A follow-up was heavily teased in the game’s cliffhanger ending, but here’s why Dante’s Inferno 2 never left development hell. Developer Visceral Games’ first made a name for themselves in the 2000s working on licensed games James Bond 007: Everything Or Nothing and 2006’s The Godfather, before breaking out with the original Dead Space. This 2008 title was an intense blend of horror and action, with players trapped on a vast spaceship and having to literally dismember creatures dubbed Necromorphs to survive.
EA saw Dead Space as the start of a new multimedia franchise, and it launched with tie-in comics, novels, and a prequel anime movie; there was also talk of a live-action adaptation. Work quickly began on Dead Space 2, which arrived in 2011, but before the sequel arrived Visceral released Dante’s Inferno. This 2010 adventure reimagined the Inferno section of Dante’s epic poem Divine Comedy and followed a knight who slices through all nine circles of Hell to rescue lover Beatrice. The game was heavily inspired by hack and slash titles like God Of War and gave each level of Hell its own distinct – and gross – reimagining. Ex Machina star Oscar Isaac also revealed he was fired from voice-over work on Dante’s Inferno, which he personally thought was “terrible.”
Like Dead Space, Dante’s Inferno also received a big marketing push complete with an anime movie, but despite being heavily teased, Dante’s Inferno 2 never arrived.
The Sequel Was Dubbed Dante’s Purgatory
The nine circles of Hell provided Visceral Games with a nice, easy structure to follow for Dante’s Inferno. Since they only adapted one-third of the epic poem, that also left room for sequels Purgatory and Paradise. The game ends with Dante imprisoning Lucifer and finding himself in Purgatory, though a twist reveals Lucifer has followed him in the form of a snake.
Fede Alvarez Is Developing A Dante’s Inferno Movie
It was announced in 2013 that Evil Dead remake director Fede Alvarez was tapped to helm a Dante’s Inferno movie adaptation. Alvarez later spoke with Screen Rant in 2016 about his plans, revealing he’d never actually played the game and that it evolved into something more faithful to the original poem. Nothing has been heard about the project in recent years, so it’s unknown if it’s still in the pipeline.
Dante’s Inferno 2 Won’t Happen
In 2011 writer Joshua Rubin was linked to pen Dante’s Inferno 2, but since then, very little has been heard about a sequel. Following the very mixed reception to Dead Space 3 in 2013 and the cancellation of their high-profile Star Wars game, Visceral Games was shut down by EA in 2017.
The downfall of the Dead Space franchise – which didn’t hit EA’s unreasonable sales expectations – is likely the true reason Dante’s Inferno 2 didn’t happen. Nearly a decade since the original game was released and the shuttering of Visceral make the odds of a sequel very bleak.
About The Author
