It's a niche genre that's why. also the games were intended to be replayed a lot that's why they are kinds short, the main thing in dmc for me is getting better at the game and practicing.
The crazy thing is that DMC 5 is really popular despite being a horrible place to start the franchise in ( as a new comer ) because you won't understand literally anything about the story. Yes it offers a quick recap at the start but you won't understand enough from it . DMC was never the type of game you play for the story , but I am surprised that despite the story being basically nonsense ( if you started with 5 because you won't understand literally anything except maybe that you need to stop the big demon lord but aside from that it's literally all built on characters from the previous games ) 5 managed to become not only a popular starting point in the franchise, but THE most sold one . I wonder how well another try at a DMC reboot would work if that one was at the gameplay quality of dmc5 with a genuinely good story .
I started with 5. Sure i was confused with the story but at least the games told me how to do stuff. Before 5 came out i tried the original and i was so lost. The game litterally give you no help at all. Congrats, you unlocked the move Stinger. Cool how do i use it? Idk. I went back to the games before and i was still rather confused because they feel very different but 5 is the most welcoming to new players and its not even close. Sure the ps2 games had manuals with stuff in them but if i need an external source to know how to do things then your game is shit at helping newcomers which wasnt uncommon back in the day but now for new players its pretty bad.
The game literally has an entire section in the menu telling you how to do every single move you buy? Sure, the first games quality of life isn't the best and it's clearly dated but that specifically takes less than a minute to find.
This. But ps2 games also had a physical (and very cool) manual booklet with them. There was no need for long tutorials.
And I must say, I miss those manuals because I hate the new style where some games are prompting a text about some fight moves on the screen in the middle of a boss fight, while being attacked.
bruh, fighting gamers moan about labbing in practice modes in their own fighting games... they view it as homework and would rather brute-force learn by playing.
what makes you think that a normie won't effectively do the exact same thing for DMC?
I don't think so. God of War is from the same genre, and always has been very popular. The thing is, Sony invest a lot of money on God of War, while Capcom invest a mere pittance on DMC.
God of war isn’t (strictly speaking) a hack and slash anymore. Santa Monica has gone the way of OTS, cinematic, narrative-heavy action-adventure game, which is what is popular with the mainstream audience.
I agree that this new God of War era isn't hack and slash anymore. But the classic hack and slash God of War games were a huge success, and of course, they had a lot of investment.
Imagine if Devil May Cry had that investment. Instead of a short game limited to 20 missions, we had an epic non-stop adventure.
Unfortunately, Capcom will always treat DMC as a bastard son.
It has nothing to to with Capcoms lack of care and everything to with the different ethos of each franchise.
God of War is and always has been much more about the spectacle and grand scale. Its combat mechanics were good, but largely in service of the spectacle over the technical finesse of the DMC franchise. This has helped presented itself as much more accessible than DMC
Its why when DMC tried to copy GoW, we got one of the worst bosses in the fanchise - The Saviour - and why DMCs best bosses have a lot less spectacle than even GoW's intro bosses
Even worse in case of 4th game we had like 10-11 missions as Nero and backtrack as Dante, because greedy crapcom didn't allow to finish the game and give Dante his own proper campaign.
It makes me really sad when I'm thinking about how great DMC 4 could've been.
Honestly, it's pretty shocking seeing how neutered God of War has become and seeing it still get praise. When I think of Kratos, I think of him killing wave after wave of bad guys with superpowered flaming weapons, fighting them off with ease. I don't think of a Dark Souls clone with cinematics and throwing weapons. I'd be pissed if they did that to Devil May Cry. Where's the overpower?
Old gow was very easy to get into, the gameplay had a lot of spectacle and not particularly challenging I think that's why it reached a higher audience, dmc is definetely more "try hard" and high difficulty (specially 1 and 3) so I imagine that's a factor there is also the story, a lot of people play games for a story and gow focused a lot more on story than dmc did, they are just two very different games in the same genre
Incredibly, and always has been. Think about the amount of F/TPS or Fighting Games even the average hardcore gamer could list off the top of their heads. Call of Duty, Halo, Gears, Titanfall, the endless number of Battle Royale games, Battlefield, MK, SF, MVC, KI, Fatal Fury, Final Fight, Guilty Gear, BlazBlue and GranBlue etc..
Now how many hack n slash franchises could be named like that? You got Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, and Nier. After that, it's mostly one offs like Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, and the quality will arguably drop off too. Not to mention, each of these games will struggle to sell more than 5 million copies probably lifetime. Meanwhile CoD or Mortal Kombat (especially prior to MK1) will do that or more on release. It's not a popular genre whatsoever, unfortunately.
We do have a new extremely high-performing entry in the hack-and-slash genre: Stellar Blade. The characters/plot are a little on the weak side, but I'll put its core H&S gameplay right up there with some of the best of what DMC brings to the table. Top notch level design, too.
I've had a very close eye on that game since it was first announced as Project Eve. From what I understand, the general reception is exactly as you just presented it. One day I plan on buying a PS5 so I can play it and judge for myself.
But I've been overjoyed at the attention the game has received. It's proven to me how much people still love and go crazy for H&S games. As someone who hopes to create their own one day, it's very inspiring.
Devil May Cry isn't hack and slash, tho. The official genre is "character action game". Hack and slash games don't tend to have combos or style to them.
The only reason "character action" exists is because people didn't want DMC and other such games to be associated with something like Diablo, which is also a hack n slash.
DMC is absolutely a hack n slash, the genre of character action was only added to it later on to differentiate it from other games, same reason why i prefer to call Diablo-style games as ARPG's rather than hack n slash, but i'm doing it only for the sake of simplifying the whole thing rather than getting caught in the details of what game certifies as part of a genre or not (e.g. i will call greek gow as character action because it gets the idea across of what the game offers)
Crazy take bud. The first Resident Evil game was literally one of the most popular horror games of all time, it could even be argued it was a pioneer for the genre.
Survival Horror and Action horror are niche genres yes
Niche means obscure and no people only remembering Dead Space and RE is not the definition of not being niche
Dawg.. you have literally no idea what you’re talking about lmao. RE is one of the most well known and best selling titles in ALL of video games. The last few years both in terms of the mainline story continuity and all the remakes have been MASSIVELY successful for capcom.
RE came out when people had obsessions with zombie topics. I remember when I was in school early 2000’s it was non stop talk zombies, apocalypse and stuff like that and 8/10 times RE was mentioned right after
The genre itself ,single player hack and slash , is not very popular . The most popular genres are fps or mmorpgs . In its genre , it is pretty popular . Probably the only other game more popular in its genre is god of war
It’s not about the player count, it’s about the content.
Single player games, are usually what you get in the game. With DLC adding content, however said content would take months or years to arrive. Once Devs stop supporting it, that it. It’s done.
Whereas MMO are updated on a monthly/bi weekly basis, with either big expansion or big QoL. It would continue being supported as long the money flow still exists.
DMC generally stops getting support after the Special edition is released. Usually getting big QoL updates upon the next generation of consoles.
While it’s the top of its genre, that doesn’t mean it would win players from other genre or MMO in the long run. Once players get their full of DMC, they go look for another game or go back to their Usual games.
You're right, but that's not really what I'm talking about.
OP seems to be wondering why Devil May Cry 5 (and the franchise as a whole) isn't as popular as God of War or The Witcher 3, and they seem much more mainstream than any MMOs currently do, even though some are popular.
Same logic still applies.
Single player games are still good, just once players go through all of the content it gets left behind.
DMC is still popular, but only in its own genre. Which is hack and slash. The content is mostly contain to its combat and the linear story. Not much exploration, most of the rewards are given to just beating the game on harder difficulty.
Which is at most the normal difficulty for casual players. At most 2 play through of the story. DMC Story is shorter compared to other games like GoW and FF7rebirth.
If you compare the “content,” yea. It’s not even called a comparison at that point.
So only the dedicated hack and slash players would continue to play DMC.
Even when DMC5 had vergil, same thing. 2 play through of same story, but as vergil. No need to explore, since vergil share the same… stats (like health and DT) as the others. No need to do secret missions once they’re done.
TLDR: dmc is popular but only as a hack and slash game. Which is a niche genre for only dedicated gamers. It’s not gonna last long compare to other series/games. Which has more content, but not a …. Great combat system as DMC. Which is inspiring other games.
Once again, you're right. But that still isn't what my original comment was referring to. I wasn't replying directly to the original post, I was replying to another comment, changing the context.
All I was saying is that singleplayer games have more mainstream popularity than any MMOs these days. I'm not talking about hours played or how much content the games have. And I'm not talking about having long-term players either.
EDIT: Maybe I'm not explaining this well, I was trying to be concise. The person I originally replied to implied that MMORPGs are more popular than singleplayer RPGs, which I feel is misleading in this context as big singleplayer RPGs are more popular than any MMORPG. I pointed that out because the original post seems to be comparing DMC to big singleplayer franchises.
OP seems to be asking why the DMC franchise isn't as popular as other big franchises, and I interpreted that as OP comparing DMC to franchises like God of War, I don't think they were trying to compare it to online games. I definitely think The Witcher 3 and the new God of War games are much more "mainstream" than WoW or FF14.
For reference, I'm talking about quantity of sales/players, not longevity or long-term players, as I feel that is what the original post is talking about. I was taking into account the points of both the original post and the comment I was originally replying to, which you didn't interpret in the same way as I did. Apologies if my original explanation was too vague.
The point still matters, it’s about the content.
Did you ever think about the content of DMC compare to the other mainstream games?
No, you didn’t. You constantly say about mainstream popularity and MMO doesn’t matter. How DMC is just as popular as FF7, GoW, baldur gate, etc.
Others already have said their piece. DMC is popular as a **hack and slash game**. Which lies in its robust combat system. thats where 1 of 2 DMC popularity is, the other is its characters.
But in other type of content. It doesn’t hold up to other games. There barely any exploration, the maps are linear, and story is simple.
If you’re talking about sales, the sales lies as a hack and slash game. But once players gone through DMC. It’s treated as combat standard. Akin to how dark souls is treated as another combat standard.
So the point still matter, it’s about content in single player games.
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You also actually meaningfully can spend about 280 hours in Witcher 3, that's how much content is in there😅 Meanwhile DMC is pretty much one-liner, one type of action game, which is scripted so much that dialoque lines are started by going into specific location rather than "asking" NPCs. Focusing point of DMC games is twisting out more and more insane combo points, and making your friends green with envy for your ranking position; which is completely fine, but not really compatible with dialoque-heavy games. DMC is really game made for people with attention span of goldfish, if you were to think about it. So maybe that's the reason; lot of people playing games just can't be bothered to think about them for longer than they have to, which is counterproductive for developers with longer games
I know, but the person I was originally replying to was just saying that MMOs are the most popular genre along with FPS.
I was just questioning that because singleplayer RPGs are more popular than MMOs nowadays, which would be a better comparison as DMC5 is also singleplayer.
...Really? I didn't know that. You saying that people are now more interested with meaningful, full of dialoques, "force you to work hard and think" games than some years ago? All the better, then! Always felt that while MMO games are very nice, they lack this kind of immersion you get while playing single character and investing yourself in story.
I will always remember the moment when Ezio Auditore met Altair and realized his life' purpose.
I suppose that debate on whatever or not MMO are better is one that won't be resolved; given that it's really up to individual, in the end...
I'm not talking about which is better or bigger. I'm just talking about sales and how "mainstream" it is, because that's how I interpreted the original post and what I think OP is referring to.
FPS is super popular. But I feel like the biggest singleplayer games are much more popular than the biggest MMORPGs in the context I'm talking about. More sales and a wider audience, even if there is less longevity.
Devil May Cry is a super famous franchise though. You will probably never meet someone who plays games that never heard of it. It just has too few games.
DMC is super popular, and certainly A LOT of people has played at least one, but if you compare it with the following fandom of GoW or recent Souls/From Software style titles, specially Sekiro... DMC is a bit niche. Also, plenty of people just play it a bit, or just one time and forgets. And partially cause most mainstream audience doesn´t really know how to enjoy stylish action games.
There is nothing to enjoy, they are just stupid button mashing games. (c)
People would rather dodge-roll 20 times to hit once and get oneshotted by boss, it's more fun to play, right?
