'What makes action games fun hasn’t changed': Devil May Cry's Hideaki Itsuno

Capcom's veteran game director reveals how one of the year's best games was made - and why successful game design need not be a crunch moment

In 2002, veteran Capcom game director Hideaki Itsuno - then working on a pitch for an original action-RPG that later turned into Dragon's Dogma - was called upon to get an ailing Devil May Cry 2 out of the door. It sold decently, in the end, but was widely regarded as a critical flop. "When it finished up, they all realised they could have done better," explains Devil May Cry producer Matt Walker (and Itsuno's translator for this interview). "So he and others at Capcom said, we're going to take all of our collective knowledge on how to make a good fighting game, a good action game, and put everything we can into making Devil May Cry 3.

"And if this isn't received well, if this doesn't sell well, that's it. We'll just have to quit Capcom, and do something else."