience without butchering the text? Having played the demo it is clear you've adapted the story into a very interesting tale, but how does someone actually have the spark for that idea?
We would like to extend our gratitude to both Electronic Arts and Visceral Games for their time and for allowing us to participate in the interview.
-Written and conducted by ChristianOfTheWired
Dante created a trilogy with the Divine Comedy but you're focusing on Inferno. Are there plans for a sequel?
Yeah, we don't have any plans at this moment on a sequel. Obviously the team is resting up, working on DLC which we should be able to give details on in the near future. We plan to support the game in a big way post launch. The studio is also doing Dead Space 2. It's an exciting production for Visceral. We don't have anything to talk about on a potential sequel. It's something we need to earn on the successful launch of the game. Dante's vision of hell is pretty epic and detailed. I don't think we were able to get all of Alighieri's vision of Hell in Inferno. It just felt like a good beginning, middle, and end. There's a game's worth of material in Hell.
How'd you guys decide to make DI into a hack and slasher?
Well, I can probably take the blame for that one. Seemed like the game that'd be the most fun to play. The environment of hell and idea of hacking/slashing demons was fun. I like games that are really fast paced. It seemed visceral (har har). I really like melee games. Under our former name we developed Return of the King here and I feel like this game is very much in that tradition. Our lead programmer was on that team. It's the game the team wanted to make. As a studio we didn't want to make something in the same genre as Dead Space and I think it was also important to have a counterpoint to the Dead Space franchise.
What do you think some of the challenges were in modernizing it for "gamers?"
Well I think there were two kinds of challenges. The poem doesn't have a real strong dramatic narrative. It's a travelogue if you will. Dante and Vergil are on a journey to the afterlife, describing what we see. We tried to stay true to the story. What they describe in the poem is an incredible setting for a video game. There's monsters, demons, amazing, environments, weather, all that stuff we tried to be faithful to. In addition to the amazing poetry, the mask he created of hell that people have been drawing of hell really drew us to it. To turn it into a game there has to be a central character with motivation that has a strong objective. We took the bold step of writing a story that layer on top of the objective. Lucifer gets a bigger part in the game as an antagonist. Dante is not a politician but a warrior. The other big challenge was the environment of hell. Those were exciting concepts for us to be able to design into environments; everyone has a different idea of what hell is. We had to employ a lot of concept art."
How does Inferno more or less cover the same ground as Bayonetta, have you ever been influenced by games of the same genre whilst developing?
We're always influenced by everything. That's true of every dev. we play everything. Stuff is going to come out while you're making the game. It's clear in DMC and Bayonetta, those guys were influenced by Dante's Inferno (Dante, Vergil), and the difference for us is that we try to use the poem as the total framework for the game. It's an adaptation from ONE piece of material. There's enough in the poem that we could do that. You'll see we represented a detailed specific [interpretation]. We're really going straight at that very specific medieval Christian mythos that was synthesized in 1300 by Dante.
Has there been backlash impress that you all have gotten due to subject matter?
It probably sounds weird, but no, you'd think we would've. It's a controversial project, no doubt. The most controversy centered around the idea of taking a revered piece of lit and turning it into a video game. That is a somewhat controversial ideA: [/b] When people play it (and others) they'll see that we took it reasonably seriously. The game is creating interest in the story. There's an iteration of people who're now reading it, that's just something that we know to be true. Generally people who love the lit are excited we're doing it because it creates excitement and reenergized the poet. I do think it's been a source of controversy. We're telling that fictional story told in the poem. Though it doesn't take a point of view, it's just telling the story of the poem. It's not religiously controversial.
Dante's Inferno was sort of a commentary, are Dante's political messages in the game?
This came up a lot, should we do an updating of it? In the 9th circle is there Dick Cheney? We kicked around ideas. There's actually an animated movie with puppet cutouts, buy it on DVD, it's clever, it's a total updating. For right or wrong, I wanted to do a medieval piece, that kind of medieval world view. As a result we had to suppress a lot of the political commentary; the modern audience wouldn't resonate with the 13th century. You'll meet some characters that touch on it, but it's a very light portion of the game.
