Devil May Cry 5

• 1. Introduction

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  A hooded stranger walks into a demon-hunting office in Devil May Cry 5, and the young hunter on duty, Nero, politely offers him something to eat. The stranger answers by ripping off a demonic Devil Bringer arm, which transforms in his hand into the sword called Yamato. He cuts open a portal and is gone. That is how Capcom's 2019 action-adventure game begins, as the fifth mainline chapter of the Devil May Cry series.

  Nobody in the office knows who the visitor is, and the game does not explain him for hours. Three days later a second mysterious figure arrives, a man named V, with a job offer that sends Nero and the legendary Dante toward a demon king.

  This documentary asks how three heroes who fight in three entirely different ways share one story. It asks why a team in Osaka set out to build the best action game of its era, and how a car-sized tree, a famous swordsman family and a pair of feuding brothers fit into a single city under siege. It also asks what the music, the voices and the faces of the cast reveal about the people who made the game.

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• 2. Three Ways to Fight

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  Every mission in Devil May Cry 5 forces the player into the shoes of exactly one of three heroes. The core rhythm stays the same: hordes of demons, fast and stylish attacks, and a style rating that climbs with move variety, long combos and well-timed dodges. The game's music shifts depending on how well the player is performing. Spending is handled by the mechanic Nico or by statues scattered through the levels, where abilities can be bought separately for each character.

  Nero carries his Red Queen sword and his Blue Rose double-barreled revolver, but he starts without his old Devil Bringer arm. In its place he uses robotic Devil Breakers, which can pull enemies across a distance or stop time to freeze a target. They are powerful but fragile, and misuse destroys them. Nero can also pick up more Devil Breakers during stages. Late in the story he regains his Devil Bringer and a super-powered state called the Devil Trigger.

  Dante plays much as he did in Devil May Cry 4, switching among four styles to build new techniques or parry attacks. Beside his signature Rebellion sword and the Devil Sword Sparda, he gains three new Devil Arms. A pair of buzzsaw-like weapons can merge into a motorcycle named Cavaliere. Fiery gauntlets and boots are called Balrog. King Cerberus is an upgraded version of the nunchaku from Devil May Cry 3. His Dr. Faust hat spends red orbs to attack, so every use is a gamble. Dante also has two rocket launchers, Kalina Ann and the improved Kalina Ann 2, which he can fire at the same time. His Devil Trigger gradually heals him, and a stronger Sin Devil Trigger unlocks further attacks.

  V is the oddest of the three. He mostly fights by summoning three demon familiars. Griffon is an eagle that throws ranged lightning, Shadow is a panther that shapes blades, spikes and portals from its own body, and Nightmare is a huge golem. When V calls Nightmare, his hair turns white in a state like the Devil Trigger. His familiars cannot finish enemies on their own. Once a target's health bar turns light purple, V must step in and deliver the last blow with his cane.

  The series' old arena mode, Bloody Palace, also returns, dropping players into a single area to face many kinds of demons.

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• 3. Red Grave City

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  Three days after the hooded visit, V hires Dante and his crew to kill a powerful demon named Urizen. The trail leads to Red Grave City, where a demonic tree called the Qliphoth has taken root and is killing people for their blood. Strengthened by the tree, Urizen, the new demon king, overpowers Dante's crew. Nero, who works alone with V's guidance, is beaten too. Dante keeps Urizen from capturing Nero but loses his own fight, and his sword Rebellion is shattered. Lady and Trish are captured to serve as demon-cores, and V talks a weakened Nero into fleeing.

  One month later Nero returns to Red Grave wearing a Devil Breaker arm built by Nico. V is hunting the Qliphoth's fruit, which forms from condensed human blood and makes whoever eats it the king of the Underworld. While the pair destroy the tree's roots, Nero rescues Lady. V, meanwhile, finds the Devil Sword Sparda and a comatose Dante, whom the sword had been hiding.

  After waking, Dante frees Trish, and she learns a secret from V. Urizen is the demon half of Dante's brother Vergil, split from his human half by the power of Yamato. That human half is V himself, and his body is rapidly breaking down. The discovery gives Dante an idea. If Yamato can separate humanity from the devil, perhaps Rebellion hides a power of its own. He stabs himself with the broken blade, absorbs both Rebellion and Sparda, and unlocks his full demonic power along with a weapon called Devil Sword Dante.

