Dante's Inferno is a 2010 action-adventure game developed by Visceral Games and published by Electronic Arts. The game was released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PlayStation Portable in February 2010. The PlayStation Portable version was developed by Artificial Mind and Movement. A direct-to-DVD animated movie based on the video game, titled Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic, was released simultaneously with it.
The game's story is loosely based on Inferno, the first canticle of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. It follows Dante, imagined as a Templar knight from The Crusades, who, guided by the spirit of the poet Virgil, must fight through the nine Circles of Hell to rescue Beatrice from the clutches of Lucifer himself. In the game, players control Dante from a third-person perspective. His primary weapon is a scythe that can be used in a series of combination attacks and finishing moves. Many attack combinations and abilities can be unlocked in exchange for souls, an in-game currency that is collected upon defeating enemies.
Before the game's release, Dante's Inferno underwent a prominent, elaborate, and at times controversial marketing campaign led by the game's publisher Electronic Arts. This included the release of a fake religious game called Mass: We Pray, a motion controller-based game supposedly allowing players to engage in an interactive prayer and church sermon. The game received generally positive reviews upon release; critics praised the gameplay, art direction, voice acting, story, sound design, and depiction of Hell.