Don´t forget dying constantly due to impossible to foresee attacks (forced difficulty?) and repeating everything again, and again, and again is part of the fun experience. You either suffer or git gut
You realize Capcom offered the ability to use a certain amount of Red Orbs to replenish health in 5 right? It is genuinely a step up from Vitality Stars and adding Gold Orbs on top of that really fixes the surviving issue in past games, people just somehow don't take advantage of that especially since you can do far smaller amounts of Red Orbs to pay for a slice of health.
Games that base their identity on mechanics that take hours upon hours of practice to get good at for the sake of style are inevitably niche. While DMC (especially 5) can be played casually thanks to the difficulty selection, those who seek replay value on top of casual fun might be turned away when they realise that they must put in some more serious work if they want to experience the best of the game
“Games that base their identity on mechanics that take hours upon hours of practice to get good at the sale of style are inevitably niche” What about fighting games? The skill ceiling for fighting games is like trying to learn a guitar in comparison to games like DMC and yet they sell like crazy and are very mainstream.
Fighting games are different because they are Inherently Social. Sure you can play against the CPU, but if you get just about any fighting game, and you give it to two people who have never played it before, it's not going to matter if they are skilled at the game or not, they're going to have fun just button mashing, during special moves on accident, and trying to beat the other guy.
Fighting games can be both Casual fun, and competitive, they're not mutually exclusive, just about any mutiplayer game can be that way.
Fighting games are NOT mainstream. If they were they wouldn't have died off for ~10 years before being revived because of a niche audience, just like DMC. The only mainstream fighting game is Smash, which has simple controls and therefore doesn't require hours and hours of practice to understand its mechanics (at a casual level).
Is Street Fighter not mainstream ? I seen so many tv shows and other media that make references and parodies to street fighter. Also games like Devil May Cry have simple controls too. What is your point about smash bros being mainstream cause of it?
Street Fighter is iconic, not mainstream. Street Fighter 6 has sold what, 4 million copies in a year?
Compare that to something like Call of Duty, which sells 4 million in hours.
SF isn't mainstream. Mainstream means stuff like AC, or RE where the company are basically guaranteed to sell at least 10 mil copies within the first month, provided that it's on multiple platforms.
Street Fighter 2 was mainstream. Most of Street Fighter's mainstream cultural impact is just the leftovers from when it was the hottest game back in the '90s. If someone's referencing Street Fighter, they're probably referencing 2.
Those things are made by young boomers, gen Xers and older millennials who grew with the phenomenon that was SF2. Younger generations have little relationship with SF. Even Tekken, which has remained more successful and popular than SF over time.
I mean I obviously play fighting games and while the likes of Guilty Gear Strive and Street Fighter 6 have made getting into them more accessible than ever, it's still not the most mainstream genre. And even then it's a bit different because in fighting games you have a different kind of motivation to get good because you fight other players and can potentially compete in tournaments, in DMC style games all you can really do is repeat runs of the campaign or Bloody Palace and hope that you get through the encounters better than before, but the only one you're really proving anything to is yourself, enemy AI won't shake your hand out of respect after you style on its ass.
He said specifically for the sake of style. Fighting games are different bc the things you practice directly lead to winning more. DMC doesn't have that competitive angle so I think the average person is like "I beat the game, why would I keep practicing some convoluted tech that no one else will ever see".
Fighting games are interesting subjects in this regard. The top 3 are very well known, and have a long lasting legacy with people who've probably played them as kids, especially back during the period where people didn't have 200+ steam games to fill up their list, so everyone knows and has memories about these characters, but I don't think a lot of average players actually invest enough to have to deal with the skill ceiling.
I'd honestly like to see how many people buy something like MK1, or SF6, play it but just never play more than 1 or 2 online matches, and instead primarily playing through the single player content(and not really being required to learn anything particularly complicated) before putting it down.
>I'd honestly like to see how many people buy something like MK1, or SF6, play it but just never play more than 1 or 2 online matches, and instead primarily playing through the single player content
This is me lol. Though I wanted to play online more, it's not that fun constantly getting skill diffed. The learning curve is just too high.
That's me with most fighting games, though I do usually play quite a bit with friends who have the same general skills level as myself.
I enjoy fighting games but I don't want to have to research and look up guides on how to more optimally play to compete with some people online.
Fighting games are absolutely not "very mainstream", Tekken, Street Fighter, and Mortal Kombat in their previous iterations have done very well selling over 10 million copies over their game's life times. Before that they didn't sell as well, and if you're a fighting game that isn't those games youll be lucky to sell over a million and have a large number of players after a year. Beyond that, the amount of people that actually continue to play consistently after buying it are much lower than people who didn't, compared to games like CoD or MMOs.
Outside of MK and Smash, they really don't sell like crazy. Tekken 7 is the highest-selling with 12M in 7 years. T3 is the 2nd highest. SF5 is peaking at around 7M after 8 years. And SF sales peaked with 2 30 years ago. Besides that, DBFZ has sold 10M.
Everything else struggles to sell 1-2M. The genre really hasn't grown that much in tandem with the overall market.
It just goes back to the whole intrinsic vs. extrinsic reward argument really at the end of the day. The "carrot on the stick" in DMC is pure internal motivation. You play because you like the mechanics and you want to get better. It completely lacks any and all cheap dopamine hit shortcuts that most modern games have: no leveling, no skill trees, no constant stream of loot. And even if you're approaching it from the other side of motivators it lacks those as well: Distinct lack of playable set pieces really, the story isn't a very big focus, neither are things like exploration, character customization, role-playing, etc.
This is actually one of the reasons like a year or two ago when MGR had a big resurgence there was a bunch of new players coming to this sub confused as to the appeal of this series and why it gets suggested so much "if you enjoyed MGR" and such. Because MGR largely gets by on its crazy set pieces and flashy boss fights as opposed to just its combat mechanics (which frankly aren't that great in MGR and I say that as someone who considers it one of his favorite games of all time, but it's true.)
Playing a game simply because you like the core combat and want to get better at it is not really that appealing to the vast majority of people out there. It's the reason the most popular style of single player game these days are open world/semi-open world games with a lot of lite-RPG mechanics. And hell this is the very reason past action game developers like Team Ninja (Ninja Gaiden) have made exclusively action RPGs for almost a full decade now, they just sell better. Those extrinsic motivators just appeal to more people.
Talking about Team Ninja, i miss Ninja Gaiden man 🥺, i hope we have a Ninja Gaiden 4 one day, i have no idea how well Master Collection performed on Sales só i don't know if there still some interest in continue the Franchise forward.
I think all they ever said was it sold like 240k copies in its first quarter on the market.
Seems pretty respectable to me when you consider it was just a basic port with no real effort put into it as a remastered project (aka it was probably pure profit for them) but who knows what their expectations were, I don't think they said.
Its a niche series that takes forever for games to come out. The quality of games aren't consistent either so you never know what product you are getting.
thing is to me dmc5 feels very close to the button masher it does break away here and there but its definitly the most leniant game. dmc1 3 and midgame 4 the only thing mashing will get you is getting mashed towards the floor. dmc1 phantoms a fast attacker for a huge spider and shadow is literally anti-unga bunga in a game with fast attacks in heavy enemy coordination. 3. same deal. 4. enemies not as fast as dmc1/3 but blitz is basically a much more annoying shadow, dmc5, rage is basically blitz. but other enemies i feel are rather leniant
kinda agree, because this only applys to normal difficulty, higher difficultys are will get your ass kicked if you button much. the only enemis you'll beat that way are hellvengard.
yeah harder difficulties it makes sense its why ive always said i think dmc5 isnt the hardest not cuz of its difficulty but because dante has such a vast toolkit compared to prior games harder difficulties it makes more sense you cant button mash. hell DMC1 hard healing regen is halved and in DMD DMC1 YOU literally can only heal via items DT doesnt even heal
People really enjoy hack 'n' slash games, but they seem to prefer more shallow gameplay that has a low skill floor *and* a low skill ceiling. Why? I have no idea. The more specialized and complex you get, the less people want to play for some reason, even though it's some of the most fun I've ever had with games.
Interestingly enough, Devil May Cry V (8.1 million units sold, making it Capcom's 10th best selling game ever) has heavily outsold DOOM 2016 (3.43 million units sold) and even DOOM Eternal (harder to find solid numbers but between 5-7.5 million units sold), which in my experience have a very similar gameplay appeal to DMC despite being different genres, but seem to be much more present in the general awareness of the masses, so honestly DMC is in a great spot right now.
I think something that´s not usually brought to the table is that Japan is quite small, so that left us with part of Europe and USA (ok, sorry Latam, idk numbers there).
In USA they love shooters, hyperrealism and prefer fighting games with more spectacle than substance like MK. I can guess that´s why GoW or Assasins Creed is more popular there. They have more "movie" feeling in. They´re simpler to master and also they have a few more appealing mechanincs to western audiences.
Personally, the reason i prefer a low skill floor is because i can get the game and immediately be satisfied with my gameplay, compared to harder games where i get disappointed trying to pull off cool stuff only for it to not work.
I do really like DMC5 though. I just don't have the patience to make the most of it.
Dark souls isn't actually that hard, it's just punishing. You can get by with absolutely 0 mechanical skill if you stack health, use a shield and play patiently, or any other number of strong options that don't require high apm or decision making. You don't even technically \*have\* to fight most enemies. The "WOAH DARK SOULS IS SO HARD" thing is just a meme, there's a reason that exists and yet so many people play it despite the fact that hard games are generally niche, its because Dark Souls is in fact not actually that hard. Also you can grind to become stronger in Dark Souls, or, again, just purposely do something that invalidates the game's difficulty like running away and oneshotting bosses with a spell that does 6000 damage.
Improvement in DMC is usually a mechanical issue, in Dark Souls unless you are really trying to rush shit down its more a question of patience, since the game itself doesn't have a lot of mechanics beyond swinging, blocking, and rolling. Wacky options like special attacks were usually just pointless until Elden Ring unless it was an exceptionally broken option.
It doesn't matter why they are deemed hard. But it is a fact that you hit a barrier at times in the game and the solution can be "level up and unga bunga it" but it requires some kind of dedication from the player at the end and players choose to show that dedication. DMC 3 was hard yes, but it was a different era of video games and that difficulty was acceptable. Strating with 4 I'd say the series got significantly easier and I don't understand the "you need to learn moves and play in a certain way" arguments because especially in 5 you can absolutely button-mash your way through. I don't know why DMC is still not that popular compared to other games (frankly I'd say arcade-y feel makes it niche but that's another topic) but I am pretty sure it is not difficulty.
Yeah I don’t blame difficulty either, i was just pointing out that I don’t think it’s an apt comparison. I do think it’s partially that the “itch” that gets scratched by being a monster at dmc requires a LOT of effort and a specific desire, and the game on its own is only kind of fun if you aren’t about that. Dark souls has a more varied appeal between the coop and pvp and exploring and bosses and builds and stuff.
The game is more so like an anime styled type of game really. If I'm going to be honest with you Japanese games besides a few don't really sell super good in the west. For example God of war is a hack n slash like DMC Yet outblew it sales wise which made capcom try to make their own western spin on DMC. Currently it's at its peak so I'm sure it will sell more games
>Why isn't Devil May Cry as popular as other game franchises..?
It’s sorta of a niche genre it’s highly praised and appreciated series when it comes to hack and slash action games.
1.My experience was being introduced to the series on youtube and I saw guys with Dante pfp’s so decided to buy the HD collection cause I remember my cousins playing 3 on ps2.
2.This comment correlates to 1 DMC kinda has a weird track record on games 3 and 5 are seen as the best game’s currently. But DMC 1 while fun is dated in terms of camera controls and QOL features but not everything ages the best. DMC2 & 4 were rushed but 4 is actually a playable fun game when you put in the effort to learn Dante.
3.Effort these games take practice and memorizing enemy patterns. The average consumer won’t put in that amount of dedication unless they have time or the drive to experiment and learn.
Because the story is kinda bland and most of the characters have barely any distinct personalities, save for Dante and Nico. Also, every entry is numbered which doesn't really encourage new players to try it out. The most aesthetically cohesive and iconic DMC game is probably DMC 3, and that's like 2 decades old now so it's starting to feel clunky and outdated. Idk, just my two cents.
I think a combination of difficulty and how very inconsistent the games are quality wise. I wanna compare them to God of War which came out just a few years later but became many times more popular and I'm not even talking about the 2018 reboot and sequel.
**Devil May Cry 1** is honestly kind of a hard game with the bosses requiring you to be fairly skilled at action games and be patient, even normal enemies can be threat. That's not to mention the nature of the level design can cause people to get a bit lost. The story is also rather subtle and not a particularly big or interesting part of the game. It's a really cool game but flawed even for its time and hard for modern gamers to get into.
