In the latest episode of the Capcom Confidential podcast producers Matt Walker and Pete Fabiano were joined by Devil May Cry 5 artists Alex and Wilson (my apologies, their full names were absolutely inaudible) talked about some interesting details on the upcoming game.
We hear about the Gasshuku, which is a sort of work camp in which the core development team worked on the basic ideas for the game. It’s normally done at a resort owned by Capcom, and the team focused on brainstorming on what happened to the characters in the story.
After internal artists created the base models, the high-polygon models were outsourced. The outsourcing company sculpted the finer details based on the work of Capcom’s artists.
Character Designer Daigo Ikeno doesn’t explain much in words. Often he describes what he wants from his artists with simple sounds or concepts, granting them a lot of creative freedom. A word that he loved to use for this is “sleek” giving the artist the simple indication that he wants the design to be sleeker. This works like a challenge to the artists, who are encouraged to do better.
That being said, Art Director Kouki Kinoshita’s motto is that “deadlines give birth to quality.”
Alex worked on the van that appeared in the E3 trailer for over a year, even if in-between he moved to other projects as well. Interestingly, it was not created by the environment team, but it was entirely made by artists that usually work on human characters, basically as it was a character itself. It includes massive amounts of detail.
The developers mentioned just how beautiful the game looks, and Alex added that he is often surprised by models that he thinks are going to be toned down for gameplay, and Character Lead Nagaki-san tells him that they will be in the game as is.
We hear that the battle against the Goliath (which I’m guessing is the horned giant monster in the second half of the game’s first trailer) is an “excellent equivalent” to the fight against Berial in Devil May Cry 4, not only in how it interacts with the environment, but also in how detailed the monster is.
That being said, the next trailer is going to be “pretty sick.” The team has some “awesome stuff in store” (Editor’s Note: the trailer could be coming at Gamescom, but this is just my speculation).
The accessories in Nero’s outfit like a bracelet and his buttons weren’t 3D scanned but were created by the artists. The “Devil May Cry” neon sign on Nero’s van was designed by hand by Alex himself. He made about forty versions of it. Initially, a pink version was selected, then it was changed to blue for “reasons.” He also squeezed a “crazy” amount of assets into the van itself including bumper stickers and decorations. Those include references to the city of Osaka and some personalized stickers belonging to Nico.
He even designed Nico’s tattoos. He often works that kind of 2D details, including the posters, because he his background is as an illustrator. He feels that attention to that kind of minutiae is important. For instance, when a great game has posters that appear to have just been slapped there at the end of development because there was no time left, it’s sad for him. It’s a missed opportunity for artistic expression, and it’s fun to take a little extra time to create those details in the game’s universe.
Incidentally, you should really listen to the whole podcast, because it’s absolutely interesting. It even gives information on how things work when you’re a newbie working at Capcom in Japan. You don’t get to hear this kind of stuff often.
If you want to see and learn more about Devil May Cry 5, you can check out the announcement trailer, the first screenshots and details from E3 2018, quite a few details shared recently, and more from earlier today.
The game is coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC in the spring of 2019.