The PSP Version, which is being co-developed by A2M, to what extent are you working on the PSP version? Are there many differences?
The PSP version - yes A2M is making a port of the game. It's largely the same. They're using all our assets. It's pretty impressive. We're pleased that A2M was able to do whole combat system. It feels just as good and responsive. It's super fun. Most of the environments and story is all there. There's a little bit less content in the story, less big set pieces. Somewhat scaled down. It's intended to be the same game on the go.
Of all the changes you made, how'd you decide what to alter from original? Did all the stories' characters make it in?
Yeah it's a daunting challenge. He'll just call people out...
One of the things that helped was the fact that in hell everybody looks the same. For some reason everyone loses their hair, clothes, they all look like corpses. This allowed us to get in a lot of secondary characters. Felipo, Treachery...using similar models and voice actors we were able to get a bunch in there, clearly not the volume in the poem but we looked for ones that were more recognizable. Dante gave us bosses the way it's written: King Meanos, Cerberus, and Charon. We really tried but in some cases we'd make statues if it wasn't appropriate. In large parts, those characters are all there.
One of the things that helped was the fact that in hell everybody looks the same. For some reason everyone loses their hair, clothes, they all look like corpses. This allowed us to get in a lot of secondary characters. Felipo, Treachery...using similar models and voice actors we were able to get a bunch in there, clearly not the volume in the poem but we looked for ones that were more recognizable. Dante gave us bosses the way it's written: King Meanos, Cerberus, and Charon. We really tried but in some cases we'd make statues if it wasn't appropriate. In large parts, those characters are all there.
Did you have influences to adapt main character to be more badass?
Nothing too specific. He's a veteran of the crusades! We did some research into the siege of acre, the slaughter of innocent people. The idea [was that] we needed a morally conflicted character. [We wanted him to have] a dark past. In every circle of hell he faces his own sins. It starts as a rescue mission, but it's really a story about Dante saving himself. In order for it to pay off we wanted him to have a backstory of sin and making him think he was absolved. That kind of brought the story all together.
How do you feel about the negative backlash Dante's Inferno is getting for its marketing campaign? What some see as gutsy and fearless is skewed as reckless and insensitive for others. You obviously tried to combine your marketing tools with the seven deadly sins and the themes of the poem. Some went over well, others didn't. If you had to go back and change anything about the way you've done PR and advertising, what would you change, if anything?
A couple of things didn't go as planned...One was the Lust stunt. If we could go back we'd change the wording. That was the first sin in the limbo. People go to limbo either pre-Christian or non-baptized. They're denied paradise. Lust is the first sin, there's a strong theme and the marketing campaign was designed to educate about hell and they kind of remind everyone of what Dante's structure was, how he structured hell, which was more/less offensive. We created a campaign called nine months of hell. we'd do a big website, along with that came a stunt, i think by starting with lust we suffered from not having the context of what we were doing, [it] wasn't clear about the journey and that lust was just ONE of these things. It was too tongue in cheek, telling them to perform lusty acts, trying to connect it to the circle. The context wasn't there. Even then the wording probably wasn't great. We'd reconsider the wording.
Well again, we know the poem well and I think the marketing guys tried to use the source material as the backbones for their campaign. In Inferno, there are two types of sinners: hoarder and wasters. In Vergil's speech both are guilty and punished in hell. They have to push rocks for eternity. It seemed like an interesting idea. Whether they keep money or spent it recklessly both guilty of greed. In that stunt the idea was to challenge people, you'd be judged as a hoarder/waster, we tried to do it in every stunt. There's certainly an element where you try to get attention but there's always a sense of what works for the story.