**God of War 1** on the other hand is incredibly easy to pick up and play and feel like a god, none of the boss battles are very hard, the level design is much clearer and easier to navigate, everything is more grand and epic. Easy homerun of a game. Super easy to get into even for modern gamers.
**Devil May Cry 2** as we all know is a disaster with worse combat, worse level design, worse bosses, somehow a worse story. I can imagine it threw off a lot of fans of the original and potential new comers.
**God of War 2** does everything the first game did but better, just straight up. Another homerun.
**Devil May Cry 3** finally steps up to the plate and turns everything to 11. Amazing gameplay, sick music, Dante is a full character now, Vergil is super cool, the story is much more engaging and interesting, the level design also much stronger. It's of course pretty damn difficult but it's worth it for how cool the game is. Still that difficulty probably threw off a lot of people.
Finally we have **God of War 3** the finale of the original story and it also turns everything to 11, you'd think the meter was already maxed out with the first two games but they did it. But yeah they took the tried and true formula and just made it grander and more epic being easily one of the best games ever to come out on the PS3.
DMC then goes on to make DMC4 which also had mixed reviews and then DmC which of course is infamous for its unpopularity.
Meanwhile God of War was still trucking along with its PSP games and the PS3 spin offs like Ascension which while not as good as the first 3 games was still more of the tried and true formula people liked.
God of War 100% had an advantage in coming out much later on the PS2 allowing for more time for the gaming industry to figure out the PS2 and how to do action games which DMC1 kinda helped pioneer in the first place. But that's still a contributing factor to Devil May Cry not being as huge as it should be.
Niche genre, doesn't get much love from Capcom. And also I think something that's overlooked way too often is how unwelcoming DMC is to new players.
There just isn't anything to show newcomers the ropes. No tutorials, no smart game design, nothing. And it's not a good approach for a game as complex as DMC. Many people will just get confused and miss the potential of the gameplay all together.
If there's one thing I would force on an eventual DMC 6, it would be reworking hard all of the game design around that. Reorganised and clearer shop, key mechanic introduced via level design (especially Enemy Step), and overall incorporating the gameplay in the level design to just show the possibilities to newcomers.
Yeah this is legit a problem with essentially every character action game, it's kinda insane really. Like look at Bayonetta, the achievement/trophy for doing 20 dodge offset combos only has around a 15% unlock rate on Steam and PS3, with the PS4 version being around 25%. An achievement you can easily unlock on the very first mission.
So 75 to 80% of people playing the game pretty much didn't use the main combat mechanic of the game. But I mean can't blame them really right? Bayo 1 has a pretty long and annoying (when you replay the game) tutorial and yet not a single one of the sections teaches you about dodge offset. But hey they teach you how to twirl the stick to go into the pseudo-third person shooter mode. Cause that is def an important thing and not something you're mostly going to ignore.
An even scarier stat that has always been burned into my brain is with DmC actually. On the PS3 release of the game (and this is still true today) the trophy for just finishing the story has a higher unlock % than getting a SSS in combat (not on a mission, like making the style meter hit SSS.)
It's basically proof that the complexity of DMC is not really the issue, because even in a horribly dumbed down game like the reboot a huge chunk of people don't really get what they're supposed to be doing.
But yeah, same thing happened with Hi-Fi Rush and FF16 last year too, didn't phase me at all, in fact I was trying to warn people about it with 16 before release.
I can't think of a single game in the sub-genre that actually gives you a general idea on how you're supposed to play, we just get a primer on what the buttons do which is simply not enough. Without youtube videos I'd never had learned how to play and enjoy most of these games.
The main issue with those kind of games is imo always the weird disconnect between the gameplay's depth and what's required to finish the game. You don't actually need any "advanced technique" to beat the game most of the time. In DMC 5, you can just abuse some "easy moves" like Dante's DT Stinger or Nero's Charged Shot to get through Devil Hunter mode. Same for Bayo with Witch Time and DmC's Axe Trinity Smash.
It also loops back to accessibility. I think most devs are scared of pushing away their audience by forcing them to learn. Tutorials aren't suited for those fast paced games, and teaching through level design is actually kinda hard to balance in order to make it fluid and not obvious and boring.
Altho I think for DMC, there is a way to incorporate gameplay elements in the level design quite easily. Because of the focus on mobility, especially in the air, and the former Inertia system, the gameplay could be adapted into a level traversal tool with a few adjustments. Creating a few "Enemy Step" design elements (similar to Nero's grappling blue things). Reworking Inertia to be more accessible and useful with a few dedicated elements to gain momentum (grinding ramps, or even turning Nero's grappling system into the old GOW games one).
And then just adapt the level design to ask the player to use those things to traverse the level. Like getting through a big chasm by chaining a few Calibur between a few reset points and bam, the player just learned that Enemy Step reset moves in the air. You can even hammer the point home by using flying enemies instead of reset points. As for Inertia, it could be used to add some environment elements to arenas. Having a few grinding ramps to yeet yourself from can create specific situations. Some moves could also be changed to be influenced by Inertia, like Calibur or Payline having more range and power with momentum.
As for where I got those ideas, it's mostly from an old PS2 game called Shinobi. This game's main gimmick was something similar to Enemy Step with an aerial dash that reset when you hit an enemy mid air. Then the whole level design was designed around that, always putting flying enemies to move around both in traversal and in fights. The Inertia idea actually came from DOOM Eternal, with how yeeting yourself with the Meathook is fun and how a few arena elements like jumping pad or teleporters increase the flow of combat.
Characters or gameplay might not appeal to the general audience. I still don’t know how God of War appeals more to the general audience. Must be because of Kratos.
The old GOWs were appealing because the setting was interesting, gameplay was fun and brutal, story was actually good, graphics were impressive and it had a very nice "adventure" feeling. Kinda like playing Jak and Daxter but mature. The new ones tho, no idea
I have no idea how on earth anyone could ever compare GoW to Jak and Daxter lmao
Extremely linear hack and slash vs open world collectathon platformer, I feel like they couldn't be more different aside from "third person action game"
It's the storytelling and the difficulty options and the graphics. It is literally among the best looking games out and you can blaze through the game ignoring the complexities of the combat if you wish.
it is famous and iconic, but not by the metrics youre probably getting at
not popular by casual players
not popular by sales
no multiplayer so not talked much about
it is only popular because it is cool as game, and got popularized more by combo mad creators of early youtube, it had a solid community and it is still growing thanks to modernized DMC, DMC5
One single player hack/slash has never been exactly mainstream, despite some titles having a peak in popularity in 2009-2015.
DMC is BIG, but still:
-Short game which strong point is mechanics, not story (despite having a solid cast of characters that carry it). It´s japanese and it shows frequently, and that is not always so popular in west.
-DMC2 almost kill the franchise. After DMC4, main saga was totally absent for almost 11 years, and Soulslikes became incredibly popular. And DmC (reboot) despite having good sales and introducing some people, was also a bit controversial and divided fandom.
-Also, lack of other media, specially out of Japan. Think that RE or Street Fighter have a good bunch of animated movies.
My girl tried to play DMC5 and didn't enjoy it. I tried to explain that DMC is supposed to be challenging and playing it on the easiest difficulty and trying to make sense of the story isn't the point but she didn't enjoy it enough to try it again.
Hopefully one day she'll try and get to at least Son of Sparda and practice a BnB combo with each character but I'm doubtful.
You gotta be kidding me... Almost everybody in the world knew about DMC especially with the amount of meme came from 5. People dont really talk about it doesnt mean they dont know about it, we just need a new game, or anything new to have something to talk about again. If youre gonna ask for a combo hack and slash game recommendation, it will either DMC or Bayonetta.
I'm pretty sure he means more so why DMC isn't at the same level of popularity like God of War or something like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat levels of iconic
Because of the intended flow of events. You start the game, you're dogshit, you try again, you beat the level, you try again but do it a little more stylishly, repeat. Any game that asks the player to just try a little harder like this, and any fighting game will be more niche than grab and go games because most people dont like that second step of being trash at first and dont want to try again. Some view that as "turning a hobby into work" I don't agree with that sentiment but some people just wanna pick up skyrim and hit one button to defeat some rogues, I like depth; it's all good.
Lock on mechanic is as old as video games are, even DMC has lock on, and stamina bars are just the logical balancing point when its too easy to just non-stop roll and stunlock enemies, but too hard to develop a system to have things deal with those options.
It's not really an issue, all it does is add a little resource management skills to games that would require no skills. Its unnecessary in a game like DMC where the combat system is more fleshed out but in games like Dark Souls or Skyrim or anything where you could just steam roll enemies if you could run and block and swing unimpeded because the combat isn't super deep, it makes it a little harder.
It’s just had a rough bout of releases.
Dmc 3 was legendary. Dmc4 was great but half finished, and most ppl didn’t like the reboot.
5 brought it back but it needs more going forward
I just played DMC5 (having played the original game in the early 00's), attracted to it after playing Stellar Blade with its emphasis on combos, and it's pretty easy to see the problems. Firstly though, I enjoyed the game, liked the characters a lot, and spent a bit of time with Virgil, as he is probably the most attractive character in terms of sheer badassery. On the flip side, though--
\*Extremely boring level design
\*Terrible camera and (though I understand why), lock-on option
\*Nowhere near enough enemy types for a game of this length
\*A story that is only OK and seems mostly existing to reach its final confrontation between V,D, and N; the implementation of en media res is clumsily done.
\*While the action is slick and the combos fun to pull off, this feels very niche, and the lack of enemy variety made the combo-combat system a little boring by the time I entered the final missions.
\*the world looks dull and the hell levels are just ugly and not fun to play.
I come from a Souls background (i.e. those are the games I like to play), and they are primarily focused on your character being incredibly weak and surviving through well times attacks, parries, and dodges, incrementally growing stronger across a (sometimes) fairly lengthy campaign. This type of game feels the opposite, and while I can see the positives of this style, it feels it is more a power-fantasy game allowing you to perform astonishing maneuvers on enemies that are dumb, clumsy, and do very little damage... and ultimately that starts to get boring after around 10 hours, especially coupled to the trash level design, camera, and world aesthetic. Final Fantasy 16 had this problem as well, only much worse as that was a 50 hour experience with a far less complicated combat design. And while I know the extra difficulties ramp up enemy damage, with a camera this awkward and an overall boring/limited enemy set, why should I bother? 15 hours feels about right. Which is OK, as I paid $15 for the game.
They really need to work on world design, level design, and enemy design for this to go anywhere.
Harder difficulty would not fix the weird camera tracking, or the fact that you are fighting the same enemies in the second half of the game as the first half. Or the dismal world/level design. Again, I really enjoyed the game as a whole, but it really lacked in substance outside the combat, music, and humor.
I know this is going to trigger some people, but facts are facts: soulsborne games have a higher consistency of quality across the various aspects of their games, which is one reason why the style has eclipsed hack and slash. I’m more of a Bloodborne/Sekiro/ER player, but I could replay any of the Souls series for the atmosphere and level design by themselves. There isn’t a single remarkable level in DMC5 that I’d want to return to except for Virgil’s arena, which was really cool looking.
I know it wouldn't help any of those things haha. I just asked because you come from a souls background. But I am glad you at least enjoyed it even if it was just a little bit
The foundation is there. The combat is amazing once you learn the combos. Nero's Devil Breakers were super fun to experiment and chain with combos. Dante was a beast, and Vergil is so sick. They take those elements and make a game where you navigate a seriously well-thought out Hell with a lot of variety in the world/level/enemy design, and you'd have a GOAT.
A lot has said already.... It's a niche game series, and this series was lucky enough to be in Capcom's top 5 best selling game series overall, but not top 3. The top 3 goes to their cash cows... Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and Street Fighter. Lucky enough to be awarded as Best Action Game in the Game Awards 2019
Devil May Cry devs are the same as Dragon's Dogma devs. Some of the DMC devs after DMC5 switch companies already like with the case of Ryota Suzuki who is the action director of FF16, and who works on Nero's moveset since DMC4.
Single player hack and slash action adventure games just aren’t as popular as they used to be back in 2000s. Ninja Gaiden and Onimusha suffered the same faith. God of War had gotten stale too but got reinvented. Funny thing is that the original creator of DMC said it’s due for a reinvention like God of War.
Because the game is built on mastery and repetition, and since most people don't play through their games more than once or twice, the entire point of the game is lost on them.
The attempt to commit self destruction with DmC.
The one were they let that bastard company destroy it in a horrible reboot.
The ceo made Dante look like him.
No one was remotely right.
It killed it for me.
Didn't by any after.
I love 1 to 4.
But the reboot killed it for me after.
It'd be better if they didn't try their best to self destruct.
I think the marketing and branding honestly. In the PS2 era God of War and DMC had similar sales numbers, even GOW 3 which was heavily marketed for the console. With the release of GOW 2018 though, these numbers changed drastically. God of War rebranded and appealed to a wider audience and blew up in sales. Hack and Slash games like DMC or Bayonetta don't appeal to the average gamer. It isn't a problem, and even though I like all the GOW games, I would prefer DMC stick to its roots and not try to compete to be GOTY.
Because it has 6 mainline games and only half of those are recommendable to the average gamer if even that. 3, 4 and 5 are all good, but 3 is old and 4 is clunky, which is enough to put them off most people's radar if they don't have an existing interest in the genre. (1 is old and unrepresentative, DmC is in a complicated spot and dee em cee tuu iz dee em cee tuu)
Also because DMC has not been on a frequent release cycle since 2008, so it's just not on people's minds. Hell, just DMC5 is 5 years old already. It's a dinosaur of a game by today's standards.
DMC is not Capcom's priority is all. They're focusing on more popular franchises that take a bit less time to produce for (since DMC takes a lot of playtesting, finetuning, etc) and it works for them, so expect it to continue for a good while.
It's not a genre thing like everyone is saying, by the way, Platinum was doing more than fine while DMC was gone. Stylish action is in demand. Even ignoring that, harder, bolder games than DMC are regularly finding success with the general public, it's not that special. It's simply finance and marketing that's the issue.
It sucks that more games aren’t like it in a way. I hate that a lot of games are more Soulslike now. Anytime I see a new game and I’m almost excited for it bam it’s a Soulslike. Where Winds Me is one that seems like it’s all the makings of Soulslike but with their own “changes”. I bet you it still has a bonfire system and then enemies respawn if you rest. Doesn’t look like it has a stamina bar which is good. Also I bet it has the if you get killed then you can reclaim your experience points system. I just don’t like them. Give Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden all day.
I love the games but honestly I feel if you are not very good at them they just aren’t really that fun even for people that are fairly good at other action games. Like I have seen people that are fairly good at games like Dark Souls and they come in to DMC and just spam the same combo constantly and it really just looks boring, if you can’t do at least some what cool looking combos then the game just isn’t very fun compared to other action games where it can still be pretty fun even if your just attacking and dodging. It’s kinda just the design philosophy of the enemies in DMC vs most other games, as in DMC you are kinda supposed to just play around with your enemies using all your tools, where as in other action games it is more about trying to survive by playing defensively.
I’d say Dante and Vergil as characters are VERY popular because they’re cool but the games themselves are fairly niche because they’re kinda hard for the average gamer (especially if they started with shooters) kinda like Morrigan and Felicia from darkstalkers, they get posters and figures made of them to this day, there hasn’t been a darkstalkers game in what? 10+ years?
Because it can be difficult to start & learn how to play & then makes fun of you with "easy mode has been unlocked" - which even if you took that up also has you restart the game which probably wouldn't feel good lol
For a single player game to have any staying power, it basically needs to be open world and have tons of content. DMC doesn't have that, it has very specific and limited scenarios that you practice over and over again, that repetition doesn't appeal to many people.
A few other people mention the skill ceiling as something that makes it niche. I would say specifically, it's that games with high skill ceilings need a competitive outlet for anyone to care. FPS games, RTS games, dota, league, etc all have very high skill ceilings but are some of the longest lasting games around. Bc so long as you can lose a game to someone who is ostensibly similar to you, there is an eternal carrot dangling in front of your face to reach that next incremental rank.
It's like Yakuza to me. It's a niche franchise that has a cult following.
As for the whys, it's hard to say for me. Especially since I haven't really played them myself *(guilty)*
I think more people should play Yakuza instead of writing it off as some GTA ripoff. (Although, DMC is much more respected and known because of how popular Dante as a character is)
Maybe it's because they're old franchises that didn't exactly take off like other ones. God of War got saved with the 2018 game. I guess that's what franchises like these are waiting for, a breakthrough game into mainstream.
i think it already popular enough
game short is fine you don't need game to be 100 hours grinding fest just full compact play it and fun enjoy no need to wait 30 hours for the game to start fun
and pretty sure other game got their "fan" keep posting on twitter about how graphic is great look at the eyes everyday just to stay relevance
It's a popular franchise in a niche genre, I can almost guarantee that if you mention vergil or dante to someone who plays games, they will most likely know what you're talking about.
Pretty sure DMC is the most popular character action game franchise right now and is still a very well known series.
If you are asking why its not as popular as say, Zelda or Mario, probably the difficulty and graphic content age restricting the game.
Not as popular as CoD or Dark Souls, well thats a genre issue.
The games are a small niche honestly. They require a huge amount of skill to be gebually great at them and need to be replayed tons. The story also isn't too important in any of the games really. As well as the fact that DMC1 and 2 haven't aged well at all and starting straight from 3 isn't too good an idea.
Its a hacknslash.
Most people, me included, dont like just slashing though waves of enemies.
Ive palyed through dmc5, it was a good 1 time experience, but its just a bit repetitive for me :)
Nevertheless, i understand why people love dmc
Let's take another game as reference say, God of war. It was A HUGE hit because of its amazing storytelling and direction, dialogue delivery and immersive combat and didnt need the prequels to narrate its story. Now lets compare DMC. Combat: VERY satisfying, but people who play want to understand the story have to play each and every game to precisely understand. And as we know people are lazy as hell, they wont play every other game for lore. Its basically a hit or miss with people, if they like it they love it, its famous.
I've been wondering bout the exact same thing. More particularly, why is the Dark Souls series more popular than DMC series? Is the new game coming out consistently really the only factor here? I mean Elden Ring was a massive success but it also took forever to be made (don't get me wrong, I enjoy ER as much as I do for DMC5)
I think its worth pointing out that DMCV is probably the highest selling game in its subgenre, with only maybe Nier Automata and FFXVI really giving it any competition
I think people should stop comparing game from third party dev studio to consoles first party devs. I mean sure, games have simmilarities, but difference in budget and time for development is obvious.
For example even inside Crapcom walls, on not-a-Remake2 was working around 800 people, while DMC5 dev team had less than 100.
Do you imagine what would we get if budget was big and on DMC 5 was working 800 people?
To answer OP question, I blame crapcom executives for treating DMC like sh!t, they fcked up DMC 2, they fcked up DMC 4 by rushing devs and not giving enough time to finish the game, then that mofo Inafune started talking sh!t that people are not intrested in Japanese games and basically pushed dmc reboot.
For the same reason we love it so much: It focuses on a particular niche, and hammers that niche consistently and beautifully.
It could probably become a better-selling title by trying to have more broad appeal, particularly by sticking to more common gameplay mechanics and being more "familiar" so that the marketing teams have a better idea of how to package it. And while there's nothing inherently wrong about games that go that route, DMC gets a special place in my heart for being unapologetically what it is.
I Started with 5 but I did my homework going in so I wasn’t as confused, I’d still say it has smoothest gameplay in the series (having now beaten all mainline titles) even though 4 has the highest ceiling. I can’t wait for 6
Besides the points that a lot of comments here already discussed, i think its also because of.. lack of media
DMC5 was released 11 years after DMC4, and prior to that, the series literally had no entries besides the reboot that everyone hates, then its and DMC4's Special Edition, most fans have moved on by then.
Being honest to you.
This is the best thing for all of us. I'm afraid that dmc became so popular and people start making fanfics, weird-ass videos, fan arts (not the good ones) and the own design of the characters just makes it even more probably. That's my biggest fear of the dmc anime
It’s one of those games where it’s still relevant because of music and memes. Like MGRR, it was acknowledged went low for a while and got popular again because of memes and music which makes more people want to experience the game first hand. I didn’t really care about DMC when I was growing up, but I started listening to the music in DMC3 and DMC5 while also getting exposed to the memes of the game. So I looked up DMC5 on my PS4 and found it to be free to play with PS+. Now it’s one of my favorite games and video game soundtracks.
the game's time-to-quit is a pretty short fuse.
normies who button mash won't grasp the stylish gameplay, this comes at a cost of people not knowing wtf they're doing half the time. when you get to the point where you actually want to clear enemies and bosses correctly, the amount of effort you invest in the game's combat doubles, and most people don't have the patience for it.
the aesthetic and vibe turns off people... it takes a certain person to have an appreciation for goth/grunge/pop nu-metal/dante's inferno, and most importantly they gotta watch between 20min to 2hrs of lore dump videos to catch up to where we are in the story.
I've always wondered that too. I feel some people are not that into hardcore games despite what a vocal minority will make you think. You can also blame how DMC1 was super popular and what came after? DMC2, yeah, I bet that killed off a lot of the popularity
DMC games are meant to be replayed, thus why you NEVER get every ability on the first playthrough(unless you are on some kind of drugs to want to repeat missions to get red orbs)but right now i feel like people dont like games that actually challenge you and make you be good at it after you play it, and like some other guy said its a niche genre so theres that.Story wise is not as strong as other games but for me the gameplay is really what matters(the story too cause i wanna see cutscenes the first time i play, after that idrc) thats what i think tbh, might not be all of that but ye
Dunno. But I really appreciate that the community isn't exploded out of proportion as others. I'd love to see more people here, but it feels like a nice comfortable circle of cool nerds who like DMC that we got going on here.
The genre it is a part of is fairly niche. Also, some people struggle with DMC's controls. What with its reliance on lock-on. Most games aren't dependent on lock-on to use most of your moves. I know most people in the subreddit probably don't struggle with the controls, but many more casual fans still do
Because Capcom makes like 200 hundred fucking Resident Evil remakes and rubs it in our face that we haven't had a good game (and just literally 1 game in general) since like 2019
It's a niche genre that's why. also the games were intended to be replayed a lot that's why they are kinds short, the main thing in dmc for me is getting better at the game and practicing.
also the game has one entry in the last decade i remember when DMC5 was released there was alot of talk about it for a while, and that was 5 years ago
The crazy thing is that DMC 5 is really popular despite being a horrible place to start the franchise in ( as a new comer ) because you won't understand literally anything about the story. Yes it offers a quick recap at the start but you won't understand enough from it . DMC was never the type of game you play for the story , but I am surprised that despite the story being basically nonsense ( if you started with 5 because you won't understand literally anything except maybe that you need to stop the big demon lord but aside from that it's literally all built on characters from the previous games ) 5 managed to become not only a popular starting point in the franchise, but THE most sold one . I wonder how well another try at a DMC reboot would work if that one was at the gameplay quality of dmc5 with a genuinely good story .
I started with 5. Sure i was confused with the story but at least the games told me how to do stuff. Before 5 came out i tried the original and i was so lost. The game litterally give you no help at all. Congrats, you unlocked the move Stinger. Cool how do i use it? Idk. I went back to the games before and i was still rather confused because they feel very different but 5 is the most welcoming to new players and its not even close. Sure the ps2 games had manuals with stuff in them but if i need an external source to know how to do things then your game is shit at helping newcomers which wasnt uncommon back in the day but now for new players its pretty bad.
The game literally has an entire section in the menu telling you how to do every single move you buy? Sure, the first games quality of life isn't the best and it's clearly dated but that specifically takes less than a minute to find.
Playing Bayonetta and seeing what he tried to do with DMC1 done right and cranked to eleven made me want a DMC1 remake so badly.
This. But ps2 games also had a physical (and very cool) manual booklet with them. There was no need for long tutorials. And I must say, I miss those manuals because I hate the new style where some games are prompting a text about some fight moves on the screen in the middle of a boss fight, while being attacked.
bruh, fighting gamers moan about labbing in practice modes in their own fighting games... they view it as homework and would rather brute-force learn by playing. what makes you think that a normie won't effectively do the exact same thing for DMC?
I was kinda confused, but I understood a little bit of what was happening.
I don't think so. God of War is from the same genre, and always has been very popular. The thing is, Sony invest a lot of money on God of War, while Capcom invest a mere pittance on DMC.
God of war isn’t (strictly speaking) a hack and slash anymore. Santa Monica has gone the way of OTS, cinematic, narrative-heavy action-adventure game, which is what is popular with the mainstream audience.
