When Hell Is Over, Dante Could Move Up and Siege the Heavens

While the story obviously has two more parts, it's not really set in stone that Dante's Inferno will be part of a trilogy. Theoretically, is would be very hard to make a sequel to the game, considering that the Purgatory and Paradise would have to be the next settings for it, but then again, from what the developers have already shown us and what we saw for ourselves in the game's demo, it's not like they stuck to the story with this first game. It is indeed a bit too easy to make an enemy out of the Devil, but, while it would be harder to do so with God, it wouldn't be the first title to pit players against the divine.

The game's Executive Producer, Jonathan Knight, talked to G4 about a possible sequel for it and expressed his concerns. G4's Patrick Klepek explained that, “I posed the question of a sequel to executive producer Jonathan Knight at a recent hands-on demo in Los Angeles, just days before the playable demo goes online. He didn't shy away from acknowledging the challenge in producing another one. For example: there's no second descent into Hell. Dante's Inferno is based on The Divine Comedy's first act, Inferno, but the other stories, Purgatorio and Paradiso, seem unlikely candidates for a game.”

But Jonathan Knight is somewhat confident in the outcome, and believes that he could take the story further. “That is a problem I hope to have to solve by earning the right to do a follow up,” Knight said. “This [completing development on Dante's Inferno] is just totally what our focus is, and then we're gonna [finish] around the holidays and then everybody's gonna take a long break and we're gonna see if people respond well to it in February -- which I think they will.”

The response could be exactly what he expects, or it could be just the opposite. From what the demo revealed, the game was incredibly similar in gameplay style to God of War. As long as fans can ignore that, and get a bigger kick out of the hellish environment than they did out of the landscapes of GoW, the game should be a huge hit, but if not, things are going to be rather grim for Dante.