Everything about this looks perfect. Is there any speculation on the possible release date?
Source: The deepest depths of my butt.
I think they'll release it in March, 2024. Why? They have repeatedly said that they are releasing a game by the end of their fiscal year (which ends Match 31, 2024), and it's a game that will sell millions. I only know of DD2 that has been announced.
March 2024 is 100% MH6. it is 20th anniversary of franchize and unnanounced mh game leaked in their leaked files a while ago for 2024.
Best way to judge when DD2 will be released is to see when DMC5 production ended. It was released in 2019. You subtract from it around 3 months till release as this is where usually people start to move from project to another one in huge numbers. So you have around 3 years of them working on it. If this was just sequel to DD1 after it was released it is reasonable time to get sequel out but DD2 is being made nearly 11 years after DD1 with a lot of team new to that game. They probably also can't use old tools so tooling probably had to be remade.
Another aspect is that DD1 had huge troubles in production and directors had to cut MAJORITY of game and features. Yes what people loved about DD1 is effectively small part of what DD1 was supposed to be. DD1 was supposed to be Capcom Elder Scrolls at the time but it bombed hard with game only going into green with PC release years after console release.
There was also japanese only DD Online which was basically asset swap made by different team that they didn't bother even localizing and releasing it in west.
Now considering above and this:
- DD1 bombed because it was badly marketed. It didn't have much coverage and when they tried to market it they tried to sell it as western RPG like Oblivion which naturally it wasn't. The action nature of it was heavily tied to cuts they had to made when in production it was much more open ended like elder scrolls. So no marketing, wrong marketing and huge techical issues on consoles (game literally run in "cinema mode" with huge black bars on top and bottom because consoles barely could do 25ish fps with it.
- Team wasn't able to deliver what they wanted and it failed expectations of establishing new huge franchise because of that.
- DMC director (which made DD) said many times in interviews that if they return to make DD2 they want to give game justice and give game scope they always wanted)
- Capcom is on the roll and they are swell with money from hits they released in last few years.
- Capcom always wanted huge RPG franchise. And DD transformed from failture into fan favorite against the odds. Which means it might be considered now safe bet for DD2 with proper scope and budget.
- They are not using their latest REX engine. In fact game basically looks like remaster of DD1. What this means is that they are setting very conservative techical limits to deliver in other aspects. If you have game with many systems and features having on top of that new graphics growing pains is usually recipe for huge delays and fuckups. This also probably means they will release it as multiplatform as possible including Switch2/PS4 etc.
I think 2025 with passible delay to 2026.
They announced it early to give heads up to community to slowly ramp up hype for it as they will effectively teach community what this game is about unlike DD1. They will probably also start to show that this is not in fact just DD2 sequel but much bigger and different thing as time goes, easing community of fans into new game.
Also making RPGs is super hard. IT is not liner DMC game you can shat in 2-3 years easily.