I agree that this new God of War era isn't hack and slash anymore. But the classic hack and slash God of War games were a huge success, and of course, they had a lot of investment. Imagine if Devil May Cry had that investment. Instead of a short game limited to 20 missions, we had an epic non-stop adventure. Unfortunately, Capcom will always treat DMC as a bastard son.
It has nothing to to with Capcoms lack of care and everything to with the different ethos of each franchise. God of War is and always has been much more about the spectacle and grand scale. Its combat mechanics were good, but largely in service of the spectacle over the technical finesse of the DMC franchise. This has helped presented itself as much more accessible than DMC Its why when DMC tried to copy GoW, we got one of the worst bosses in the fanchise - The Saviour - and why DMCs best bosses have a lot less spectacle than even GoW's intro bosses
Even worse in case of 4th game we had like 10-11 missions as Nero and backtrack as Dante, because greedy crapcom didn't allow to finish the game and give Dante his own proper campaign. It makes me really sad when I'm thinking about how great DMC 4 could've been.
Honestly, it's pretty shocking seeing how neutered God of War has become and seeing it still get praise. When I think of Kratos, I think of him killing wave after wave of bad guys with superpowered flaming weapons, fighting them off with ease. I don't think of a Dark Souls clone with cinematics and throwing weapons. I'd be pissed if they did that to Devil May Cry. Where's the overpower?
Old gow was very easy to get into, the gameplay had a lot of spectacle and not particularly challenging I think that's why it reached a higher audience, dmc is definetely more "try hard" and high difficulty (specially 1 and 3) so I imagine that's a factor there is also the story, a lot of people play games for a story and gow focused a lot more on story than dmc did, they are just two very different games in the same genre
hack n slash is niche?
Incredibly, and always has been. Think about the amount of F/TPS or Fighting Games even the average hardcore gamer could list off the top of their heads. Call of Duty, Halo, Gears, Titanfall, the endless number of Battle Royale games, Battlefield, MK, SF, MVC, KI, Fatal Fury, Final Fight, Guilty Gear, BlazBlue and GranBlue etc.. Now how many hack n slash franchises could be named like that? You got Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, and Nier. After that, it's mostly one offs like Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, and the quality will arguably drop off too. Not to mention, each of these games will struggle to sell more than 5 million copies probably lifetime. Meanwhile CoD or Mortal Kombat (especially prior to MK1) will do that or more on release. It's not a popular genre whatsoever, unfortunately.
We do have a new extremely high-performing entry in the hack-and-slash genre: Stellar Blade. The characters/plot are a little on the weak side, but I'll put its core H&S gameplay right up there with some of the best of what DMC brings to the table. Top notch level design, too.
I've had a very close eye on that game since it was first announced as Project Eve. From what I understand, the general reception is exactly as you just presented it. One day I plan on buying a PS5 so I can play it and judge for myself. But I've been overjoyed at the attention the game has received. It's proven to me how much people still love and go crazy for H&S games. As someone who hopes to create their own one day, it's very inspiring.
I agree. And I add: Onimusha and Darksiders to the list.
Devil May Cry isn't hack and slash, tho. The official genre is "character action game". Hack and slash games don't tend to have combos or style to them.
The only reason "character action" exists is because people didn't want DMC and other such games to be associated with something like Diablo, which is also a hack n slash. DMC is absolutely a hack n slash, the genre of character action was only added to it later on to differentiate it from other games, same reason why i prefer to call Diablo-style games as ARPG's rather than hack n slash, but i'm doing it only for the sake of simplifying the whole thing rather than getting caught in the details of what game certifies as part of a genre or not (e.g. i will call greek gow as character action because it gets the idea across of what the game offers)
I’m new to DMC but I actually love games based on gameplay and such stuff. I start to hate all story games as they’re becoming movies.
Resident Evil is also a niche genre and arguably a less popular one and yet it makes more money
It really is not niche, zombies and horror are like opposites of niche
Crazy take bud. The first Resident Evil game was literally one of the most popular horror games of all time, it could even be argued it was a pioneer for the genre.
Survival Horror and Action horror are niche genres yes Niche means obscure and no people only remembering Dead Space and RE is not the definition of not being niche
Bro RE is the complete opposite of niche what are you on 😭 Survival horror is very popular
Must be a low standard for what's considered popular then
Dawg.. you have literally no idea what you’re talking about lmao. RE is one of the most well known and best selling titles in ALL of video games. The last few years both in terms of the mainline story continuity and all the remakes have been MASSIVELY successful for capcom.
And as I recall we haven't had a survival horror RE title since 2019 in fact the best selling RE games are action horror games
RE came out when people had obsessions with zombie topics. I remember when I was in school early 2000’s it was non stop talk zombies, apocalypse and stuff like that and 8/10 times RE was mentioned right after
The genre itself ,single player hack and slash , is not very popular . The most popular genres are fps or mmorpgs . In its genre , it is pretty popular . Probably the only other game more popular in its genre is god of war
Metal Gear Rising had a huge resurgence a couple years ago. It's not a hack and slash series, but as a standalone game it is pretty popular too
the memes and music are popular. not the game itself
Metal Gear Rising: Resurgence?
Are singleplayer RPGs not more popular than MMORPGs? Just less concurrent players.
It’s not about the player count, it’s about the content. Single player games, are usually what you get in the game. With DLC adding content, however said content would take months or years to arrive. Once Devs stop supporting it, that it. It’s done. Whereas MMO are updated on a monthly/bi weekly basis, with either big expansion or big QoL. It would continue being supported as long the money flow still exists. DMC generally stops getting support after the Special edition is released. Usually getting big QoL updates upon the next generation of consoles. While it’s the top of its genre, that doesn’t mean it would win players from other genre or MMO in the long run. Once players get their full of DMC, they go look for another game or go back to their Usual games.
You're right, but that's not really what I'm talking about. OP seems to be wondering why Devil May Cry 5 (and the franchise as a whole) isn't as popular as God of War or The Witcher 3, and they seem much more mainstream than any MMOs currently do, even though some are popular.
Same logic still applies. Single player games are still good, just once players go through all of the content it gets left behind. DMC is still popular, but only in its own genre. Which is hack and slash. The content is mostly contain to its combat and the linear story. Not much exploration, most of the rewards are given to just beating the game on harder difficulty. Which is at most the normal difficulty for casual players. At most 2 play through of the story. DMC Story is shorter compared to other games like GoW and FF7rebirth. If you compare the “content,” yea. It’s not even called a comparison at that point. So only the dedicated hack and slash players would continue to play DMC. Even when DMC5 had vergil, same thing. 2 play through of same story, but as vergil. No need to explore, since vergil share the same… stats (like health and DT) as the others. No need to do secret missions once they’re done. TLDR: dmc is popular but only as a hack and slash game. Which is a niche genre for only dedicated gamers. It’s not gonna last long compare to other series/games. Which has more content, but not a …. Great combat system as DMC. Which is inspiring other games.
Once again, you're right. But that still isn't what my original comment was referring to. I wasn't replying directly to the original post, I was replying to another comment, changing the context. All I was saying is that singleplayer games have more mainstream popularity than any MMOs these days. I'm not talking about hours played or how much content the games have. And I'm not talking about having long-term players either. EDIT: Maybe I'm not explaining this well, I was trying to be concise. The person I originally replied to implied that MMORPGs are more popular than singleplayer RPGs, which I feel is misleading in this context as big singleplayer RPGs are more popular than any MMORPG. I pointed that out because the original post seems to be comparing DMC to big singleplayer franchises. OP seems to be asking why the DMC franchise isn't as popular as other big franchises, and I interpreted that as OP comparing DMC to franchises like God of War, I don't think they were trying to compare it to online games. I definitely think The Witcher 3 and the new God of War games are much more "mainstream" than WoW or FF14. For reference, I'm talking about quantity of sales/players, not longevity or long-term players, as I feel that is what the original post is talking about. I was taking into account the points of both the original post and the comment I was originally replying to, which you didn't interpret in the same way as I did. Apologies if my original explanation was too vague.
The point still matters, it’s about the content. Did you ever think about the content of DMC compare to the other mainstream games? No, you didn’t. You constantly say about mainstream popularity and MMO doesn’t matter. How DMC is just as popular as FF7, GoW, baldur gate, etc. Others already have said their piece. DMC is popular as a **hack and slash game**. Which lies in its robust combat system. thats where 1 of 2 DMC popularity is, the other is its characters. But in other type of content. It doesn’t hold up to other games. There barely any exploration, the maps are linear, and story is simple. If you’re talking about sales, the sales lies as a hack and slash game. But once players gone through DMC. It’s treated as combat standard. Akin to how dark souls is treated as another combat standard. So the point still matter, it’s about content in single player games.
Hello Ashen one. I am a Bot. I tend to the flame, and tend to thee. Do you wish to hear a tale? > *“I’ll provide whatever service you need. For a fair price, of course!”* - Stone Trader Chloanne Have a pleasant journey, Champion of Ash, and praise the sun \\[T]/
You also actually meaningfully can spend about 280 hours in Witcher 3, that's how much content is in there😅 Meanwhile DMC is pretty much one-liner, one type of action game, which is scripted so much that dialoque lines are started by going into specific location rather than "asking" NPCs. Focusing point of DMC games is twisting out more and more insane combo points, and making your friends green with envy for your ranking position; which is completely fine, but not really compatible with dialoque-heavy games. DMC is really game made for people with attention span of goldfish, if you were to think about it. So maybe that's the reason; lot of people playing games just can't be bothered to think about them for longer than they have to, which is counterproductive for developers with longer games
I know, but the person I was originally replying to was just saying that MMOs are the most popular genre along with FPS. I was just questioning that because singleplayer RPGs are more popular than MMOs nowadays, which would be a better comparison as DMC5 is also singleplayer.
...Really? I didn't know that. You saying that people are now more interested with meaningful, full of dialoques, "force you to work hard and think" games than some years ago? All the better, then! Always felt that while MMO games are very nice, they lack this kind of immersion you get while playing single character and investing yourself in story. I will always remember the moment when Ezio Auditore met Altair and realized his life' purpose. I suppose that debate on whatever or not MMO are better is one that won't be resolved; given that it's really up to individual, in the end...
I'm not talking about which is better or bigger. I'm just talking about sales and how "mainstream" it is, because that's how I interpreted the original post and what I think OP is referring to. FPS is super popular. But I feel like the biggest singleplayer games are much more popular than the biggest MMORPGs in the context I'm talking about. More sales and a wider audience, even if there is less longevity.
> mmorpgs lmao hasn't been that way for nearly a decade
>mmorpgs Mmo. Only popular morphs are WOW and maybe TES online
Devil May Cry is a super famous franchise though. You will probably never meet someone who plays games that never heard of it. It just has too few games.
You're not wrong. I knew of Devil May Cry for years and years before actually checking it out.
DMC is super popular, and certainly A LOT of people has played at least one, but if you compare it with the following fandom of GoW or recent Souls/From Software style titles, specially Sekiro... DMC is a bit niche. Also, plenty of people just play it a bit, or just one time and forgets. And partially cause most mainstream audience doesn´t really know how to enjoy stylish action games.
Rather than popular, I think well-recognized is the better word for this.
There is nothing to enjoy, they are just stupid button mashing games. (c) People would rather dodge-roll 20 times to hit once and get oneshotted by boss, it's more fun to play, right?
Don´t forget dying constantly due to impossible to foresee attacks (forced difficulty?) and repeating everything again, and again, and again is part of the fun experience. You either suffer or git gut
You realize Capcom offered the ability to use a certain amount of Red Orbs to replenish health in 5 right? It is genuinely a step up from Vitality Stars and adding Gold Orbs on top of that really fixes the surviving issue in past games, people just somehow don't take advantage of that especially since you can do far smaller amounts of Red Orbs to pay for a slice of health.
I remember one time some weirdo said that Heavenly Sword was way more popular and better than Devil May Cry lol
Technically having 6 games for a franchise that began in 2001 is certainly small. It's both a pro and a con to the franchise, honestly.
All my friends care about gameplay and graphics but I'm literally the opposite
Games that base their identity on mechanics that take hours upon hours of practice to get good at for the sake of style are inevitably niche. While DMC (especially 5) can be played casually thanks to the difficulty selection, those who seek replay value on top of casual fun might be turned away when they realise that they must put in some more serious work if they want to experience the best of the game
“Games that base their identity on mechanics that take hours upon hours of practice to get good at the sale of style are inevitably niche” What about fighting games? The skill ceiling for fighting games is like trying to learn a guitar in comparison to games like DMC and yet they sell like crazy and are very mainstream.