  When the Qliphoth finally bears fruit, Urizen eats it to grow stronger still. Nero saves V from a demon named Malphas and learns about Dante's history with Vergil. They arrive just as Dante defeats Urizen, but a dying V steps in and merges with the demon before the killing blow. Vergil is restored.

  Atop the Qliphoth, Vergil tells Dante to regain his strength before they fight again. Nero insists on going after him, and Dante tells him why he cannot kill this man. Vergil is Nero's father. Dante then faces V's three familiars. They turn out to be the embodied memories of Vergil's time as Nelo Angelo, and they choose to die by Dante's hand to ease Vergil's trauma.

  In the final duel, Vergil discovers that Nero is his unintended son. Nero calls Kyrie, settles his emotions and vows not to let his father and his uncle die. His demonic powers fully awaken and his arm regrows. He pushes Dante aside, beats Vergil and receives V's book from him as a keepsake. Dante and Vergil then take a one-way trip to the Underworld to cut the Qliphoth down and seal the portal, before the tree can tear the city apart and merge the Demon World with the Human World.

  Weeks later, Morrison, the agent Dante left in charge of his office, hires Trish and Lady for a new job.

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• 4. Road to a Fifth Game

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  In 2013, Hideaki Itsuno, who had directed the series since its second game, said he wanted to make a fifth installment. Fans worried that the series might pause or end if Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition sold badly. In an interview with GameSpot, Itsuno said that fear was unfounded. Capcom had been satisfied with the final sales of that edition and of the reboot, DmC: Devil May Cry.

  The first public clues came in 2016. In January, Itsuno tweeted that he was working on a well-advanced project that could not yet be announced. In March, Reuben Langdon and Johnny Yong Bosch, the performers behind Dante and Nero in the fourth game, posted pictures of themselves in motion capture gear. Capcom Vancouver answered speculation by saying: "It's not a game that we've announced that we're working on at this studio."

  On the 17th of May 2018, an unknown party registered the domain DevilMayCry5.com through Capcom's Onamae registrar. The game was confirmed at E3 2018 for release the following year, and a demo was playable at Gamescom in August 2018, before reaching the PlayStation Store and Xbox Live. An earlier plan to announce it in 2017 had changed when Capcom chose to pair the reveal with the Resident Evil 2 remake.

  Capcom Dev Studio 1, based in Osaka, Japan, built the game. Many of its staff had worked on Dragon's Dogma and on earlier Devil May Cry games, and most had just finished Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. That experience mattered because the game runs on the RE Engine, first used in that title. Some colleagues had worked on the DmC reboot, but the Osaka team preferred to continue directly from the fourth main game. The goal was to make the best action game of the Heisei period, and the first trailer hid a secret message for longtime fans.

  Itsuno played a great deal of Monster Hunter World and admired how it welcomed newcomers. He believed that a very high skill ceiling would keep veterans interested, so the team added an "auto" mode that makes combos easier to produce. He also felt that Devil May Cry 4 had been poorly suited to the consoles of its day, and he wanted a budget big enough for much more content. Because the story centered on Dante, Nero and V, Lady and Trish could not return as playable characters.

  The Son of Sparda difficulty was reworked so that players must parry an attack and then finish the enemy with one counter, and boss fights such as Goliath were made harder. Itsuno also wanted more responsive controls and characters who move like people. One film moved him to tears, the one in which three robots combine into a single giant to defeat a foe, and he hoped to create a similar moment. He also pursued a Hollywood feel, naming Marvel's Avengers films as a model.

  One feature, the Cameo System, adds online multiplayer for up to three players, triggered by the mission being played.

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• 5. Faces, Places and Characters

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  Itsuno described the visual goal as "photo-realistic", with a target of 60 frames per second on every launch platform. Developers scanned models to capture the look of each face, since every character is modeled after a real actor. They also sourced real garments. The actual clothes were made in London and then scanned in Serbia.

  The main setting was modeled on London, and the team made several research trips to build the stages. Locations they drew from include Midhurst in West Sussex, Rochester in Kent, Canterbury, and Leeds Castle, also in Kent. The story's central theme is love, something Capcom had wanted to bring into the series since the first game. The RE Engine let the team aim for a more realistic story than earlier entries, rather than something that looked low-budget.