Well again, we know the poem well and I think the marketing guys tried to use the source material as the backbones for their campaign. In Inferno, there are two types of sinners: hoarder and wasters. In Vergil's speech both are guilty and punished in hell. They have to push rocks for eternity. It seemed like an interesting idea. Whether they keep money or spent it recklessly both guilty of greed. In that stunt the idea was to challenge people, you'd be judged as a hoarder/waster, we tried to do it in every stunt. There's certainly an element where you try to get attention but there's always a sense of what works for the story.
What gameplay features distance it from God of War?
To me (Vincent Napoli) we've a couple of big ones. There's a lot more abilities, and you're not given one route or choice. We gave players two separate progression charts. You know, what choice of what character build do I go with? There's a magic system, you can mix and match combos you want. Create a build that suits your play style. Either put armor on, or you can go evil and have damage shields. We wanted to give an RPG choice but give satisfying combat as well. Also we have relics, accessories you can have up to four equipped.
Are there multiple endings even though there are multiple progressions?
No. There's just one ending. Given the fact that it's sort of based on the lit, we felt like we needed to bring the character back to one point. One kickass ending, not two mediocre ones. It makes sense to all come to one point in the end.
Did any of the circles change dramatically during development?
Not really, I would say there's a point in gluttony where we were going to do an Alice and Wonderland gag where Cerberus eats you and level is inside his body. We started to figure out practicalities, scale shifting, we wanted a more real sense of shifting down the 9 circles with a continuous geography. The game doesn't go to black, it's very continuous streamed. We just moved away from the idea.
How much is the studio involved in the cross marketing such as the animated movie and such?
We oversee it dramatically. It's important all projects feel like they fit. They're all part of same creative project, working with talented people, high quality partners. All are High Quality. We've done that but it requires us to be incredibly involved. Kate Lashford who works for us is our point person. Kate and I produced the animated movie, cast it, did voice direction, we choose the writers, directors, on all projects. We have full creative approval. It's fun for the team to see action figures made and we're proud of our partners: Mecca, Wall storm. We're super involved in that stuff.
Any special or super fun achievements?
Yes! For a 666 combo you get "Poetry in Motion!"
Will it be very difficult to obtain a 666 combo?
When you start having magic unlocked, you can have 3 magics at once. You can throw out stuff that repeatedly hits enemies, so you can be hitting them the same time magic is hitting them. For the average player it can be difficult but for experienced players, 666 is pretty feasible. I think we had 1000 at one point. No leaderboards. We didn't have time to do that."
Dante's Inferno, the book, have you actually read it?
Yes, 6-8 times. I have a couple translations. The Longfellow translations are a little longer to get there with the Italian Meter and structure. Though the prose translation is not going to give you the sense of the language and poetry, but that's how I was able to use it as a reference to really get familiar with the content. I think many gamers will appreciate it. It operates on many different levels. If no interest in original [text], the game is still fun and a powerful fantasy about rescuing a woman and facing your own sins. For those who do know it they'll appreciate a lot of the landmarks.
From a creative standpoint, what made you think you could take the narrative of Dante's Inferno and make a thrilling gameplay experience without butchering the text? Having played the demo it is clear you've adapted the story into a very interesting tale, but how does someone actually have the spark for that idea?
We have butchered the text; it's a 14,000 line poem. A lot of things come from it, but have been paraphrased. We had to change the characters and settings. If you want to know the poem you have to read it, as the video game is a loose adaptation and it is heavily abridged. In terms of fun it's a dark fantasy. At Visceral we make games that may not be for everybody but games allow you play out dark fantasies. It's fun to do in a game. For mature gamers, believe me mature is ironic choice of words, but it's a fantasy. You wouldn't root for Dante in a movie, but in the game he has a mission that you want to see him succeed at. You can't do that in a movie. It can only be done in a game.
We would like to extend our gratitude to both Electronic Arts and Visceral Games for their time and for allowing us to participate in the interview.
-Written and conducted by ChristianOfTheWired