Dante on the Xbox

In his recent piece in the New York Times, “Becoming Screen Literate,” Kevin Kelly talked about how “when technology shifts, it bends the culture.” About 500 years ago, Gutenberg’s invention of movable type and the advent of print culture displaced oral culture and “now invention is again overthrowing the dominant media. A new distribution-and-display technology is nudging the book aside and catapulting images, and especially moving images, to the center of the culture. We are becoming people of the screen.”

One prime example of this tectonic shift is Dante’s Inferno, a new “third person action and adventure game based on the epic poem” created by Electronic Arts.

Jonathan Knight, the Executive Producer of this new “original property” says:

“The time is right for the world of interactive entertainment to adapt this literary masterpiece, and to re-introduce Dante to an audience who, until now, may have been unfamiliar with the remarkable details of this great work of art…It’s the perfect opportunity to fuse great gameplay with great story.”

Here’s the teaser:

Just imagine what they can do these days with Dante’s nine circles of hell; limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, wrath, heresy, violence, fraud and treachery.

Press Release “EA Sends Players to Hell in Epic Action Game Dante’s Inferno”
Dante’s Inferno homepage at Xbox 360

Thanks to Core77 for the lead.