TheDevil May Cryfranchise initially began as an early concept for a more action-orientated Resident Evil 4 until it was realized that the game’s cool themes strayed too far from the horror roots in a Resident Evil game. Instead, the developers rewrote the game entirely, taking inspiration from the Italian poem Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, and the Japanese manga series Cobra and Devil May Cry was created, spawning a hack-and-slash action sub-genre of its own.