The Dante's Inferno game concept -- a totally brutal action-adventure based on Dante Alighieri's epic poem -- seems like a hard sell to us, but it was no problem getting EA on board. As it turns out, EA was all in from the very beginning, according to Visceral creative director Jonathan Knight's recollection during a PlayStation Blog interview (that you can watch after the break). He got the go-ahead "pretty much right away," as EA executives apparently saw "the potential in the mythology" glowing green before their very eyes.
"Nobody's really taken on that kind of medieval Christian notion of the afterlife as a very real place that you go to, you know, just under the ground, and there's monsters and demons and rivers," Knight said. "It's just a crazy, fantastical, incredible vision that Dante Alighieri had for Hell, and my execs immediately saw the potential there for a real game."
In addition to the appeal of Hell -- a concept that "everybody has some knowledge of" -- we can imagine that EA appreciated what is basically a licensed game based on a public domain property, especially these days.
I'm surprised this would happen in any medium, really. Even pitch, manuscript and design plan has to go through several rejections almost on principle. This is a very rare occurence indeed.
The only other time I ever remember hearing about a project being greenlit immediately was the first Alien movie, if only because of its legendary three-word pitch: "Jaws in space."
"Nobody's really taken on that kind of medieval Christian notion of the afterlife as a very real place that you go to, you know, just under the ground, and there's monsters and demons and rivers,"
Wonder if they mentioned the idea of generating fake protests, manufacturing controversy, and teasing nanny associations with dead baby trophies as part of the pitch.
I'm all for classic literature being turned into games. I can't wait to spend hours floating down a river with Tom Sawyer and finishing "The Catcher in the Rye" after a 20 hour session and realize I didn't do anything.
I really doubt anybody in their right mind has ever claimed hell was "just under the ground". Also, the idea of hell was around long before Dante Alighieri came along, and as for the claim that nobody believes it's a real place, what's this guy talking about?
Am I the only one that finds translating Inferno into a literal adventure to not only be silly but disrespectful to the ideas that Dante was trying to convey?
The original Dante was a poet with a dead girlfriend.
The new Dante is a battle-scarred war veteran who defeats Death, ravages his way through Hades, defeats figures such as Cleopatra, and crucifies babies so that he may save his dead girlfriend. He also spits out shoddy one-liners at various intervals.
The whole thing was mostly political satire. Unless you happened to live then, you wouldn't get most of the references. You have to read an annotated version that explains who is who to do so (unless you're an expert on Medieval Italian politics)
I've seen MUDs like LegendMUD that have areas based on Dante's Inferno, so it's not exactly true that NO one has put Hell into a game as a physical place...and honestly I find a text game to be more appropriate to adventures based on books. But that's me.
"seems like a hard sell to us" What? Why? I can already see it, beautifully sitting next my God of War 3 and my PS3 (and no, I'm not making a silly joke about it being a rip or whatever). I'll buy anything those guys come up with, after Dead Space, they have my trust (as long as it has to do with action, terror and gore). Also, perfect named studio :D
Gah ... his comments make it clear he has no real understanding of the original material whatsoever! Dante didn't view his concepts as a real place -- it was completely a political allegory tied into the period it was written. It wasn't like he believed hell was actually like that. wtf
Yeah pretty sure the reason the pitch was approved right away had nothing to do with the license of Dante's Inferno, and everything to do with the developer saying something along the lines of "just like God of War" and "look at these God of War sales figures."
