The series has been successful; the main entries has sold 32 million copies worldwide and received Capcom's Platinum Title award.

[22][23] Dante is confronted in Devil May Cry by Trish, who reveals that Mundus is planning to return and only a descendant of Sparda can defeat him.

[26] As Dante approaches Mundus, he falls into a trap which reveals that Trish is the demon's agent; he saves her, however, because she resembles his mother.

[36] In Devil May Cry 4, Dante and Trish discover foul play within the Order of the Sword and investigate while learning its religious leader's scheme to conquer the world using demonic power.

Dante seemingly assassinates the Sanctus, only to face a young holy knight named Nero, who awakened his demonic forces as a descendant of Sparda.

[41][42] DmC: Devil May Cry, developed by Ninja Theory, is not part of the timeline and takes place in an alternate universe from the main series.

Along with a very different looking Dante, it moves away from the gothic look of the previous games to a more contemporary setting with some social commentary on mass media and culture.

Kamiya rewrote the story and changed its premise, drawing from Italian poet Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy[45][46] for Devil May Cry.

[47] Strider, another Capcom franchise, is cited as a vital influence on the Devil May Cry games and their action, particularly in their inclusion of the "boss rush".

However, Kamiya gave Morihashi the freedom to rework Vergil's backstory and make him a living teenager for Devil May Cry 3.

[59] Kobashi said before the game's release that they wanted to make Dante seem significantly more powerful than Nero, to create an obvious difference between the strength of a "veteran" compared to a "rookie".

He alleviated fears that DmC: Devil May Cry's sales would kill the series, confirming that Capcom was satisfied with them.

[72] Other members of the staff had worked on the reboot game DmC: Devil May Cry, but the Osaka team was more willing to make a sequel to the fourth installment of the main series.

The two-volume novel, published in Japan in 2009, has a number of scenes which were not included in the original game due to time constraints.

[79][80] A prequel novel by Morihashi titled Before the Nightmare, set before Devil May Cry 5 and leading to the beginning of the game, was published on March 1, 2019.

[81] Three issues of a comic adaptation of the first game were published by the Canadian Dreamwave Productions in 2004, but the series was left unfinished when the company went bankrupt the following year.

[82] On July 25, 2008, WildStorm (a DC Comics imprint) and Capcom announced that they would collaborate on a Devil May Cry comic-book series.

Two volumes of a planned three-part Devil May Cry 3 manga series have been published in Japan and the United States.

In November 2018, Adi Shankar announced that he had acquired the rights to produce a Devil May Cry animated series for Netflix.

[94] Kyle Ward was hired to write the screenplay for the film (based on DmC: Devil May Cry), which would be Dante's origin story.

In the play, Dante, Lady, Trish, and Vergil encounter mysterious historical ruins while chasing a devil and are sent back in time to Japan's Warring States period; there, they meet Date Masamune, Sanada Yukimura, and other characters from the Sengoku Basara franchise.

[98] Devil May Cry: The Live Hacker, a musical, ran for 13 performances in March 2019 at Zepp DiverCity in Tokyo.

Initially, Capcom was very reluctant to release an officially sanctioned soundtrack for the Devil May Cry series, due to worries that the products would sell poorly.

The PSP version of Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble also includes Dante and costumes based on Vergil, Trish, Sparda, Marionette, and Plasma.

In a deal between Capcom and Atlus, Megami Tensei character designer Kazuma Kaneko created Dante and Vergil's demonic forms in Devil May Cry 3.

In return, Atlus included Dante in his Devil May Cry 2 costume as a character in an enhanced release of Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (Maniax in Japan).

On June 28, 2021, it was announced that a Mii costume based on Dante would appear in the crossover fighting game Super Smash Bros.

Ultimate, as a set for the Mii Sword fighter character with clothing inspired by his design from the original Devil May Cry game.

The set was released the following day alongside the game's new DLC fighter, Kazuya Mishima from the Tekken series.

[146][130] Although well received by most critics, DmC: Devil May Cry was highly controversial with many long time fans due to the dramatic change in Dante's appearance and the move away from the series' iconic gothic style to a modern urban setting.