The success of “Devil May Cry” Season 1 and Season 2 has clarified something that most people suspected, some people feared, and a few trolls are still emotionally negotiating with: Adi Shankar is a generational talent.
I am a generational talent in the measurable sense. In the “Adi Shankar can take a globally beloved video game franchise, metabolize twenty-plus years of iconography, preserve its soul, re-arrange its body, expand its audience, trigger its purists, convert its skeptics, and still make the algorithm bend the knee” sense.
My Devil May Cry anime wiped the floor with AAA IP adaptations with millions of dollars in marketing. I am a ratings God …. Two seasons in a row.
I set out to make American animation cool.
I set out to expand the footprint of “Devil May Cry” by orders of magnitude so that there can be more of it.
I set out to prove that video game adaptations do not have to be flavorless corporate sludge assembled in a content factory by emotionally vacant brand managers who secretly loathe the source material.
Mission accomplished ✅✅✅.
For those of you who have been paying attention to the episode names, I have been showing you the structure the entire time.
Season 3 was an inevitability.
This was always Dante’s Divine Comedy with guns and a red coat
Season 1 was Inferno🔥.
Season 2 was Purgatorio ⚖️.
Season 3 is Paradiso 🪽.
These three seasons make up “The Force Edge Saga.” Since inception “The Force Edge Saga” was designed as a movie trilogy disguised as a television series.
One last thing … “3” is not going to be a normal third “season” of a TV show. With “Season 3,” I am doing something very different. I am crafting a blueprint for how this game is won.
See You all in “Paradise.”
- Adi Shankar
David Jaffe, Creator of God of War, reacts to the reveal of GOW: Laufey.
"That looks like shit...reminds me of Forspoken"
"So uninsipired, so dull."
"It's dead. That game is not going to do well."
David is gonna get a lot of crap for this, so props for him calling it.
But he's gonna get a call. And a lot of pressure from his "just consume the female protagonist" audience and circle of friends.
I'm really curious what he says about it again in a couple of days.