Devil's Third now a Wii U exclusive

Devil's Third, the action game from Tomonobu Itagaki and Valhalla Game Studios, is now a Wii U exclusive, he announced during IGN's E3 livestream.

Itagaki, who previously led development on Ninja Gaiden with Team Ninja at Tecmo, was originally developing Devil's Third as a PlayStation 3, Windows PC and Xbox 360 action game to be published by THQ. In the summer of 2012, the company returned the Devil's Third rights to Valhalla after dropping the game from its slate. Earlier this year, Itagaki said Devil's Third was on track for a 2014 release.

Nintendo "really understood my vision," said Itagaki through a translator on the livestream, flanked by former THQ executive Danny Bilson. Itagaki also showed a trailer for Devil's Third's objective-based multiplayer mode, along with a live demo of the single-player campaign. Movement and melee combat is shown from a third-person perspective, while shooting goes into a first-person view. Hand-to-hand fighting is brutal and gory with dismemberment, and the player character moves very quickly, with the ability to run up walls.

The GamePad plays an important role in competitive battles, said Itagaki, with the screen being used to convey information to other players. According to Bilson, the protagonist is part of a group of former terrorists who have some mutant abilities, and many of the bosses in the game are former allies. Devil's Third also includes a level editor, they explained.