johnbyronkuhner.com

So now there’s a video game “based on” Dante’s Inferno.  Of course there’s been some toying with the plot:

But for Dante’s Inferno (out today for the Microsoft Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, $60, rated Mature for ages 17-up) to work as a game, the designers needed an amped-up protagonist. “The historical Dante is not action-oriented. He is kind of led along by (the poet and author of The Aeneid) Virgil,” Knight says.

In the updated tale, Dante finds his betrothed Beatrice murdered. Her spirit is taken to hell by Lucifer, instead of to heaven from which, in the poem, she sent Virgil to guide Dante back to the path of righteousness. As Dante battles through hell, his sins are revealed in flashbacks. “We just took the idea to video-game extremes,” Knight says, “and crafted all this dark past for him.”

Read the whole article, as it’s worth it.  This Jonathan Knight figure gets kudos for giving us not only the game, but the term “the historical Dante.”  And I think we’re going to hear from a bunch of Dante scholars in the mainstream press in the next few weeks.

As special effects have progressed, we’re pretty close to a Dante movie.  This may be the catalyst.  Get Trent Reznor to do the music.  He’s been there.  There’s some Nine Inch Nails music that I’ve always associated with certain passages in Inferno.