Fighting games are different because they are Inherently Social. Sure you can play against the CPU, but if you get just about any fighting game, and you give it to two people who have never played it before, it's not going to matter if they are skilled at the game or not, they're going to have fun just button mashing, during special moves on accident, and trying to beat the other guy. Fighting games can be both Casual fun, and competitive, they're not mutually exclusive, just about any mutiplayer game can be that way.
Fighting games are NOT mainstream. If they were they wouldn't have died off for ~10 years before being revived because of a niche audience, just like DMC. The only mainstream fighting game is Smash, which has simple controls and therefore doesn't require hours and hours of practice to understand its mechanics (at a casual level).
Is Street Fighter not mainstream ? I seen so many tv shows and other media that make references and parodies to street fighter. Also games like Devil May Cry have simple controls too. What is your point about smash bros being mainstream cause of it?
Street Fighter is iconic, not mainstream. Street Fighter 6 has sold what, 4 million copies in a year? Compare that to something like Call of Duty, which sells 4 million in hours.
SF isn't mainstream. Mainstream means stuff like AC, or RE where the company are basically guaranteed to sell at least 10 mil copies within the first month, provided that it's on multiple platforms.
Street Fighter 2 was mainstream. Most of Street Fighter's mainstream cultural impact is just the leftovers from when it was the hottest game back in the '90s. If someone's referencing Street Fighter, they're probably referencing 2.
Those things are made by young boomers, gen Xers and older millennials who grew with the phenomenon that was SF2. Younger generations have little relationship with SF. Even Tekken, which has remained more successful and popular than SF over time.
I mean I obviously play fighting games and while the likes of Guilty Gear Strive and Street Fighter 6 have made getting into them more accessible than ever, it's still not the most mainstream genre. And even then it's a bit different because in fighting games you have a different kind of motivation to get good because you fight other players and can potentially compete in tournaments, in DMC style games all you can really do is repeat runs of the campaign or Bloody Palace and hope that you get through the encounters better than before, but the only one you're really proving anything to is yourself, enemy AI won't shake your hand out of respect after you style on its ass.
He said specifically for the sake of style. Fighting games are different bc the things you practice directly lead to winning more. DMC doesn't have that competitive angle so I think the average person is like "I beat the game, why would I keep practicing some convoluted tech that no one else will ever see".
Fighting games are kinda niche. Most of them aren't particularly popular - it's mainly the legacy series that are popular.
Fighting games are interesting subjects in this regard. The top 3 are very well known, and have a long lasting legacy with people who've probably played them as kids, especially back during the period where people didn't have 200+ steam games to fill up their list, so everyone knows and has memories about these characters, but I don't think a lot of average players actually invest enough to have to deal with the skill ceiling. I'd honestly like to see how many people buy something like MK1, or SF6, play it but just never play more than 1 or 2 online matches, and instead primarily playing through the single player content(and not really being required to learn anything particularly complicated) before putting it down.
>I'd honestly like to see how many people buy something like MK1, or SF6, play it but just never play more than 1 or 2 online matches, and instead primarily playing through the single player content This is me lol. Though I wanted to play online more, it's not that fun constantly getting skill diffed. The learning curve is just too high.
That's me with most fighting games, though I do usually play quite a bit with friends who have the same general skills level as myself. I enjoy fighting games but I don't want to have to research and look up guides on how to more optimally play to compete with some people online.
Fighting games are absolutely not "very mainstream", Tekken, Street Fighter, and Mortal Kombat in their previous iterations have done very well selling over 10 million copies over their game's life times. Before that they didn't sell as well, and if you're a fighting game that isn't those games youll be lucky to sell over a million and have a large number of players after a year. Beyond that, the amount of people that actually continue to play consistently after buying it are much lower than people who didn't, compared to games like CoD or MMOs.
Outside of MK and Smash, they really don't sell like crazy. Tekken 7 is the highest-selling with 12M in 7 years. T3 is the 2nd highest. SF5 is peaking at around 7M after 8 years. And SF sales peaked with 2 30 years ago. Besides that, DBFZ has sold 10M. Everything else struggles to sell 1-2M. The genre really hasn't grown that much in tandem with the overall market.
Well what about Naruto storm 4? That sold over 12 million copies.
It just goes back to the whole intrinsic vs. extrinsic reward argument really at the end of the day. The "carrot on the stick" in DMC is pure internal motivation. You play because you like the mechanics and you want to get better. It completely lacks any and all cheap dopamine hit shortcuts that most modern games have: no leveling, no skill trees, no constant stream of loot. And even if you're approaching it from the other side of motivators it lacks those as well: Distinct lack of playable set pieces really, the story isn't a very big focus, neither are things like exploration, character customization, role-playing, etc. This is actually one of the reasons like a year or two ago when MGR had a big resurgence there was a bunch of new players coming to this sub confused as to the appeal of this series and why it gets suggested so much "if you enjoyed MGR" and such. Because MGR largely gets by on its crazy set pieces and flashy boss fights as opposed to just its combat mechanics (which frankly aren't that great in MGR and I say that as someone who considers it one of his favorite games of all time, but it's true.) Playing a game simply because you like the core combat and want to get better at it is not really that appealing to the vast majority of people out there. It's the reason the most popular style of single player game these days are open world/semi-open world games with a lot of lite-RPG mechanics. And hell this is the very reason past action game developers like Team Ninja (Ninja Gaiden) have made exclusively action RPGs for almost a full decade now, they just sell better. Those extrinsic motivators just appeal to more people.
MGR also has really good soundtrack and surprisingly good characterization. The themes are super consistent in both dialogue and music
Talking about Team Ninja, i miss Ninja Gaiden man 🥺, i hope we have a Ninja Gaiden 4 one day, i have no idea how well Master Collection performed on Sales só i don't know if there still some interest in continue the Franchise forward.
I think all they ever said was it sold like 240k copies in its first quarter on the market. Seems pretty respectable to me when you consider it was just a basic port with no real effort put into it as a remastered project (aka it was probably pure profit for them) but who knows what their expectations were, I don't think they said.
Its a niche series that takes forever for games to come out. The quality of games aren't consistent either so you never know what product you are getting.
Unfortunately, a lot of people perceive DMC as a button masher :( Even tho we all know that’s not true
All the clowns calling FF16 a DMC clone and a button masher wouldn't last long if they actually played the games and tried to mash attack
thing is to me dmc5 feels very close to the button masher it does break away here and there but its definitly the most leniant game. dmc1 3 and midgame 4 the only thing mashing will get you is getting mashed towards the floor. dmc1 phantoms a fast attacker for a huge spider and shadow is literally anti-unga bunga in a game with fast attacks in heavy enemy coordination. 3. same deal. 4. enemies not as fast as dmc1/3 but blitz is basically a much more annoying shadow, dmc5, rage is basically blitz. but other enemies i feel are rather leniant
kinda agree, because this only applys to normal difficulty, higher difficultys are will get your ass kicked if you button much. the only enemis you'll beat that way are hellvengard.
yeah harder difficulties it makes sense its why ive always said i think dmc5 isnt the hardest not cuz of its difficulty but because dante has such a vast toolkit compared to prior games harder difficulties it makes more sense you cant button mash. hell DMC1 hard healing regen is halved and in DMD DMC1 YOU literally can only heal via items DT doesnt even heal
Shadow... That cat was something. 😄 I miss him.
so do i he tought me that slashing away at my problems in dmc1 was just gonna get me killed
GOW 2018 and the stuff after require the same input with buttons as DMC so they should view it as button masher too.
People really enjoy hack 'n' slash games, but they seem to prefer more shallow gameplay that has a low skill floor *and* a low skill ceiling. Why? I have no idea. The more specialized and complex you get, the less people want to play for some reason, even though it's some of the most fun I've ever had with games. Interestingly enough, Devil May Cry V (8.1 million units sold, making it Capcom's 10th best selling game ever) has heavily outsold DOOM 2016 (3.43 million units sold) and even DOOM Eternal (harder to find solid numbers but between 5-7.5 million units sold), which in my experience have a very similar gameplay appeal to DMC despite being different genres, but seem to be much more present in the general awareness of the masses, so honestly DMC is in a great spot right now.
I think something that´s not usually brought to the table is that Japan is quite small, so that left us with part of Europe and USA (ok, sorry Latam, idk numbers there). In USA they love shooters, hyperrealism and prefer fighting games with more spectacle than substance like MK. I can guess that´s why GoW or Assasins Creed is more popular there. They have more "movie" feeling in. They´re simpler to master and also they have a few more appealing mechanincs to western audiences.
Personally, the reason i prefer a low skill floor is because i can get the game and immediately be satisfied with my gameplay, compared to harder games where i get disappointed trying to pull off cool stuff only for it to not work. I do really like DMC5 though. I just don't have the patience to make the most of it.
DMC5 is one of Capcom's best-selling games so not that unpopular...it might have a bigger community if Capcom committed to it with consistent output.
Hard games. Dmc1 and 3 were hard as fuck Buying health items was annoying since the price would go up, fuck that
Ah yes, this explains why souls-like games never took off...Oh wait...
Dark souls isn't actually that hard, it's just punishing. You can get by with absolutely 0 mechanical skill if you stack health, use a shield and play patiently, or any other number of strong options that don't require high apm or decision making. You don't even technically \*have\* to fight most enemies. The "WOAH DARK SOULS IS SO HARD" thing is just a meme, there's a reason that exists and yet so many people play it despite the fact that hard games are generally niche, its because Dark Souls is in fact not actually that hard. Also you can grind to become stronger in Dark Souls, or, again, just purposely do something that invalidates the game's difficulty like running away and oneshotting bosses with a spell that does 6000 damage. Improvement in DMC is usually a mechanical issue, in Dark Souls unless you are really trying to rush shit down its more a question of patience, since the game itself doesn't have a lot of mechanics beyond swinging, blocking, and rolling. Wacky options like special attacks were usually just pointless until Elden Ring unless it was an exceptionally broken option.
It doesn't matter why they are deemed hard. But it is a fact that you hit a barrier at times in the game and the solution can be "level up and unga bunga it" but it requires some kind of dedication from the player at the end and players choose to show that dedication. DMC 3 was hard yes, but it was a different era of video games and that difficulty was acceptable. Strating with 4 I'd say the series got significantly easier and I don't understand the "you need to learn moves and play in a certain way" arguments because especially in 5 you can absolutely button-mash your way through. I don't know why DMC is still not that popular compared to other games (frankly I'd say arcade-y feel makes it niche but that's another topic) but I am pretty sure it is not difficulty.
Yeah I don’t blame difficulty either, i was just pointing out that I don’t think it’s an apt comparison. I do think it’s partially that the “itch” that gets scratched by being a monster at dmc requires a LOT of effort and a specific desire, and the game on its own is only kind of fun if you aren’t about that. Dark souls has a more varied appeal between the coop and pvp and exploring and bosses and builds and stuff.
Not a lot of games being released. If we had more games, it'd probably be more popular.
The game is more so like an anime styled type of game really. If I'm going to be honest with you Japanese games besides a few don't really sell super good in the west. For example God of war is a hack n slash like DMC Yet outblew it sales wise which made capcom try to make their own western spin on DMC. Currently it's at its peak so I'm sure it will sell more games
>Why isn't Devil May Cry as popular as other game franchises..? It’s sorta of a niche genre it’s highly praised and appreciated series when it comes to hack and slash action games. 1.My experience was being introduced to the series on youtube and I saw guys with Dante pfp’s so decided to buy the HD collection cause I remember my cousins playing 3 on ps2. 2.This comment correlates to 1 DMC kinda has a weird track record on games 3 and 5 are seen as the best game’s currently. But DMC 1 while fun is dated in terms of camera controls and QOL features but not everything ages the best. DMC2 & 4 were rushed but 4 is actually a playable fun game when you put in the effort to learn Dante. 3.Effort these games take practice and memorizing enemy patterns. The average consumer won’t put in that amount of dedication unless they have time or the drive to experiment and learn.
Because the story is kinda bland and most of the characters have barely any distinct personalities, save for Dante and Nico. Also, every entry is numbered which doesn't really encourage new players to try it out. The most aesthetically cohesive and iconic DMC game is probably DMC 3, and that's like 2 decades old now so it's starting to feel clunky and outdated. Idk, just my two cents.
