I'm sure some may cringe, but in general, if something comes along that raises awareness or interest in any sort of classic literature or film, it can't be all that bad.

as for it employing dante's name in an exploitative way, that's complete poppycock. dante was at best a medicore writer, and if released contemporaneously, the divine comedy wouldn't have gotten any more attention than dean koontz' "lightning." what made him popular was that he was writing back when writing had just come back into vogue, and he was talking about hell in a way that people could relate to… whereas previous texts on the subject took a much more ephemeral and spiritual slant, he turned hell into pop culture… so he was definitely the stephanie myers of his day. and obviously, john milton hadn't written "paradise lost" yet, which really, when discussing the fiction lit of christian mythology, is the bar against which every other narrative should be measured. i mean, come on, the guy didn't even write the book in latin… if i wrote a book in street lingo, do i automatically gain respect? hell no! and i sure as hell couldn't impress people if i used passages like "the moment was so breathtaking, i can't describe it." part of being a capable writer is WRITING THE DESCRIPTIVE PARTS!

but again, the important thing here is, it's a window through which one can make the past and the literature mean something to a modern audience, and that's nothing to sneeze at. now, if you'll excuse me, i'm off to spread my typos and wisdom elsewhere on the web… good day gents.

I understand both of your points, but I think LBAM is in the right on this one. The issue isn't that something new is being done with this work; the issue is that the work's name and setting is being taken and little else. Most adaptations of Beowulf, or The Iliad, or Arthurian myth may change a lot, but they maintain a dialogue with the original work. This game, on the other hand, seems to be changing the entire context of The Divine Comedy in order to fit into a hack-and-slash God of War rip-off. If they'd called this game "Inferno (Inspired by Dante's Inferno)," I wouldn't mind; but when they're pushing this as a representation of the story while simultaneously ignoring everything about it other than "Name=Dante" and "setting=Hell," well, it seems a bit crude. Likewise, things like… well, every "controversy" and advertising campaign make it pretty clear that EA isn't intent on respecting the work.

Mostly it seems like a blatant and callow attempt to cash in on the well known name of "Dante's Inferno." There's no reason inherent to the narrative to use Dante's Inferno to tell the story of a badass dude picking up Deaths' Scythe and killing tons of demons. Video game writers invent stories for that kind of thing all the time. As a capitalist, I am all for game designers making money, but if their only reason to use "Dante's Inferno" is to create name recognition in order to drive profits, it's a bad decision creatively and it inevitably affects how I'm going to view the adaptation (poorly).

Finally, The Divine Comedy has maintained awareness, excited audiences, and been hailed for its genius for 700 years now. More people have read it than will ever play this game. It doesn't need this game; this game needs it (and apparently a lot of invented controversy) in order to sell.

Hey Dayraven,

Since you can't even actually spell 'competent' I'm going to assume you're not in the very small percentage of people whose qualifications regarding the teaching of literature are superior to mine. If you'd like to compare, let's go ahead. Until then, piss off and don't ever try to tell me how to do my job or what I should think about it.