Devil May Cry 5's live action cutscenes finally prove that games are art

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Glorious budget action.

The deluxe version of Devil May Cry 5 comes with alternative "pre-viz" live action cutscenes that the development team used to provide a dynamic storyboard for the game's melodramatic action scenes.

They are kinda amazing. We've seen storyboards and basic animation used to pace out scenes as part of production processes, but these videos have polystyrene props and the actors are clearly having the time of their lives.

I don't want to spoil them too much (plus I'm sure someone will upload all of the videos to Youtube at some point), but until then I've picked out a few choice non-spoilery moments from early missions.

High-energy Dante

How do you get paid to do this?

Tiny Nero

If you've played the free demo (only available on consoles sadly), you will have seen this opening confrontation when the first boss throws a car at Nero. In the pre-viz this shrinks Nero down to about six inches tall.

Tiny Nero first appears in the intro to the game during this excellent attempt to simulate the demon hunter's anti-gravity combat style. The action figure seems to be a piece of Devil May Cry 4 merch.

Wild stunts

The secret star of Devil May Cry 5 is Rico and Nero's mobile base, the van that can. It is represented in the pre-viz videos by a humble cardboard box.

A man earnestly pretending to be a bird

The main characters are great (a shout in particular to Nero's committed attempt to rev up a polystyrene Red Queen), but the best people in the pre-viz videos are the people playing demons. My facourite is the guy in a hoodie and a binbag who plays V's demon bird companion, Griffon.

The actual game is brilliant too, by the way. Find out why in our Devil May Cry 5 review. 

Tom Senior
Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.