Hideki Kamiya: Devil May Cry Began as Resident Evil

Hideki Kamiya, who led development on the project at Capcom, has said the game that became Devil May Cry began as a mandated Resident Evil entry for PlayStation 2.

Capcom initially planned to continue the Resident Evil series on Sony’s PlayStation 2 after the franchise’s international success on the original PlayStation. Early development followed that brief and aimed to produce the next numbered Resident Evil title.

As work progressed, designers and programmers proposed new features and gameplay mechanics that did not match the established survival-horror model. The team kept adding ideas that shifted the project’s design and systems away from Resident Evil conventions.

Kamiya recalled the sequence of events, saying the team came up with “all sorts of new concepts and things we wanted to build on,” and that the project eventually “morphed into ‘Devil May Cry.'”

The game was released under the Devil May Cry name for PlayStation 2 in 2001. Its design emphasized faster-paced, action-oriented combat and a different pacing compared with earlier Resident Evil entries.

According to Kamiya, the changes introduced during development led the team to release the work as a new title rather than a numbered Resident Evil installment.