  Art director Koki Kinoshita said the new technology called for slight changes to returning characters so their looks matched their personalities. Dante and Nero had few scrapped ideas, but V went through nearly twenty different appearances. The inspirations included the designer Carol Christian Poell and the actors Daniel Craig and Benedict Cumberbatch. For Nero, Capcom used an older version of the character so he would be "at the top of his game in body and mind", a look intended to contrast with Dante's older style.

  Itsuno wanted a villain neither hero could take lightly, and he picked Vergil for his power and his family ties to both leads. Urizen was meant to echo the original Demon King from the 2001 game. Itsuno said Urizen is "definitely the strongest enemy of the entire Devil May Cry saga". The staff wanted a major emotional scene when Vergil returns at the climax, and Nero's awakening exists to stop the brothers' feud. His new powers arrive near the end partly for replay value and partly to contrast with his early inability to beat Urizen. His early gameplay is built around his anger at how Dante treats him.

  Dante, according to Capcom, "hasn't gone wild for no reason". He moves like his Devil May Cry 3 self, but he is more mature and still wants to protect humanity and honor his father, Sparda. V was designed as the exact opposite of Nero and Dante. He carries no weapons, which gives him mystery, and Itsuno was pleased that fans embraced a character he expected to be divisive. Nico was written as a contrast to Nero's girlfriend, Kyrie, since she is more used to fighting. Nero's Punch Line move, in which he fires his mechanical arm, was made to attract teenagers.

  Localization added its own drama. Langdon did not enjoy the script and called the dialogue "horrible", so a translator reworked it, with Itsuno's input. Langdon then worked with Daniel Southworth and Bosch on the English lines. One scene has Dante performing a parody of a Michael Jackson theme, which the staff knew Langdon could not do in motion capture. A stunt double known as Shibata performed it instead. The long production meant Bosch had to audition three times to return as Nero.

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• 6. Sound of Devil May Cry

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  Eight composers share the credits for the game's soundtrack: Kota Suzuki, Yoshiya Terayama, Hiromitsu Maeba, Steven McNair, John R. Graham, Casey Edwards, Cody Matthew Johnson and Jeff Rona. Johnson and Rona were chosen after working together on a remix of Dante's theme "Devils Never Cry" for Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. Johnson was not a composer by background but had played the games. Edwards had been a fan since the 2001 original. Johnson summed up the plan as "grittier, heavier, and more experimental", and three heroes meant three musical identities. Sony Japan issued the soundtrack on five discs on the 12th of April 2019.

  Nero's themes are "Devil Trigger" and its final boss remix, "Silver Bullet", both performed by Ali Edwards. "Devil Trigger" came out as a promotional single on the 11th of June 2018. Edwards was given images of Nero fighting, and a meeting with Bosch helped him understand a character who is young and reckless despite his age. The response surprised him. The song has over 7 million streams on Spotify and over 68 million views on YouTube. It was the first song revealed because older staff members liked it so much. "Silver Bullet" was a "risk", an homage to the first game's final boss theme, and it had to carry more emotion than the track it remixes.

  In September 2018, Dante's battle theme "Subhuman" was released. Johnson composed it and the band Suicide Silence performed it. The singer was originally Eddie Hermida, but after sexual misconduct allegations against him he was replaced by Michael Barr, a former Volumes vocalist. The song was meant to reflect both the dark and the goofy sides of Dante, and the staff checked carefully that it suited him.

  In December 2018, V's battle theme "Crimson Cloud" arrived, composed by Rona. Because V's true identity is hidden until late in the story, the composers kept references to his origins out of it. The final trailer revealed the ending theme "Legacy", composed by Suzuki and sung by Ali Edwards, who also wrote the lyrics. Its themes are family and people supporting each other. The Japanese version of the game adds another song, "Mad Qualia" by Hyde.

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• 7. Release and Reception

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  Devil May Cry 5 reached the PlayStation 4, Windows and Xbox One on the 8th of March 2019. A week earlier, on the 1st of March, Japan received a prequel novel by the game's writer, Bingo Morihashi, titled Devil May Cry 5: Before the Nightmare. The deluxe edition added the Cavaliere R weapon for Dante, extra cutscenes and announcer options, battle music from the first four games, and four Devil Breakers for Nero, including a Mega Buster based on Mega Man 11. A free update on the 1st of April 2019 added the wave-based Bloody Palace mode. In Japan, three limited editions came with a replica of the jacket worn by Dante, Nero or V.