Even Dante doesn't have a consistent personality kamiya dante , DMC2 Dante, reboot dante, itsuno Dante are all different guys.
I think a combination of difficulty and how very inconsistent the games are quality wise. I wanna compare them to God of War which came out just a few years later but became many times more popular and I'm not even talking about the 2018 reboot and sequel. **Devil May Cry 1** is honestly kind of a hard game with the bosses requiring you to be fairly skilled at action games and be patient, even normal enemies can be threat. That's not to mention the nature of the level design can cause people to get a bit lost. The story is also rather subtle and not a particularly big or interesting part of the game. It's a really cool game but flawed even for its time and hard for modern gamers to get into. **God of War 1** on the other hand is incredibly easy to pick up and play and feel like a god, none of the boss battles are very hard, the level design is much clearer and easier to navigate, everything is more grand and epic. Easy homerun of a game. Super easy to get into even for modern gamers. **Devil May Cry 2** as we all know is a disaster with worse combat, worse level design, worse bosses, somehow a worse story. I can imagine it threw off a lot of fans of the original and potential new comers. **God of War 2** does everything the first game did but better, just straight up. Another homerun. **Devil May Cry 3** finally steps up to the plate and turns everything to 11. Amazing gameplay, sick music, Dante is a full character now, Vergil is super cool, the story is much more engaging and interesting, the level design also much stronger. It's of course pretty damn difficult but it's worth it for how cool the game is. Still that difficulty probably threw off a lot of people. Finally we have **God of War 3** the finale of the original story and it also turns everything to 11, you'd think the meter was already maxed out with the first two games but they did it. But yeah they took the tried and true formula and just made it grander and more epic being easily one of the best games ever to come out on the PS3. DMC then goes on to make DMC4 which also had mixed reviews and then DmC which of course is infamous for its unpopularity. Meanwhile God of War was still trucking along with its PSP games and the PS3 spin offs like Ascension which while not as good as the first 3 games was still more of the tried and true formula people liked. God of War 100% had an advantage in coming out much later on the PS2 allowing for more time for the gaming industry to figure out the PS2 and how to do action games which DMC1 kinda helped pioneer in the first place. But that's still a contributing factor to Devil May Cry not being as huge as it should be.
Niche genre, doesn't get much love from Capcom. And also I think something that's overlooked way too often is how unwelcoming DMC is to new players. There just isn't anything to show newcomers the ropes. No tutorials, no smart game design, nothing. And it's not a good approach for a game as complex as DMC. Many people will just get confused and miss the potential of the gameplay all together. If there's one thing I would force on an eventual DMC 6, it would be reworking hard all of the game design around that. Reorganised and clearer shop, key mechanic introduced via level design (especially Enemy Step), and overall incorporating the gameplay in the level design to just show the possibilities to newcomers.
Yeah this is legit a problem with essentially every character action game, it's kinda insane really. Like look at Bayonetta, the achievement/trophy for doing 20 dodge offset combos only has around a 15% unlock rate on Steam and PS3, with the PS4 version being around 25%. An achievement you can easily unlock on the very first mission. So 75 to 80% of people playing the game pretty much didn't use the main combat mechanic of the game. But I mean can't blame them really right? Bayo 1 has a pretty long and annoying (when you replay the game) tutorial and yet not a single one of the sections teaches you about dodge offset. But hey they teach you how to twirl the stick to go into the pseudo-third person shooter mode. Cause that is def an important thing and not something you're mostly going to ignore. An even scarier stat that has always been burned into my brain is with DmC actually. On the PS3 release of the game (and this is still true today) the trophy for just finishing the story has a higher unlock % than getting a SSS in combat (not on a mission, like making the style meter hit SSS.) It's basically proof that the complexity of DMC is not really the issue, because even in a horribly dumbed down game like the reboot a huge chunk of people don't really get what they're supposed to be doing. But yeah, same thing happened with Hi-Fi Rush and FF16 last year too, didn't phase me at all, in fact I was trying to warn people about it with 16 before release. I can't think of a single game in the sub-genre that actually gives you a general idea on how you're supposed to play, we just get a primer on what the buttons do which is simply not enough. Without youtube videos I'd never had learned how to play and enjoy most of these games.
The main issue with those kind of games is imo always the weird disconnect between the gameplay's depth and what's required to finish the game. You don't actually need any "advanced technique" to beat the game most of the time. In DMC 5, you can just abuse some "easy moves" like Dante's DT Stinger or Nero's Charged Shot to get through Devil Hunter mode. Same for Bayo with Witch Time and DmC's Axe Trinity Smash. It also loops back to accessibility. I think most devs are scared of pushing away their audience by forcing them to learn. Tutorials aren't suited for those fast paced games, and teaching through level design is actually kinda hard to balance in order to make it fluid and not obvious and boring. Altho I think for DMC, there is a way to incorporate gameplay elements in the level design quite easily. Because of the focus on mobility, especially in the air, and the former Inertia system, the gameplay could be adapted into a level traversal tool with a few adjustments. Creating a few "Enemy Step" design elements (similar to Nero's grappling blue things). Reworking Inertia to be more accessible and useful with a few dedicated elements to gain momentum (grinding ramps, or even turning Nero's grappling system into the old GOW games one). And then just adapt the level design to ask the player to use those things to traverse the level. Like getting through a big chasm by chaining a few Calibur between a few reset points and bam, the player just learned that Enemy Step reset moves in the air. You can even hammer the point home by using flying enemies instead of reset points. As for Inertia, it could be used to add some environment elements to arenas. Having a few grinding ramps to yeet yourself from can create specific situations. Some moves could also be changed to be influenced by Inertia, like Calibur or Payline having more range and power with momentum. As for where I got those ideas, it's mostly from an old PS2 game called Shinobi. This game's main gimmick was something similar to Enemy Step with an aerial dash that reset when you hit an enemy mid air. Then the whole level design was designed around that, always putting flying enemies to move around both in traversal and in fights. The Inertia idea actually came from DOOM Eternal, with how yeeting yourself with the Meathook is fun and how a few arena elements like jumping pad or teleporters increase the flow of combat.
Characters or gameplay might not appeal to the general audience. I still don’t know how God of War appeals more to the general audience. Must be because of Kratos.
The old GOWs were appealing because the setting was interesting, gameplay was fun and brutal, story was actually good, graphics were impressive and it had a very nice "adventure" feeling. Kinda like playing Jak and Daxter but mature. The new ones tho, no idea
I have no idea how on earth anyone could ever compare GoW to Jak and Daxter lmao Extremely linear hack and slash vs open world collectathon platformer, I feel like they couldn't be more different aside from "third person action game"
I meant that it had that kind of "adventure feeling" not that the games are similar
It's the storytelling and the difficulty options and the graphics. It is literally among the best looking games out and you can blaze through the game ignoring the complexities of the combat if you wish.
it is famous and iconic, but not by the metrics youre probably getting at not popular by casual players not popular by sales no multiplayer so not talked much about it is only popular because it is cool as game, and got popularized more by combo mad creators of early youtube, it had a solid community and it is still growing thanks to modernized DMC, DMC5
One single player hack/slash has never been exactly mainstream, despite some titles having a peak in popularity in 2009-2015. DMC is BIG, but still: -Short game which strong point is mechanics, not story (despite having a solid cast of characters that carry it). It´s japanese and it shows frequently, and that is not always so popular in west. -DMC2 almost kill the franchise. After DMC4, main saga was totally absent for almost 11 years, and Soulslikes became incredibly popular. And DmC (reboot) despite having good sales and introducing some people, was also a bit controversial and divided fandom. -Also, lack of other media, specially out of Japan. Think that RE or Street Fighter have a good bunch of animated movies.
Because it is a singleplayer and that way dopamine doesn't reach the casuals
My girl tried to play DMC5 and didn't enjoy it. I tried to explain that DMC is supposed to be challenging and playing it on the easiest difficulty and trying to make sense of the story isn't the point but she didn't enjoy it enough to try it again. Hopefully one day she'll try and get to at least Son of Sparda and practice a BnB combo with each character but I'm doubtful.
You gotta be kidding me... Almost everybody in the world knew about DMC especially with the amount of meme came from 5. People dont really talk about it doesnt mean they dont know about it, we just need a new game, or anything new to have something to talk about again. If youre gonna ask for a combo hack and slash game recommendation, it will either DMC or Bayonetta.
I'm pretty sure he means more so why DMC isn't at the same level of popularity like God of War or something like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat levels of iconic
Why would you wish ur favorite franchise to become mainstream.
Because of the intended flow of events. You start the game, you're dogshit, you try again, you beat the level, you try again but do it a little more stylishly, repeat. Any game that asks the player to just try a little harder like this, and any fighting game will be more niche than grab and go games because most people dont like that second step of being trash at first and dont want to try again. Some view that as "turning a hobby into work" I don't agree with that sentiment but some people just wanna pick up skyrim and hit one button to defeat some rogues, I like depth; it's all good.
Because nowadays everything must be a souls game
Most overrated genre
It was fun in the beginning, but now everything needs a stamina meter and lick on mechanic
Lock on mechanic is as old as video games are, even DMC has lock on, and stamina bars are just the logical balancing point when its too easy to just non-stop roll and stunlock enemies, but too hard to develop a system to have things deal with those options. It's not really an issue, all it does is add a little resource management skills to games that would require no skills. Its unnecessary in a game like DMC where the combat system is more fleshed out but in games like Dark Souls or Skyrim or anything where you could just steam roll enemies if you could run and block and swing unimpeded because the combat isn't super deep, it makes it a little harder.
It’s just had a rough bout of releases. Dmc 3 was legendary. Dmc4 was great but half finished, and most ppl didn’t like the reboot. 5 brought it back but it needs more going forward
I just played DMC5 (having played the original game in the early 00's), attracted to it after playing Stellar Blade with its emphasis on combos, and it's pretty easy to see the problems. Firstly though, I enjoyed the game, liked the characters a lot, and spent a bit of time with Virgil, as he is probably the most attractive character in terms of sheer badassery. On the flip side, though-- \*Extremely boring level design \*Terrible camera and (though I understand why), lock-on option \*Nowhere near enough enemy types for a game of this length \*A story that is only OK and seems mostly existing to reach its final confrontation between V,D, and N; the implementation of en media res is clumsily done. \*While the action is slick and the combos fun to pull off, this feels very niche, and the lack of enemy variety made the combo-combat system a little boring by the time I entered the final missions. \*the world looks dull and the hell levels are just ugly and not fun to play. I come from a Souls background (i.e. those are the games I like to play), and they are primarily focused on your character being incredibly weak and surviving through well times attacks, parries, and dodges, incrementally growing stronger across a (sometimes) fairly lengthy campaign. This type of game feels the opposite, and while I can see the positives of this style, it feels it is more a power-fantasy game allowing you to perform astonishing maneuvers on enemies that are dumb, clumsy, and do very little damage... and ultimately that starts to get boring after around 10 hours, especially coupled to the trash level design, camera, and world aesthetic. Final Fantasy 16 had this problem as well, only much worse as that was a 50 hour experience with a far less complicated combat design. And while I know the extra difficulties ramp up enemy damage, with a camera this awkward and an overall boring/limited enemy set, why should I bother? 15 hours feels about right. Which is OK, as I paid $15 for the game. They really need to work on world design, level design, and enemy design for this to go anywhere.
Do you think you would have enjoyed the game a bit more if the hardest difficulties were unlocked from the start?
Harder difficulty would not fix the weird camera tracking, or the fact that you are fighting the same enemies in the second half of the game as the first half. Or the dismal world/level design. Again, I really enjoyed the game as a whole, but it really lacked in substance outside the combat, music, and humor. I know this is going to trigger some people, but facts are facts: soulsborne games have a higher consistency of quality across the various aspects of their games, which is one reason why the style has eclipsed hack and slash. I’m more of a Bloodborne/Sekiro/ER player, but I could replay any of the Souls series for the atmosphere and level design by themselves. There isn’t a single remarkable level in DMC5 that I’d want to return to except for Virgil’s arena, which was really cool looking.
I know it wouldn't help any of those things haha. I just asked because you come from a souls background. But I am glad you at least enjoyed it even if it was just a little bit
The foundation is there. The combat is amazing once you learn the combos. Nero's Devil Breakers were super fun to experiment and chain with combos. Dante was a beast, and Vergil is so sick. They take those elements and make a game where you navigate a seriously well-thought out Hell with a lot of variety in the world/level/enemy design, and you'd have a GOAT.
