Devil May Cry is coming to Nintendo Switch, but maybe not in the way you expected. As Capcom announced (opens in new tab) today, the original game – and only the original game – will arrive on Switch this summer.
This is good news for Switch owners who are hungry for a classic action game, and it’ll be fun to play DMC on the go, but this is a strange port that raises a few questions. Firstly, why is only the first game getting ported rather than the Devil May Cry HD Collection? That collection includes the first three games and is already available on PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PC. Why not bring it to Switch too?
It’s possible Capcom is using the first game to gauge interest in Devil May Cry on the platform. The studio previously said (opens in new tab) that Devil May Cry 5 (opens in new tab) may be ported to Switch if the new port of Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen (opens in new tab) does well, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s running the same sort of test here. Reportedly, the main reason Devil May Cry 5 wasn’t released for Switch was because Capcom didn’t receive Switch dev kits until well into its development, so it’s not as though Capcom doesn’t like the system. On top of that, series director Hideaki Itsuno previously told Express (opens in new tab) that he’d love to see Devil May Cry on Switch in some form.
If the Devil May Cry series does find a foothold on Switch, we could in theory see the face of the series, Dante, added to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (opens in new tab) at some point. Merely appearing on a Nintendo platform doesn’t automatically make a character a Smash candidate, but between gun-toting heroes like Persona 5’s Joker (opens in new tab) and freakin’ Bayonetta, strangers things have happened. There’s all kinds of red tape there – including the fact that Dante, albeit DmC: Devil May Cry’s Dante, is already in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale AKA Sony Smash Bros. – but as Itsuno told VG247, the first step is establishing interest in the series.
Per our Devil May Cry 5 review (opens in new tab), Dante’s latest excursion would definitely be a worthy addition to the Switch library.