Devil May Cry Onimusha

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!]

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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.

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.


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Kazuma Hashimoto
Senior staff writer, translator and streamer, Kazuma spends his time playing a variety of games ranging from farming simulators to classic CRPGs. Having spent upwards of 6 years in the industry, he has written reviews, features, guides, with work extending within the industry itself. In his spare time he speedruns games from the Resident Evil series, and raids in Final Fantasy XIV. His work, which has included in-depth features focusing on cultural analysis, has been seen on other websites such as Polygon and IGN.