Bloody Palace has been a staple of the Devil May Cry series since the second game: the mode gives players a single life to slaughter as many enemies as they can, gradually climbing through increasingly difficult floors against a timer. Devil May Cry 5's version is coming on April 1 for free, Capcom revealed this week—and it's not an April Fool's joke.

You'll be able to play as Dante, Nero or V, and if you've finished the story then it'll be yet another reason to jump back in to one of the best brawlers on PC. In case you missed it, Tom's review is here.

Capcom has previously confirmed that the free update is the last piece of planned DLC for the game. 

Update: Capcom producer Matt Walker has claimed Hideaki Itsuno's desire to leave the studio after DmC: Devil May Cry had "nothing to do" with the game itself. 

Others also pointed to an interview last year in which Itsuno said the game was "one of my favorite Devil May Cry games". 

Walker didn't elaborate on why Itsuno would've wanted to leave Capcom, and his comments contradict those of Dante voice actor Reuben Langdon, which you can read about in the story below. No doubt other developers close to Itsuno, or perhaps Itsuno himself, will fill in the blanks at some point.

Original story: 

Hideaki Itsuno, director of the Devil May Cry series, wanted to resign from Capcom after DmC: Devil May Cry, according to the voice and motion capture actor for Dante.

DmC: Devil May Cry released in 2013, five years after Devil May Cry 4. It was, as our review at the time said, a great game, but it was very different to anything else in the series. It was made by a different developer—Ninja Theory—and featured a redesigned Dante.

In an interview with YouTube channel Toy Bounty Hunters, picked up by Game Fragger, actor Reuben Langdon claimed that Itsuno was "not happy" with the change of direction, and was "ready to leave Capcom" following its release.

"I think he put in his resignation and then they said 'wait, you’re a valuable guy, we don’t want you to leave. What can make you stay?'” 

Itsuno's "wishlist" included getting control of the Devil May Cry series for a new game, Langdon said.

"Hats off to him for standing up and hats off for Capcom for going all out. They literally gave him everything he requested and wanted for this game, and it’s paying off," he said, in a reference to the recently-released Devil May Cry 5, which is brilliant.

Langdon himself didn't feature in DmC: Devil May Cry, but voiced Dante in Devil May Cry 3, 4 and 5.

You can listen to the interview below.

There's a wonderful tradition of secret endings in games. There's the Far Cry 4 ending where you just do as you're told and avoid hours of hardship, there are others of note too. Far Cry 5 kept up the tradition and you can now add Devil May Cry 5 to the list.

During the course of the story you come up against Urizen multiple times. He is the embodiment of demonic power and is only supposed to be beaten once you reach the correct point in the story. For the most part, you aren't meant to win. These are fights designed to show you the difference in your power—to demonstrate how far from being a threat you are. The first of these happens in the prologue when you're playing as Nero. 

At this stage in the story, Nero doesn’t even have his Devil Breaker arm let alone his Devil Trigger. However, if you come back after you have finished the story (or if you are preternaturally gifted) you can actually take down this big bad the first time you meet him, making this game around three minutes long—not including cutscenes. 

The easiest way to do this is to take down the shield protecting him without using any of your Devil Trigger. Once you have done this, devil suit up, get in close, and just hammer away at him as quickly as possible. We found the best way to do this was to just stay near his head and hammer away at X and Y, or Square and Triangle. You can then finish him off just before your Devil Trigger runs out by letting go of the lock-on and hitting right trigger or R2. That should make demonic mincemeat of him and put him back into the pages of William Blake where he belongs. 

If you manage this, you're treated to a little bit of text about how everything worked out fine, there is a new legend in town, and you get an achievement too. It's one of those little bonuses you'd only figure out if you were a glutton for punishment—or if you happen to read our guides.

Devil May Cry 5 has been out less than 48 hours but players are already pulling off combos that, even to an untrained eye like mine, are completely wild. 

Streamer ChaserTech has been chronicling some of the best ones on their Twitter page: you'll find combos from Dante, Nero and V, and even some co-op clips, where two players are juggling an enemy between them with a mixture of ranged and melee attacks.

My favourite clips are the two below: the first one isn't the longest, but I like how smooth it looks, and you can see exactly how nimble-fingered you'll have to be to pull it off by watching the controller on the left of the screen. 

The second clip is basically two minutes of non-stop combos where the player, posting on Twitter as Terrutas, bounces between multiple enemies and spends almost all of the time in the air.

As some users have commented under those clips, they're enough to make you want to buy it if you haven't already. Tom's review commented on the fluidity of the combat and, clearly, players are already using that to full effect. 

Capcom has entered a golden age. Its Resident Evil 2 remake was three times more popular on Steam than 2017's Resident Evil 7, and now its latest game, hack-and-slash Devil May Cry 5, has surpassed both of them, making it Capcom's second biggest PC launch ever.

As of writing, the game has a concurrent player peak of around 89,000, and is in the top 10 on Steam in terms of current players. That could improve over the weekend, too, but it's unlikely to catch up with Monster Hunter: World, Capcom's biggest-ever Steam launch, which reached a peak concurrent player count of more than 300,000 following its launch in August.

Capcom hasn't always prioritized PC but, as more PC players show a desire to play its games, that appears to be changing. Last month, Capcom exec Haruhiro Tsujimoto acknowledged that Monster Hunter: World had "exceeded expectations" on Steam, and talked about how important PC players are to the company.

Tom's Devil May Cry 5 review is this-a-way: he called it a "must-buy for hack-and-slash fans".

Thanks, Twisted Voxel.