THQ to publish Itagaki's Devil's Third

By Tom Bramwell Published 12 June, 2010

First gameplay footage within.

THQ has announced that it has formed a partnership with Tomonobu Itagaki's Valhalla Studios to publish its new game Devil's Third for PS3 and Xbox 360.

Devil's Third is described as a post-apocalyptic, fast-paced action game and surprisingly given Itagaki's background in Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive it's described by the veteran designer as a shooter primarily.

We spoke to Itagaki this week ahead of the announcement and he told us: "If you think of it as a shooting game that includes a level of melee combat and fighting that has never been done in a shooting game before, that's a good way to think of it."

"The Ninja Gaiden games I've worked on before were kind of a hackandslash experience - combat with weapons. And of course there are games like Devil May Cry. So first of all I would say even though you can see things that look like both of those games, I want to make sure people don't confuse it and think that the game we're doing is either a Ninja Gaiden-type game or a Devil May Cry-type game."

THQ's executive vice president of core games, Danny Bilson, told Eurogamer that Devil's Third may be two years or so out from release.

However, he said, the game would not be rushed, and if Itagaki's team needed more or less time then they would have that. Indeed, Itagaki told Eurogamer that this was central to his decision to partner with THQ on Valhalla's first game.

"As you mentioned earlier, making the last 10 per cent of the game takes 50 per cent of the time - you're correct that we will spend a long time on the last 10 per cent of this game as well," he told us.

"That is one of the main reasons that I decided to work with THQ - we can do that here. Danny has been very clear on that concept - that we will only make good games."

Check out the first gameplay trailer for Devil's Third below, and be sure to also check out our exclusive interview with Tomonobu Itagaki and Danny Bilson elsewhere on the site.

The Devil's Third E3 debut trailer.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (9) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Kenshin001 #1 2 years ago

    So Ninja Gaiden with lots of shooting. Be interesting to see if now Itagaki is a multiplat dev the fanboys will still hype his games.

  • davisorle #2 2 years ago

    @Kenshin001

    That makes you one of em caring so much about that bit. I really cant give a flying f**k if they do or not.

    Personally I dont expect something lame from them which is at least a 75% factor of my decision to purchase a game. Knowing their talent into adding realism in the most hard to nail genres, I am personally already sure more than 60% that the game will end up great. The other 40% of my opinion will need facts and stuff of course :) Dead or alive got me in the first place for its amazing realism and smooth movement in its gameplay. Ninja Gaiden... well there are many factors right there with the hard core blood splaters being the chery on top.

    If any typos sorry about it in advance! Lets hope to see some HD in game bits soon even if it will be just a tease over the next couple of years of its' development.
    Edited by 1 at 12/06/10 @ 07:40

  • Praetorianer #3 2 years ago

    I'm so tired of all the gory and excessively violent stuff out there...like that would be everything games for adults are all about.

    Then again, what did I expect from Itagaki?

  • Kenshin001 #4 2 years ago

    @davisorle,

    If you don't care the comment shouldn't upset you. What is funny is Itagaki said of Bayonetta's Kamiya, "If I made a similar game as a game I made in the company I quit, people would say, 'What an idiot, can't he make anything else?' Well, that is more or less the opinion I have for, uh, that Bayo-something game."

    Oh look, a sword game with lots of blood and gore. How original Tomonobu. I predict 7/10, just like his last mediocre game.

  • MerricK #5 2 years ago

    maybe i'll buy a thq game then ... haven't done that since ... MJ was white.
    Edited by 1 at 12/06/10 @ 11:54

  • JonFE #6 2 years ago

    Itagaki's multi-format developer status does not interest me, as long as he delivers a solid, possibly hard-as-nails, action adventure game like Ninja Gaiden: Black (which is where the hype around his name came from). NG2 had some shortcomings (both technical and gameplay-wise), that I expect to be rectified on his second outing for this generation.

  • Slipstream #7 2 years ago

    This does look pretty fun. Still looks early stages to me though.

  • Mr.Monkey #8 2 years ago

    The video reminds me of Wet,
    I'm interested in the multi-platform side, I own the PS3 sigmas and the Xbox versions of each of the Ninja Gaiden games... (including Black for the xb1)

    Guess that makes me "teh Hardcore" or whatever children say these days. If there's going to be parity in content (ie no extras) maybe this time I'll only need to buy one copy of the game.

  • Kalak #9 2 years ago

    Two years ? TWO YEARS ????!!!! Oh, dear.....