Dante's Inferno Edition of Dante Alighieri's 'Inferno' Announced

Developer Visceral Games has announced a confounding Dante's Inferno-branded "special edition" of fourteenth-century Italian poet Dante Alighieri's 'Inferno,' the allegorical epic poem that its God of War-style bloodbath is tangentially inspired by.

The gaudy trade paperback contains the respected Longfellow translation of Inferno with an introduction by executive producer Jonathan Knight and sixteen pages of art showing "the evolution of characters and environments from the classic poem to the video game."

"Through the creative process of developing this game, we have grown quite close to the literary works of Dante Alighieri. It is his vision that we are adapting for this new media, and new audience," said Knight in a press statement. "The game is a celebration of Dante, and we hope gamers will be encouraged to go beyond the game and explore the classic text that has inspired us so deeply."

Published by Del Rey, the bizarre book will be released on January 19 for $13. Dante's Inferno the video game arrives for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PSP on February 9.