DmC a true, "intense" collaboration with Capcom

Capcom and Ninja Theory have both said the latest Devil May Cry game, DmC, is very much a product of both houses, not a case of the developer working independently - especially when it comes to combat.

Speaking both for himself and for series producer Motohide Eshiro, Capcom Japan's David Chrissop said that DmC is "not a collaboration in name only".

"We really are working together, injecting as much Capcom know-how as we can," he told Capcom Unity .

"It's a fairly intense collaboration, particularly when you get down to the combat," Alex Jones from Capcom US, the game's co-producer, chimed in.

"There're minute discussions about shaving frames, and 'no no, have you tried hit stop this way?' So it is very much like a symposium of Street Fighter-level combat stuff when we're over there.

"The combat is at the heart of any stellar DMC experience."

Ninja Theory's creative director, Tameem Antoniades, agreed.

"I guess you could say that combat is the foundation of Devil May Cry. Combat is what we've been putting most of our efforts in so far.

"When we into this game Capcom was very keen to impart that knowledge."

Antoniades joked that Motohide had a gun pointed at his back "to make sure we nail the combat, the timing, the fluidity of the controls and make it feel like a Capcom game."

However, Capcom didn't pick Ninja Theory at random, but entere dinto a collaboration with the developer because of its particular strengths, as Jones pointed out.

"Having said that, [Ninja Theory is] amazing at story and mood and atmosphere, and we've given them full latitude to make the game they wanna make in that sphere. So in a lot of ways it's been a very productive two-way relationship with us leveraging our strengths and we're pretty happy with where we are at this point," he concluded.

DmC is expected on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 sometime next year.