Dear God Why?

I want you to look back on everything you’ve ever read, and I want you to pick one that you feel is the most influential, the most powerful, and just simply the most impressive. For me, it’s difficult to pick a book. I can see several different reasons for picking any of a number of simply awesome books. To make my point, however, I’m going to pick Dante’s “The Divine Comedy”.

The Divine Comedy is the story of the author’s imagined journey through the the three realms of the afterlife, Hell (inferno), Limbo (purgatorio) and Heaven (paradiso). Guided through these rather foreboding realms by people important to him and (at least in his feeling) history, The Divine Comedy represents both a huge religious statement, a significant political commentary of the time and one of the most significant works in literature ever. Despite having no religious feelings myself, I still find the Divine Comedy and awe-inspiring piece of work, something that should be treated with great reverence and care. This is why I am appalled to discover that “Inferno” is being made into a videogame.

I understand that consumers are forever asking for deeper and more meaningful stories, and this is possibly why they’ve decided to make this, but unfortunately the likelihood of this is extremely slim. From my previous knowledge of video game conversion (and from viewing the trailer) Dante appears to have been removed from his role as worried observer and been given a new role: to go through the levels of hell and hit as many things as he can.

This new level of depravity in marketing disturbs me. This is obviously not a game for those who have read the book, the large majority of such people are unlikely to play video-games, and I do not believe that those who do are likely to wish to play it. Who could possibly believe that the story could be converted into a pop-culture friendly video-game? Who then is the game for? The only option conceivable to me is that it for those who have heard of the book, and are interested only in the concept, not achieving knowledge of the real thing, after all, how likely is it that the game will convey the meaning, or realistically, any of the content of Dante’s book?

EA have released several press statements stating their excitement for this opportunity to “fuse great gameplay with great story”, but I remain unconvinced. There is no need for a video game of Inferno, and there never will be. Please just leave the classics alone.

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