Capcom has removed some Devil May Cry games on Steam – but in this case, it’s arguably a good thing.
As shared on Reddit by user TurboStrider27, the listings for Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition and Devil May Cry 4 show that they are no longer available to purchase on Steam. If you bought these games you can still download and play them, but they can no longer be bought moving forward.
Only, that isn’t the whole story. The thing is, these were duplicates of these Devil May Cry games that were already available in different forms. After Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition was originally released, Capcom made a better version of the same game, and bundled it with the first two games, in Devil May Cry HD Collection.
Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition was published by Ubisoft and came with many issues. For example, it has botched controller support, no widescreen and graphics settings, and is missing music and special effects.
Between the two, fans clearly were better off buying the Devil May Cry HD Collection. While Devil May Cry HD Collection does have its problems, it’s clearly the better version that was available on Steam. The only reason that some people would want to have Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition was if they were using mods on their version of the game. For those gamers, it’s enough to keep the older version in their library.
Now Devil May Cry 4 could be a different story. Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition received all the expected enhancements, such as HD display support, additional characters and content, and more. However, the more hardcore gamers will tell you that Devil May Cry 4 actually runs better. The changes hardcore fans would complain about may not be noticed by casual gamers, but are materially important for speedrunners and high level players.
For example, the Rebellion special move acts inconsistently. Sometimes it initiates faster, and sometimes it takes as long as the original game. In another case, some SFX were brought over to the new version incorrectly, so that a blinding flash appears where there should only be a small image blurring.
Changes that casual fans may notice include the lower quality of the audio soundtrack and dialogue, and removing multiple save slots and manual saves. In any case, this one was a situation where Capcom chose to sell only the newer version of the game moving forward. If Capcom cared to, they could get some developers to fix these issues on the newer version. But perhaps we fans would be better off waiting until when Capcom makes a remaster of this title five to ten years from now.
If you want you could initiate debates about the video game preservation issues surrounding Capcom’s choice. But for consumers, it is generally better for them to remove duplicates of their games, so they don’t get confused or misled into buying the same game twice.
