7 Times Game Developers Messed Up Historical Characters

2010 was a great year for hack and slash games, with the release of Darksiders, God of War 3, and Dante's Inferno. The latter was inspired by the book of the titular hero Dante Alighieri: The Divine Comedy. The book tells the story of poor Dante Alighieri, an Italian poet who traverses hell with varying companions to save his soul and ascend to heaven. The book has literary significance since it was written in Tuscan rather than in the more dominant Latin language, helping to push the Tuscan dialect as the standardized Italian language.

The game, however, keeps most of the plot but changes the main character's personality. Dante is now a hardened warrior; in-game, we meet him by a fireplace reflecting on his latest crusade, which involved murder, torture, and splitting the Grim Reaper in half, stealing his his scythe. Those sins plague Dante's mind, so he did the rational thing, sewing fabric strips with depictions of it onto his chest. Sure, why not?

He arrives at his homestead in Tuscany just to find his family and loved ones slaughtered and just in time to see the literal devil take his wife's soul to hell. The rest of the game, we travel with Dante through hell's circles, meeting sinners and demons, to save the love of his life.

Whether Dante ever joined a sewing circle is still very much discussed.