  A manga about V, Devil May Cry 5: Visions of V, was written by Tomio Ogata and ran on Line Manga from the 7th of March 2019 to the 19th of March 2022. Its 50 chapters filled five volumes, the first released on the 15th of November 2019 and the last on the 15th of July 2022.

  Before launch, the game won the Future Division award at the Japan Game Awards after Tokyo Game Show 2018. Some players worried about optional purchases of the red orbs used for upgrades. Capcom said they did not change the designed progression, much as in Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition.

  Metacritic rated the reviews "generally favorable". PC Gamer UK called it "one of the best games about hitting demons ever made", and The Guardian gave it a perfect score, noting that newcomers can learn the style system quickly. USgamer felt it stayed truer to the series' core than the reboot. GameSpot praised the depth of Nero's Devil Breaker techniques. The Daily Telegraph singled out V for playing so differently from his companions, and Destructoid thought Dante and V were the most polished to play. Game Informer disliked swapping between characters who must earn new powers.

  Opinions on the story varied. IGN's Mitchell Saltzman wrote, "its mysterious story keeps things interesting along the way." GameSpot liked how the plot resolved the heroes' crisis, though it called their arcs shallow. GamesRadar thought newcomers might struggle and that the ending was rushed. VideoGamer.com called the narrative and villain "dull".

  At launch, the Western PlayStation 4 version used a lens flare that reduced the visibility of brief nudity. Journalists called this censorship and reported that a patch had introduced it. IGN noted that another character was censored in all Western versions regardless of platform. In April 2019, Push Square reported that the lens flare had been removed in North America, while it remained in Europe.

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• 8. Sales and Vergil

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  In Japan, Devil May Cry 5 sold about 116,202 physical copies in its launch week, which was 75.75% of the PlayStation 4 shipment. That made it the top seller of any format. It sold fewer than the launch of Devil May Cry 4 but beat the reboot. In the United Kingdom it debuted at number one across all formats with 20,872 physical sales, Capcom's second chart-topper of 2019 after Resident Evil 2.

  At the 2019 Game Developers Conference, Itsuno revealed that sales had passed two million within two weeks of release. The total reached 2.7 million worldwide in 2019 and 3.9 million by September 2020, when it became the best-selling title in the series. Sales hit 5 million by April 2022, not counting the Special Edition. They reached 6 million on the 19th of October 2022 and 6.5 million by January 2023. By December 2024, the original had sold 8.9 million and the Special Edition one million more, making 9.9 million. Capcom announced on the 13th of June 2025 that sales stood at 10 million as of the 31st of March 2025. In the first half of fiscal 2025, it was Capcom's best-selling game, ahead of newer releases including Monster Hunter Wilds.

  In April 2019, Capcom's Matt Walker said Vergil would not be playable, which left what he called "a bitter taste" among fans. At the September 2020 PlayStation 5 showcase, Capcom announced Devil May Cry 5: Special Edition. It launched digitally in November 2020 for Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5, with a physical release the following month. It supports up to 120 frames per second and adds ray tracing options. Legendary Dark Knight mode greatly increases enemy numbers, and Turbo mode raises game speed by 20%. Players with the original can buy Vergil as paid downloadable content.

  The team had wanted Vergil in the game since the Special Edition was conceived. He keeps the Concentration gauge and weaponry from the fourth game's Special Edition, but his Force Edge is replaced by Mirage Edge, a ghostly sword he mostly throws as a projectile. He can also turn into V and call the three familiars. Instead of the usual transformation, he goes directly into Sin Devil Trigger. His former Devil Trigger is replaced by Doppelganger, a spectral copy that mirrors his attacks.

  Casey Edwards composed Vergil's battle theme, "Bury the Light", with vocals by Victor Borba. Edwards meant it as a mirror to "Devil Trigger", because he saw Nero as a reflection of Vergil. In his words, Nero chose to "embrace the darkness" within, while Vergil has always tried to bury his humanity. An Amazon Luna version of the game arrived on the 9th of December 2021.

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