Dante's Inferno Message Board

Sharp-eyed rumor hunter @supererogatory brings word that we might not have seen the last of EA's goofy Dante's Inferno franchise, despite the lukewarm reception of the first game. The official bio page for writer Joshua Rubin, who worked on Assassin's Creed 2, says he was "the sole writer for a Major Unannounced Sequel from Visceral Studios at EA Games."

Visceral is, of course, the EA label behind the Dead Space series and the first Dante's Inferno. Just to really rile up the rumormongers, Rubin's bio then links to a "hint" ... that leads to the Super Bowl trailer for Dante's Inferno.

The obvious implication is that Visceral's working on Dante's Inferno 2, which would be a sequel to an action game based on a 14th-century epic poem. We should probably start thinking up subtitles now. Dante's Back? Hell to Pay? Luciforever? Beatwice? Have at it.

In a recent job listing on Gamasutra, EA's Visceral Games studio put out a feeler for "an experienced Environment Artist for an existing action/adventure franchise." We might normally excuse this as a job listing for the currently-in-development Dead Space 2, but the listing further details the project as "a major opportunity to contribute to a bold new franchise, heavily backed by the EA Games Label ... the sequel to a major new IP at the award-winning Visceral Games."

The listing concludes with another vaguely suggestive line about creating a sequel that will "set new quality standards and make the franchise the world-leader in the action/melee-combat genre." Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are mentioned as target consoles. All these clues add up to reasonable speculation that Visceral is recruiting for a sequel to this year's Dante's Inferno.

In December, the first game's producer was all for the idea of a sequel, but admitted that continuing to follow the path laid out by the The Divine Comedy source material, which would lead to Purgatory and perhaps on into Heaven, might not make for a great game -- especially in the action/melee-combat genre. Perhaps then, a Dante's Inferno sequel could take a few liberties with the story.

[Via Superannuation]

#review The new expansion to Dante's Inferno was partially developed by me. And one of you — one of you how can't appreciate sublime game design — gave my contribution one out of five stars. More »

On a crusade for some fresh Avatar gear? A couple of new Dante's Inferno items just popped up in the Avatar Marketplace, including the cuddly little Phlegyas Pet you see above. Look at the 'lil guy, ain't he cute?

On top of that, there's also a branded tee and hat, as well as the full outfit Dante sports in the game. Hey, it's gotta be better than watching your Avatar sew some thread through its flesh, right?

Hi, I’m Greg Rizzer, lead designer on the Trials of St. Lucia. I’m really excited to launch this expansion pack for fans of Dante’s Inferno.

The Trials of St. Lucia is a unique DLC package. First off, we are introducing an entirely new playable character: St. Lucia. She has her own set of moves and features much more aerial style combat that Dante. Our character team did an amazing job with her. She looks amazing and adds new depth — also, I think her wings look amazing!

Second, we have added online cooperative play. The ability to be able to go online and fight hordes of creatures with a friend is really fun. I think the co-op feature is something that fans of this game genre will appreciate.

Also, with this new DLC, we’re shipping an entire Trial creation editor! This is a cool and easy-to-use tool that will let you create your own Trials, play them, and even upload them to the community so other people can rate them and attempt to beat your master creation.

That’s a lot of content for $10! But that’s not all: In addition to those big features, we are also shipping 40 Trials that were created and tuned here at EA. If you beat them all, you will be rewarded with Trophies. Lastly, the co-op mode includes Leaderboards so you can check to see the points you’ve earned as a player, and as a Trials creator, and track them against other Trials of St. Lucia players.

There’s literally hundreds of hours of gameplay here. Make sure you pick it up and get online to play. I’ll see you on the Leaderboards!

#clips Dante's Inferno's Trials of St. Lucia downloadable content is due out this Thursday, giving players the opportunity to create and share their own hellish combat levels. Here's how that works. More »

So, you've learned how to stand a better chance at surviving the user-generated arenas in Dante's Inferno's upcoming DLC expansion, "Trials of St. Lucia." Aren't you curious as to how those titular trials get created? The video above has a pretty good primer on all the different options afforded to the game's more creative players, as well as a few tips on how to make your trial tough, but winnable. Hey, even folks condemned to the deepest pits of Hades deserve a fair shot.

The upcoming "Trials of St. Lucia" expansion for Dante's Inferno will put you up against a force far more malevolent than Beelzebub himself: The inherently mean spirit of the online gamer. Dante will have to conquer challenges crafted by other players, which will most assuredly be more difficult than any brawl that came packaged in the game. Why, you might ask? Because everyone on the internet wants you to be miserable.

Don't give up hope! Greg Rizzer, the game's lead designer, created the video posted above, which is chock-full of helpful tips to keep you from succumbing to this deluge of pain. (Oh, and we were just kidding about the 'everyone wants you to be miserable' thing. We, for one, only want to bring you joy.)

#wellplayed Traditionally, historically, video games and religion don't mix. More »

#religionweek I've no idea why, but it seems no accident that the week before Easter I went back to start over the original Assassin's Creed, the only game I've ever played that is set in the Holy Land. More »

#gallery Dante's guardian angel and Christian martyr St. Lucia gets her game on in these screens from the upcoming Trails of St. Lucia downloadable content for Dante's Inferno. More »

God of War III is the new Oregon Trail.

