Legendary Japanese game developer Hideki Kamiya recently let gamers in on an interesting story on Devil May Cry's development, and how it was originally envisioned as a sequel to Capcom's mega-hit horror series.
Hideki Kamiya is a well-known figure in gaming, and was originally most praised for directing the original Resident Evil 2 on the first PlayStation console. After RE2's success, Capcom wanted another game, and Kamiya was once again conscripted to come up with ideas for a fresh project for the PlayStation 2.
Popular Now: DLSS 5 has been modded into Skyrim, and it definitely transforms character facesAccording to Kamiya, who tells his story in a blog post on his dev studio Clovers' website, the popular Devil May Cry series was born out of his explorations for this Resident Evil game.
Both Kamiya and his longtime friend, Square Enix's famous Yoko Taro, attended a game convention called GCon in 2025. The panel discussions were published on the site, leading to the discovery.
Here's what Kamiya said about that original Resident Evil project that ended up evolving into one of Capcom's best-selling franchises.
"Neither YOKO-san nor myself are coming up with game projects from scratch, and it's unlikely that either of us could. A lot of people know the story behind ;Devil May Cry; (2001), but that one started off as a mandate to create another entry for 'Resident Evil' due to how popular it was internationally. 'Resident Evil' was a game for the original PlayStation, but the next game was going to be on the PlayStation 2, so we started coming up with all sorts of new concepts and things we wanted to build on, and that eventually morphed into 'Devil May Cry.'"
Devil May Cry is still a meaningful property for Capcom. The series has sold 38 million copies worldwide, and the latest anime TV series on Netflix is helping spark sales growth.
Capcom is also expected to launch a new Devil May Cry 5 edition on the Switch 2 to help capitalize on the transmedia effect.
