The Right Click: Dante’s Inferno

I wonder what Dante Alighieri would have said if you had told him, that in the century of our lord 21, his novel The Divine Comedy, would be turned into uneducated trash for the video games masses. Of course then again I wonder what Shakespeare would have thought as well if he found out English classes were dumbing down his works, or any number of authors would do if they knew what the future held. Perhaps this is proof that nobody builds a time machine in the future; who wouldn’t want to go back and warn the writers of great literature, that their work was about to be turned into a hack and slash video game, brutally tearing apart the original work.

Some background. The video game is an “adapted” take on Dante Alighieri’s work. Note that for the Google description they have “In Dante’s Inferno, battle through the 9 circles of Hell facing fierce and hideous monsters, your own sins, and a dark past of unforgivable war crimes.” Fantastic. We’ve even got a set amount of levels for you traverse through. Thank you Dante for making the game development so easy! It get’s worse as you read the website, or play the demo on the playstation network. The tale for the game is that you’re Dante (well at least they kept that part of the story correct) returning home to find his beloved Beatrice has been murdered (oh dear…), and is being seduced by Lucifer in the underworld (oh dear oh dear). Proceed to pick up your extremely large sword, axe and armour then and head into the gates of Hell to try save her. The levels do match the sins of the book; greed, lust, etc. That’s about it.

And breathe….

I do wonder who came up with this idea, or whether indeed said person had even read the book before deciding to turn it into a God of War alternative. No doubt the developers may have flicked through it quickly, or read the Wikipedia page. Perhaps that’s rather rude of me, but then again perhaps i’m invoking the spirit of Dante by spitting on Visceral Games for even creating the game.

Their were other alternatives that may have redeemed the result of what this game is, but I sense those alternatives were probably thrown out by Electronic Art’s wishes to make a God of War franchise for itself. Movies have done the Dante business for a while now; the most famous example being Se7en, which manages to use Dante’s writings without reducing it to a poorer form.

So why hasn’t Electronic Arts picked up their writing books and tried something similar? Simple really; it’s cheaper to build a hack and slash adventure game with a poor narrative basis and stolen plot background, than it is to toally develop a new more innovative gaming experience with a plot that uses the Divine Comedy more effectively. When the gaming majority you are selling Dante’s Inferno too probably don’t know who Alighieri is without thinking it’s some sort of Italian cheese, you’re in a no hope situation. Electronic Arts ironically sit quite happily in the level of hell that involves Greed, as indeed do all other game publishers. Recent news about EA making losses despite making quite rich game experiences such as Mirror’s Edge, Dead Space (which amusingly is made by the same developer as Dante’s Inferno) and others have not helped EA in the slightest, so now the publisher is going back to their evil ways. What better way to start than a trip into the nine levels of hell?

Games like Dante’s Inferno though are not doing the games industry any favours in attempting to improve their reputation as a mature entertainment industry to the rest of the world. Though we’re out of the dark ages (for now) of constant attacks and accusations that the games industry is developing games that make our children violent, the industry may yet slip into another pot hole; one that sneers at the industry and accuses it and the players of games of being uneducated. No doubt if Dante’s Inferno is successful we can expect sequels, or games of similar ilk to it. Homer’s The Odyssey turned into a third person swash buckling game may not be far off. Romeo and Juliet? Perhaps that will be a first person shooter as Romeo destroys the houses of Montague and Capulet for stealing his love from her.

At the end of the day, Electronic Arts will argue that they don’t force people to play their games. It’s up to the player to decide whether they will try Dante’s Inferno. The irony is sweet as EA will tantalise the lust of gamers for a new experience, and greed shall be their undoing (I’m sure there’s a canto somewhere in here that says that). What worries me is that such games will create ignorance on what the actual story is about. It’ll make players believe that EA came up with Dante’s Inferno, as opposed to Dante Alighieri (although in fairness they have said who they are adapting it from, loosely or not).

As for me, i’m just going to sit here and flick through The Divine Comedy, just to check to see whether it dissapears from my hands altogether, or parts of it miracously change to warn any future adapters of his literature that they’ll go to a special level of hell; where child molesters go, and people who talk in theatre.

Dante’s Inferno will be reviewed when it’s released in the new year, God help our souls!

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