After countless hours of hacking-and-slashing through demon hordes on his quest to stop the King of Hell from crossing over into the human realm, one of the biggest shocks of the original Devil May Cry is the discovery of the identity of Nelo Angelo, the mysterious demonic knight that attacks him at multiple intervals throughout the game. You’re required to fight the wordless horned swordsmith at three different points in the game, and upon defeating him a third time, he drops an amulet identical to the one that protagonist Dante and his long-lost brother were given by their mother as a child — revealing him to be none other than Dante’s twin Vergil.
Despite Mundus revealing in the first game that Vergil has been corrupted and turned into one of his demonic minions, it’s not until Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening that the full story is told: As children, Dante and Vergil were separated by the same demon attack that felled their mother, and briefly reconnected as rivals manipulated by the sorcerer Arius into opening a portal to the demon realm. After working together to defeat their foe, the brothers turn their blades against each other once more due to Vergil’s thirst for the power of their father, the Demon Knight Sparda; upon his defeat, Vergil decides to stay in the demon realm and attempts to slay Mundus, his father’s old nemesis, but is beaten and transformed into Nelo Angelo against his will.
