Ninja Theory have had a tough time of it lately, receiving death threats and not exactly getting support from fans and people involved in the older series. Despite explaining that it takes place in an alternate universe, despite impressing people with what looked like interesting gameplay, they're still on the receiving end of a lot of hate.
Short story: they're not changing anything. Capcom's Alex Jones explains:
"Japanese style ethos does tend to involve make characters look cool for the sake of looking cool, adding odd accessories, crazy hairstyles and colour, cowboy boots and so on simply because they look cool.
"We in the West tend to be more functional adding things that have meaning and being able to explain that meaning. Why does Dante have white hair? I want to make a little story around that and explain it. And so on for the rest of his design choices."
"We've not so much done away with any of the Japanese aspects of the series," Tameem Antoniades continued. "But are more building on the foundations of the franchise to develop a game that has a different flavour. We grew up on US and European movies, comics, music and general culture. That's what we're tapping into.
"We're not pretending we are Japanese nor making apologies for that."
It seems that a lot of people are looking at the old series with rose-tinted glasses, anyway. I keep reading complaints that the developers should do a sequel, finish the "epic story" rather than reboot the series. I've played Devil May Cry 2 and can say without fear of argument that things can't possibly get any worse than that…