#review For five bucks, a Dante's Inferno player can have the most powerful Dante in the video games. More »

#innovation No, in this post you will not find the algorithm of entertainment, the theorem of thrills or the postulate of pleasure. But you will find details on how one unlikely game may, accidentally, calculate fun. More »

#kotakutalkradio Dante's Inferno senior producer Hans ten Cate joined our hosts, Brian Crecente and Stephen Totilo, in today's episode of Kotaku Talk Radio to discuss everything you need to know about descending into the darkest depths of hell. More »

#podcastpodcast Kotaku Talk Radio starts now with special guest Hans ten Cate, senior producer of Dante's Inferno. Call in! Ask questions! Listen Up! More »

#podcast It's hump day, it's also St. Patrick's Day, but much more importantly, it's Kotaku Talk Radio day. Today we've got Hans ten Cate, senior producer, for Dante's Inferno. More »

#clips Few trailers in recent memory have polarised gamers as much as EA's Dante's Inferno clip for the Super Bowl. Would you have liked it more if, say, Dante was not Dante, but Mario? More »

#preview In April, you can re-shape hell, or fly through it as a lady. And you can play through it with a friend, as co-op comes to this year's biggest God of War competitor. More »

If there's one thing Dante's Inferno lacked, it was originality. Lacking the "holy sh-" impact of God of War III, Visceral Games' hack-n-slash felt incredibly pedestrian. That changes with "The Trials of St. Lucia," an upcoming premium DLC pack that introduces the game's first bit of originality.

The DLC add-on is made up of three new features: online co-op, user generated trials, and St. Lucia, a new playable character inspired by Christianity's Saint Lucy. Like Dante, Visceral's reimagining of her character is rather far-off from biblical canon. The playable martyr looks like an angel, and dons a move set that's completely unique from Dante's. (The differences between the two characters are comparable to those between Dante and Nero from Devil May Cry 4.)

The basics of her offensive powers are familiar: light and heavy attacks, and grabs. However, St. Lucia also has the ability to fly. Flight enables a brand new move set for players. I was able to quickly fly to the other side of a comabt arena, sweep multiple enemies, and then slam one of the larger enemies with a quick combo. The new flight dynamic is a lot of fun and, because St. Lucia's controls are so similar to those of Dante, it's easy to pick up and play.

#gdc Ever wonder what video game composers have to work with when creating those big sounds for big games? More »

#screengrab During their Scoring Hell talk at the Game Developers Conference, the folks behind the sounds and music of Dante's Inferno boiled down their game to its essence: Donkey Kong upside down. More »

#gdc As I mentioned in my review of Dante's Hell, I loved the scoring and sound of Visceral's take on hell. More »

Wayne Barlow's 'Cerberus' ... gross
Held in conjunction with the Into the Pixel and Video Game Art Show exhibitions, San Francisco's Hotel des Arts is dedicating its entire fourth floor to "The Making of Dante's Inferno" through April 2010. We've got a sneak peek at the art on display in the gallery below, but if you want to see the real deal we'd suggest you make your way to the opening night reception being held at the Hotel des Arts on Thursday night, from 6pm to 10pm, smack dab in the middle of GDC week.

#gdc Video game art folks will be taking over San Francisco's Hotel Des Arts, on Thursday, packing the five-floor boutique hotel with art from Dante's Inferno and inspired by other video games. More »

Wayne Barlow's 'Cerberus' ... gross
Held in conjunction with the Into the Pixel and Video Game Art Show exhibitions, San Francisco's Hotel des Arts is dedicating its entire fourth floor to "The Making of Dante's Inferno" through April 2010. We've got a sneak peek at the art on display in the gallery below, but if you want to see the real deal we'd suggest you make your way to the opening night reception being held at the Hotel des Arts on Thursday night, from 6pm to 10pm, smack dab in the middle of GDC week.

#screens This new batch of screenshots, concept art, and enemy renders for Castlevania: Lords of Shadow are lovely and all, but I can't help but think the game could use a tie-in with a revered work of religious fiction. More »

AdFreak's chronicle of the Dante's Inferno guerrilla marketing campaign is one hell of a good read. The piece covers ad agency Wieden + Kennedy's almost year-long viral and guerrilla campaign for the game, which allegedly cost $200,000 and "yielded 47 million impressions of coverage." The ad agency had a $20,000-a-month budget according to EA, but AdFreak tells Joystiq that W + K likely spent more (of its own money) in the pursuit of industry awards.

Although the final months of the campaign didn't really pop up on our radar, loyal readers will likely recall a few of the earlier ones: the misguided fake E3 protest, the apology-inducing "Sin to Win" contest and Mass: We Pray. Interestingly, the $200 check we at Joystiq decided to donate apparently caused the ad agency to come up with a third resolution to its "Greed" stunt. It's always fun when we're the ones to keep marketing on its toes. Whether it's bound for heaven or damnation, the Dante's Inferno campaign is certainly an interesting case study in modern marketing.

Mega64's latest lampooning is a bit more historical than the troupe's other videos. Posted just after the jump is a video reenaction of the moment of Dante's Inferno's inception. We'd thought that a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Classic Literature major had planted the idea-seed in an EA executive's mind -- apparently, said gardening was actually performed by Ba'al Zebûb himself.

Check out the video after the jump -- though, if you're employed at a place which frowns upon the use of the word "boners," you can consider said video NSFW.

Dante's trek through the levels of Hell have attracted some attention.