Dante’s Inferno celebrates its 15th anniversary this year. Not that there’s been any fireworks or cake. Visceral Games’ 2010 hack-and-slash, which saw a crusader named Dante battle through the nine circles of Hell in an attempt to save his fiancee Beatrice from Lucifer, didn’t leave the massive, zeitgeist-defining impact that publisher EA had hoped for. Plans for an even bigger, more ambitious sequel were unceremoniously laid to rest.

For more than a decade, the game’s sizable cult following has wondered what the next steps of the journey would have looked like. Dante’s Inferno was very loosely based on the first third of Dante Alighieri’s epic 14th century poem The Divine Comedy, which imagines its author journeying towards Heaven, and so a sequel would presumably have carried the story into Purgatory and, finally, Paradise. Aside from the fact that it would have involved some kind of war between Heaven and Hell, no details of the cancelled project have ever escaped onto the internet. All that remains of it has been kept under lock and key by EA, gradually fading into legend.

That is, until today. After talking with a number of sources close to the project, IGN has obtained an assortment of hitherto unpublished internal documents, including concept art, cutscene storyboards, screenshots of rudimentary level geometry, and – last but not least – a 240-page script penned by Assassin’s Creed 2 co-writer Joshua Rubin that outlines every stage, boss battle, and plot point planned for Dante’s Inferno 2: Purgatorio (or, more elegantly, simply Dante’s Purgatorio.)

Taken together, these materials not only show that Dante’s Inferno 2 made it further into the pre-production process than previously thought, but also that Visceral had planned to take the sequel in a slightly different direction than expected. The plot, for example, would have blended The Divine Comedy with another Biblical epic, John Milton’s Paradise Lost, which reimagines Lucifer as morally ambiguous as opposed to a thoroughly evil figure.

The sequel’s underlying design philosophy would have been retooled as well. “The first game was heavily influenced by God of War,” one former Visceral employee told IGN. “At the time we were working on the second [game], Uncharted 2 was having a big influence on single player games: cutscenes and quick time events were being replaced with scripted gameplay sequences where the player has full control over the character.”

“So much of the original game was classic hack-and-slash in the arcade, Mortal Kombat tradition,” Jonathan Knight, the original game’s creative director, told IGN, hinting at what he wanted the sequel not to be. “Here’s an arena, some gameplay happens, then you move through a tunnel to the next part of the level. Some of that’s inevitable in a game, but the really great ones figure out how to make believable, natural environments.”

Had the developers been allowed to realize their creative vision, Dante’s Inferno 2 was planned to be to Dante’s Inferno what Assassin’s Creed 2 was to Assassin’s Creed, or God of War 2018 to the original trilogy: a sequel that dared to go above and beyond the confines of its predecessor.

We cannot show you a game that was never made. But we can offer you an unprecedented insight into Dante’s Inferno 2’s entire campaign. What follows is a comprehensive (but by no means complete) written reconstruction of what playing this game would have looked like, from start to finish.

Dante’s Inferno 2: Purgatorio – The Complete Story

Level 1: Dream in Eden

According to the script, Dante’s Inferno 2 would have opened in the Garden of Eden. Dante, lying in the grass, awakens next to Beatrice, cradling a baby girl who – she tells him – is their daughter. “Tell me this is real,” he says, but when he looks again, both the baby and Beatrice have disappeared.

This is when you’d be given control of Dante, who looks for Beatrice in the garden as the opening credits roll across the screen. You’d be able to press a button to call out her name, prompting her to respond and, in turn, allowing you to follow the sound of her voice. By the time you catch up with her, Eden has grown uncharacteristically dark and moody.

The game’s opening boss, an enormous snake made of black smoke, appears from nowhere. Armed with your trusty scythe and cross, you battle to free Beatrice from its grasp, only when you get to her, she’s no longer herself. Having reassumed her corrupted, Queen of Hell-form from the original game, she speaks in Lucifer’s voice: “You’re dead, Dante!” The ground beneath you opens up, and you disappear into a bottomless chasm.