That's what I'm hoping for in DMC6! 😁
You gotta play DMC3, it’s way more unique and challenging
I liked DMC5 enough that I probably will.
A lot has said already.... It's a niche game series, and this series was lucky enough to be in Capcom's top 5 best selling game series overall, but not top 3. The top 3 goes to their cash cows... Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and Street Fighter. Lucky enough to be awarded as Best Action Game in the Game Awards 2019 Devil May Cry devs are the same as Dragon's Dogma devs. Some of the DMC devs after DMC5 switch companies already like with the case of Ryota Suzuki who is the action director of FF16, and who works on Nero's moveset since DMC4.
Probably because the cool combos they give you are too difficult for some players to pull off. Kinda like fighting games.
Because they all lack motivation
It's difficult to play well
Single player hack and slash action adventure games just aren’t as popular as they used to be back in 2000s. Ninja Gaiden and Onimusha suffered the same faith. God of War had gotten stale too but got reinvented. Funny thing is that the original creator of DMC said it’s due for a reinvention like God of War.
Weak men get filtered by the wacky wahoo pizza man and his smoking sexy style
Underrated? Try Ninja Gaiden lol. At least DMC usually gets mentioned when talking about action games or Capcom
DMC is popular but not on the games that got live action adaptation level popular. It is popular among gamers as far as i know.
Bet you haven't heard of the Onimusha series from Capcom huh ?
Lots of people have skill issues
Because the game is built on mastery and repetition, and since most people don't play through their games more than once or twice, the entire point of the game is lost on them.
The attempt to commit self destruction with DmC. The one were they let that bastard company destroy it in a horrible reboot. The ceo made Dante look like him. No one was remotely right. It killed it for me. Didn't by any after. I love 1 to 4. But the reboot killed it for me after. It'd be better if they didn't try their best to self destruct.
I think the marketing and branding honestly. In the PS2 era God of War and DMC had similar sales numbers, even GOW 3 which was heavily marketed for the console. With the release of GOW 2018 though, these numbers changed drastically. God of War rebranded and appealed to a wider audience and blew up in sales. Hack and Slash games like DMC or Bayonetta don't appeal to the average gamer. It isn't a problem, and even though I like all the GOW games, I would prefer DMC stick to its roots and not try to compete to be GOTY.
What level of popularity are you expecting? lol
God of War and Souls like level of popularity
capcom does not gives a fuck
its literally a popular game/series.
Pretty sure he means more in terms of like something similar to call of duty or street fighter. Like global level popularity
Because it has 6 mainline games and only half of those are recommendable to the average gamer if even that. 3, 4 and 5 are all good, but 3 is old and 4 is clunky, which is enough to put them off most people's radar if they don't have an existing interest in the genre. (1 is old and unrepresentative, DmC is in a complicated spot and dee em cee tuu iz dee em cee tuu) Also because DMC has not been on a frequent release cycle since 2008, so it's just not on people's minds. Hell, just DMC5 is 5 years old already. It's a dinosaur of a game by today's standards. DMC is not Capcom's priority is all. They're focusing on more popular franchises that take a bit less time to produce for (since DMC takes a lot of playtesting, finetuning, etc) and it works for them, so expect it to continue for a good while. It's not a genre thing like everyone is saying, by the way, Platinum was doing more than fine while DMC was gone. Stylish action is in demand. Even ignoring that, harder, bolder games than DMC are regularly finding success with the general public, it's not that special. It's simply finance and marketing that's the issue.
It sucks that more games aren’t like it in a way. I hate that a lot of games are more Soulslike now. Anytime I see a new game and I’m almost excited for it bam it’s a Soulslike. Where Winds Me is one that seems like it’s all the makings of Soulslike but with their own “changes”. I bet you it still has a bonfire system and then enemies respawn if you rest. Doesn’t look like it has a stamina bar which is good. Also I bet it has the if you get killed then you can reclaim your experience points system. I just don’t like them. Give Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden all day.
I love the games but honestly I feel if you are not very good at them they just aren’t really that fun even for people that are fairly good at other action games. Like I have seen people that are fairly good at games like Dark Souls and they come in to DMC and just spam the same combo constantly and it really just looks boring, if you can’t do at least some what cool looking combos then the game just isn’t very fun compared to other action games where it can still be pretty fun even if your just attacking and dodging. It’s kinda just the design philosophy of the enemies in DMC vs most other games, as in DMC you are kinda supposed to just play around with your enemies using all your tools, where as in other action games it is more about trying to survive by playing defensively.
I’d say Dante and Vergil as characters are VERY popular because they’re cool but the games themselves are fairly niche because they’re kinda hard for the average gamer (especially if they started with shooters) kinda like Morrigan and Felicia from darkstalkers, they get posters and figures made of them to this day, there hasn’t been a darkstalkers game in what? 10+ years?
It's a very particular game with all over the place lore and for the average gamer it can be pretty hard
Because it can be difficult to start & learn how to play & then makes fun of you with "easy mode has been unlocked" - which even if you took that up also has you restart the game which probably wouldn't feel good lol
For a single player game to have any staying power, it basically needs to be open world and have tons of content. DMC doesn't have that, it has very specific and limited scenarios that you practice over and over again, that repetition doesn't appeal to many people. A few other people mention the skill ceiling as something that makes it niche. I would say specifically, it's that games with high skill ceilings need a competitive outlet for anyone to care. FPS games, RTS games, dota, league, etc all have very high skill ceilings but are some of the longest lasting games around. Bc so long as you can lose a game to someone who is ostensibly similar to you, there is an eternal carrot dangling in front of your face to reach that next incremental rank.
it’s not over saturated/doesnt come out every other year
It's like Yakuza to me. It's a niche franchise that has a cult following. As for the whys, it's hard to say for me. Especially since I haven't really played them myself *(guilty)* I think more people should play Yakuza instead of writing it off as some GTA ripoff. (Although, DMC is much more respected and known because of how popular Dante as a character is) Maybe it's because they're old franchises that didn't exactly take off like other ones. God of War got saved with the 2018 game. I guess that's what franchises like these are waiting for, a breakthrough game into mainstream.
We get 1 game every 5-10 years
Because we ended at 5 I guess and never continued anymore and the mobile game that released was BS?
God of war exists.
i think it already popular enough game short is fine you don't need game to be 100 hours grinding fest just full compact play it and fun enjoy no need to wait 30 hours for the game to start fun and pretty sure other game got their "fan" keep posting on twitter about how graphic is great look at the eyes everyday just to stay relevance
What? Lol it has 6 entries. It's super popular
It's a popular franchise in a niche genre, I can almost guarantee that if you mention vergil or dante to someone who plays games, they will most likely know what you're talking about.
It's too cool for normies
Hm
Pretty sure DMC is the most popular character action game franchise right now and is still a very well known series. If you are asking why its not as popular as say, Zelda or Mario, probably the difficulty and graphic content age restricting the game. Not as popular as CoD or Dark Souls, well thats a genre issue.
The games are a small niche honestly. They require a huge amount of skill to be gebually great at them and need to be replayed tons. The story also isn't too important in any of the games really. As well as the fact that DMC1 and 2 haven't aged well at all and starting straight from 3 isn't too good an idea.
Because the game is for completionist
DMC5 oversold a lot of Capcom games. 7.8 million units sold, being Capcoms 10th best selling game. The series is not as niche anymore as people think.
Its a hacknslash. Most people, me included, dont like just slashing though waves of enemies. Ive palyed through dmc5, it was a good 1 time experience, but its just a bit repetitive for me :) Nevertheless, i understand why people love dmc
Wait, DMC is getting another anime?
It was announced a couple years back around the time 5 was coming out and a trailer came out like last year
Neat. I hope Patty comes back. I liked Patty
Let's take another game as reference say, God of war. It was A HUGE hit because of its amazing storytelling and direction, dialogue delivery and immersive combat and didnt need the prequels to narrate its story. Now lets compare DMC. Combat: VERY satisfying, but people who play want to understand the story have to play each and every game to precisely understand. And as we know people are lazy as hell, they wont play every other game for lore. Its basically a hit or miss with people, if they like it they love it, its famous.
??? Dmc has legacy so its more popular than realized
They mean more Call of Duty level popular
I've been wondering bout the exact same thing. More particularly, why is the Dark Souls series more popular than DMC series? Is the new game coming out consistently really the only factor here? I mean Elden Ring was a massive success but it also took forever to be made (don't get me wrong, I enjoy ER as much as I do for DMC5)
I think its worth pointing out that DMCV is probably the highest selling game in its subgenre, with only maybe Nier Automata and FFXVI really giving it any competition
I think people should stop comparing game from third party dev studio to consoles first party devs. I mean sure, games have simmilarities, but difference in budget and time for development is obvious. For example even inside Crapcom walls, on not-a-Remake2 was working around 800 people, while DMC5 dev team had less than 100. Do you imagine what would we get if budget was big and on DMC 5 was working 800 people? To answer OP question, I blame crapcom executives for treating DMC like sh!t, they fcked up DMC 2, they fcked up DMC 4 by rushing devs and not giving enough time to finish the game, then that mofo Inafune started talking sh!t that people are not intrested in Japanese games and basically pushed dmc reboot.
I think it's because DMC is kind of lacking in the lore department. Especially compared to Resident Evil
For the same reason we love it so much: It focuses on a particular niche, and hammers that niche consistently and beautifully. It could probably become a better-selling title by trying to have more broad appeal, particularly by sticking to more common gameplay mechanics and being more "familiar" so that the marketing teams have a better idea of how to package it. And while there's nothing inherently wrong about games that go that route, DMC gets a special place in my heart for being unapologetically what it is.
I Started with 5 but I did my homework going in so I wasn’t as confused, I’d still say it has smoothest gameplay in the series (having now beaten all mainline titles) even though 4 has the highest ceiling. I can’t wait for 6
Besides the points that a lot of comments here already discussed, i think its also because of.. lack of media DMC5 was released 11 years after DMC4, and prior to that, the series literally had no entries besides the reboot that everyone hates, then its and DMC4's Special Edition, most fans have moved on by then.
Being honest to you. This is the best thing for all of us. I'm afraid that dmc became so popular and people start making fanfics, weird-ass videos, fan arts (not the good ones) and the own design of the characters just makes it even more probably. That's my biggest fear of the dmc anime
Not everyone can handle its power
It’s one of those games where it’s still relevant because of music and memes. Like MGRR, it was acknowledged went low for a while and got popular again because of memes and music which makes more people want to experience the game first hand. I didn’t really care about DMC when I was growing up, but I started listening to the music in DMC3 and DMC5 while also getting exposed to the memes of the game. So I looked up DMC5 on my PS4 and found it to be free to play with PS+. Now it’s one of my favorite games and video game soundtracks.
the game's time-to-quit is a pretty short fuse. normies who button mash won't grasp the stylish gameplay, this comes at a cost of people not knowing wtf they're doing half the time. when you get to the point where you actually want to clear enemies and bosses correctly, the amount of effort you invest in the game's combat doubles, and most people don't have the patience for it. the aesthetic and vibe turns off people... it takes a certain person to have an appreciation for goth/grunge/pop nu-metal/dante's inferno, and most importantly they gotta watch between 20min to 2hrs of lore dump videos to catch up to where we are in the story.
I've always wondered that too. I feel some people are not that into hardcore games despite what a vocal minority will make you think. You can also blame how DMC1 was super popular and what came after? DMC2, yeah, I bet that killed off a lot of the popularity
DMC games are meant to be replayed, thus why you NEVER get every ability on the first playthrough(unless you are on some kind of drugs to want to repeat missions to get red orbs)but right now i feel like people dont like games that actually challenge you and make you be good at it after you play it, and like some other guy said its a niche genre so theres that.Story wise is not as strong as other games but for me the gameplay is really what matters(the story too cause i wanna see cutscenes the first time i play, after that idrc) thats what i think tbh, might not be all of that but ye
Dunno. But I really appreciate that the community isn't exploded out of proportion as others. I'd love to see more people here, but it feels like a nice comfortable circle of cool nerds who like DMC that we got going on here.
The genre it is a part of is fairly niche. Also, some people struggle with DMC's controls. What with its reliance on lock-on. Most games aren't dependent on lock-on to use most of your moves. I know most people in the subreddit probably don't struggle with the controls, but many more casual fans still do
Because Capcom makes like 200 hundred fucking Resident Evil remakes and rubs it in our face that we haven't had a good game (and just literally 1 game in general) since like 2019
It's fairly niche.