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15 years ago, in February 2010, Visceral Games released what seemed to be their next surefire hit after 2008’s Dead Space with Dante’s Inferno, a brutal third-person hack-and-slash game based on the first part of Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century poem The Divine Comedy.
Here, players embodied a King Templar called Dante during the Third Crusade as he fought Death and through the nine Circles of Hell with Death’s scythe and his fiancée Beatrice’s holy cross to rescue the soul of Beatrice from the clutches of Lucifer.
Despite featuring hauntingly enthralling creature designs and a fairly prominent marketing campaign, which included a cinematic commercial aired during Super Bowl XLIV, Dante’s Inferno was only moderately successful and a sequel to resolve its «To Be Continued» cliffhanger was shut down early on in production.
Now, just over 15 years after Dante’s Inferno‘s initial launch, IGN has officially unveiled never-before-seen concept art, storyboards, and plot details of not just Inferno’s planned sequel, Dante’s Purgatorio, but also a proposed third game to conclude the trilogy called Dante’s Paradiso from former Visceral staff.
Dante's Continued Journey to Rescue Beatrice
At the end of Dante’s Inferno, Dante is shown to have come to terms with his past sins, rescues Beatrice’s soul, and presumably defeats Lucifer and stops his plan to overthrow God and conquer all three kingdoms of the afterlife.
The game concludes with Dante about to climb Mount Purgatory as he rips off his skin-stitched cross tapestry, only for the tapestry to turn into a snake as it falls to the ground with Lucifer laughing as the words «To Be Continued» appear on-screen.
According to a 240-page-long script penned by former Assassin’s Creed 2 writer Joshua Rubin, who presumably joined the Dante’s Inferno sequel project in 2011, Dante’s Purgatorio would have begun with Dante living through a vision of himself, Beatrice, and their newborn daughter in the Garden of Eden before Dante is forced to fight a snake in an opening boss battle akin to the fight with Death in the first game.
After a brief cinematic and recap of the first game, Dante would have woken up at the base of Mount Purgatory and begin his journey up the mountain to rescue and ensure Beatrice’s safe passage through the Gates of Heaven.
ign.com
However, just as Dante is stopped by the cliff-sized guardian of Purgatory Cato, a former Roman senator, Lucifer, in the form of a snake, slays the guardian and causes a crevice in the beach to open, allowing his army of demons led by Lilith, the original wife of Adam, to invade Purgatory with the intent of invading Heaven as well.
The rest of the game would have seen Dante receive a new scythe weapon from Lilith and have the former crusader joined by Virgil and Saint Lucia, who was a playable protagonist in Inferno‘s DLC The Trials of St. Lucia, fight through nine terraces of Mount Purgatory based around the seven deadly sins, with the Garden of Eden placed at the mountain’s peak.
ign.com
In terms of gameplay, Dante’s Purgatorio would have seen Dante fight both demons and angels, including boss fights against the angels Vicar of Saint Peter, Gabriel, Uriel, and Michael, while Dante himself would gain new heavenly abilities, including:
- Spirit Jump
- Spirit Dodge
- Spirit Dash
- Possession
- Angelic Wings (usable only during boss battles)
- Spirit Mode (a temporary powerful mode similar to God of War 3‘s Rage of Sparta or 2018’s God of War Spartan Rage)
Dante’s Purgatorio would have ended with Lucifer seemingly being defeated once again, only for the devil to trick Dante and Michael into letting him through the Gates of Heaven, and Lucifer sends Dante back to Lake Cocytus, with Dante’s Paradiso following Dante and his daughter as they lead an army of people and angels into Heaven to defeat Lucifer once and for all.
Dante’s Inferno
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Where to play
WHERE TO PLAY
SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL
