CapCom Unity announces the release of the Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition, and the Windows edition of the "definitive version" of the action game is now available through Steam. A look at what this includes is offered through the Launch Trailer and they celebrate the news with word from game director Hideaki Itsuno on this, including character design:

Regarding Nero’s new “Prototype” costume:
I was originally planning to have him in the standard Order of the Sword uniform, but the producer felt I should include the costume that meant the most to me personally as the director, so I went with this. It’s one of the early designs that was nixed early on in the original game’s development.

The costume is characterized by the double-button coat, a motif borrowed from old Japanese military uniforms, along with the scarf, which symbolizes his role as the hero. We strove perhaps a bit too hard for uniqueness, and in the end we felt it came off a bit too comic booky, so it wasn’t selected as his final design. But it does look considerably more “heroic” than his current design, wouldn’t you say? It’s pretty cool seeing his scarf flowing in the breeze during cutscenes when you select this costume, so be sure to try it out for yourself.

On Vergil:
Vergil was devised from the beginning as a character who uses a Japanese sword, but determining how he used it was a process of trial-and-error. We were still deliberating over it when I was in America hashing out motion capture details with our action director, Mr. Shimomura, and that’s when I witnessed the Japanese swordplay of one Dan Southworth (the voice and motion actor for Vergil). It was not exactly like that of a true Japanese warrior, but had its own Western flavor perfectly mixed in, and I said, “That’s it!” It showed a respect for authentic Japanese swordsmanship, but balanced with a slightly rough, wild style that perfectly fit Vergil’s profile of a Western man using a Japanese sword.

This image of the character was carried on to his rendition in DmC Devil May Cry, which we made in England, and his movement in DMC4 Special Edition is a definitive amalgam of his past renditions.

Thank you for reading, and before I leave, since it was not a feature on consoles when DMC4 first released in 2008, I would like to encourage all of you that are playing Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition to upload and share your own combo videos online. The entire dev team is really looking forward to watching these.

Thank you all so much for your ongoing support for DMC4 Special Edition and the DMC series.