THQ to publish Itagaki's Devil's Third

THQ has announced that it has formed a partnership with Tomonobu Itagaki's Valhalla Studios to publish its new game Devil's Third for PS3 and Xbox 360.

Devil's Third is described as a post-apocalyptic, fast-paced action game and surprisingly given Itagaki's background in Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive it's described by the veteran designer as a shooter primarily.

We spoke to Itagaki this week ahead of the announcement and he told us: "If you think of it as a shooting game that includes a level of melee combat and fighting that has never been done in a shooting game before, that's a good way to think of it."

"The Ninja Gaiden games I've worked on before were kind of a hackandslash experience - combat with weapons. And of course there are games like Devil May Cry. So first of all I would say even though you can see things that look like both of those games, I want to make sure people don't confuse it and think that the game we're doing is either a Ninja Gaiden-type game or a Devil May Cry-type game."

THQ's executive vice president of core games, Danny Bilson, told Eurogamer that Devil's Third may be two years or so out from release.

However, he said, the game would not be rushed, and if Itagaki's team needed more or less time then they would have that. Indeed, Itagaki told Eurogamer that this was central to his decision to partner with THQ on Valhalla's first game.

"As you mentioned earlier, making the last 10 per cent of the game takes 50 per cent of the time - you're correct that we will spend a long time on the last 10 per cent of this game as well," he told us.

"That is one of the main reasons that I decided to work with THQ - we can do that here. Danny has been very clear on that concept - that we will only make good games."

Check out the first gameplay trailer for Devil's Third below, and be sure to also check out our exclusive interview with Tomonobu Itagaki and Danny Bilson elsewhere on the site.