'Dante's Inferno' given comic treatment

EA and WildStorm Productions have announced that forthcoming video game Dante's Inferno will receive the comic book treatment.

A six-issue miniseries featuring the game's protagonist will be released ahead of the multi-platform offering in December. Seasoned television, comics and film scribe Christos Gage will handle writing duties on the venture.

Speaking to CBR, the writer revealed that WildStorm's original take on the source material is what attracted him to the project. "They could have gone for a very traditional approach that imitated other games out there, but they really went out of their way to craft original interpretations of the source material," he told the website.

"Characters of myth like Charon, Cerberus and Minos were all given very cool new spins. I wanted to explore the world they built… it's as simple as that."

Based on an epic 14th century poem, the EA video game casts the player as Dante, who must battle his way through the Nine Circles of Hell to rescue his lover Beatrice. It follows in the footsteps of last year's Dead Space, which was also given a comic book spinoff.

An animated feature and a live-action film based on the property are currently in development.

Dante's Inferno is released for Xbox 360, PC and PS3 in February 2010. The comic series debuts on December 9.