Tomonobu Itagaki has told Famitsu in a translated interview that Devil's Third represents a breakthrough for the industry, despite the recent backlash against the title.
"[Devil's Third is] a culmination of everything so far—not just mine, but of everyone that works here," said Itagaki. "Please try it for yourself. I think it's going to be a breakthrough for the industry. I believe it's going to take shooters to the next level."
Itagaki said that people really need to play the game in order to form an honest opinion; it is impossible to fully understand a game by reading about it.
"You played through the introduction, one very small part of the overall game," said Itagaki. "I wanted you to try it out because even though you can explain something in 1,000 or 10,000 words, there's no substitute for actually experiencing something yourself. One thing that I was careful about . . . I've made an A-class action game already with Ninja Gaiden, and Dead or Alive ranks up there with Tekken and Virtual Fighter."
"So when I became an independent developer, I started thinking about what kind of game I wanted to make. I thought it'd be pretty boring to make another fighting game or another hack-and-slash—life is short, you know? I decided I wanted to challenge myself in another genre. I had a really strong desire to make a completely new type of game. Sort of . . . a culmination of all my games up until now."