Devil May Cry Stylish Combat Was the Result of an Onimusha Bug

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of Devil May Cry, series creator Hideki Kamiya took to Twitter to share interesting development details regarding the inception of the franchise. While some of the information is already known, such as Devil May Cry having started out as a prototype for Resident Evil 4, it was revealed that the stylish combat the series is known for was born from a bug in Onimusha. [Thanks, automaton!]

Kamiya revealed on Twitter that Onimusha was in production in another department on the same floor at the same time, and that a bug that resulted in enemies flying into the air inspired what would become the stylish combat seen in Devil May Cry. Kamiya witnessed the bug and immediately went to Programmer Kazunori Inoue to say “I want to hit enemies and see them fly into the air!” Inoue then began working on a system to implement this feature.

僕は「ふうん…」と平静を装ってその場を去りつつ、足早に自分のフロアに戻って、速攻ドンさんに「敵を斬って空中に跳ね上げたい！」と…

— 神谷英樹 Hideki Kamiya (@HidekiKamiya_X) August 23, 2021

Coincidentally, Inoue had been working on auto-target system focused around guns at the same time. In conjunction with the ability to now hit enemies up into the air, as inspired by the bug in Onimusha, the combat for Devil May Cry was created.

Kamiya also shared that it was mainly Shinji Mikami, creator of the Resident Evil series, that encouraged Kamiya to make what was then a Resident Evil 4 prototype into its own title. This was largely due to it no longer feeling like a Resident Evil title.

The most recent Devil May Cry game is Devil May Cry 5 for the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC.