I want to get something out of the way right off the bat: if you're a purist of early Renaissance poetry, abandon all hope before reading this. Yes, someone is turning a poem into a video game, and no, it will not stay true to the source material. Now you know how Tolkien fans feel. Okay, enough with the disclaimer...

A new video out today from EA and Visceral Games takes us behind the scenes with some of the designers and producers of the upcoming horror survival game Dante's Inferno. The video, entitled "First Circle: Limbo" details the storyline of how the game's protagonist, Dante Alighieri (who is described as a "reimagining" of the poet, as if that weren't abundantly obvious), comes to find himself in Hell and armed with a scythe the size of a barn.

Take a look:

Apart from amazingly frightening monsters and character models (worms freak me the fuck out!), the thing that impresses me most about this video is the game's sound. If those cinematics are all in-game, then it looks like Visceral has taken the auditory lessons learned from Dead Space and incorporated them into Inferno. As anyone who has spent time on the Ishimura knows, the sound was as vital to the fear factor as anything happening on-screen.

And since this video is called "First Circle", I think it's fair to say that we can expect as many as eight more of these videos. Dante's Inferno doesn't have a solid release date yet, but Visceral is still saying first quarter of 2010. I, for one, cannot wait.