Level 2: At the Shores of Purgatory

One title sequence and “previously on” montage later, you resume from where the ending cutscene of the original game left off: with Dante emerging from a cave and being too awestruck by the glory of Mt. Purgatory to notice that the cross-shaped tapestry he tears off his chest transforms into a small, red snake upon hitting the ground.

“Though defeated at the end of the first game,” Knight recalls, “Lucifer is able to come back through this device of the tapestry, which is really a representation of Dante’s sins. He’s not forgiven, and he’s still carrying his wrongdoings with him.”

As the snake slithers away unnoticed, Dante sets off in search of Beatrice, who – he informs via voiceover – awaits him somewhere up the mountain.

On a beach at the foot of the mountain, Dante encounters Cato, a Roman senator who serves as a guardian of Purgatory. Giant and half-embedded into the cliffside, he welcomes a group of newly arrived souls that includes Beatrice’s brother Francesco, a fellow crusader whom Dante defeated – and absolved – back in Inferno.

Dante tries to follow Francesco to the mountain, but Cato – sensing the former is “besmirched by the blackness of Hell” – stops him. When they clash, however, the red snake from earlier inexplicably bursts forth from Cato’s mouth, splitting his face in half. The beach itself splits also, giving way to a hellfire-filled crevice. “So it begins,” Lucifer’s voice announces as his army of demons launches a full-scale invasion of Purgatory.

A cutscene introduces us to Michael, the senior of God’s archangels. Looking down from Heaven, the divine magistrate sizes up Lucifer’s forces before sending down an army of his own. “Angelic airships” pierce through the clouds above Eden and make their way down the mountainside, where Dante has now found himself in the midst of a chaotic battle between angels and demons.

Attacked from both sides, Dante comes face to face with Lilith. The original wife of Adam, she was seduced by Lucifer and now serves as his second-in-command. Similar to the boss fight against Death in Inferno, your battle ends with Dante taking Lilith’s weapon: another scythe, but with a unique move set.

As Lilith reports to Lucifer that everything is going “according to plan,” another key character makes their first appearance. It’s Dante’s guardian angel, Saint Lucia. First Introduced in the original game’s Trials of St. Lucia DLC, she rescues Dante from a burning airship by teaching him how to perform a Spirit Jump.

Level 3: Ante-Purgatory

Once they reach safety, Lucia tells Dante he should not blame himself for unknowingly helping Lucifer escape from Hell. Introducing the game’s central plot point, she reveals that “there is a larger power at work.” The invasion is part of a plan that God communicated to her and her alone, one that ends with Dante defeating Lucifer once and for all.

If only God had clued in Michael, too. Taking no chances, the chief archangel decides to close the Gates of Heaven that connect Eden to Paradise – a drastic, irrevocable measure that would keep out not just Lucifer and his demons, but also worthy souls like Beatrice. To make sure she can enter Heaven, Dante must find her and bring her to Eden before the gates are shut.

Fortunately, he won’t have to do it alone. To show Dante the way up, Lucia summons an old friend: Virgil. Temporarily freed from Limbo, the Roman poet who guided you through Hell in Dante’s Inferno explains that, if you succeed, he too will be allowed to go to Heaven. With goals, stakes, and ticking timebombs established, the journey officially begins.

Access to Mt. Purgatory proper is monitored by the Vicar of Saint Peter, a “massive angel with five wings” which he uses as legs “like a giant spider.” As with Cato, ordinary souls are let through, but Dante and Virgil are not. A boss battle – the “biggest and most exhaustive” yet – ensues, and despite Virgil’s protests, Dante ends up killing the Vicar: a crime guaranteed to place them on every angel’s radar.

Levels 4 and 5: Pride / Envy

From here, the game falls into a consistent rhythm. On each terrace, Dante and Virgil interact with souls, some of whom Dante recognizes from his mortal life in Italy. Unlike in Hell, where people are tortured as punishment, the inhabitants of Purgatory suffer in the hope of earning redemption: the prideful carry giant boulders on their backs, while the envious wander around with their eyes sown shut, just as described in the poem.

Before they can leave the Terrace of Envy, Dante and Virgil are ambushed by Gabriel, the second archangel. Once God’s primary mouthpiece, Gabriel hasn’t heard from his Lord in eons, so why would He speak to Lucia? “If God truly commands you,” he warns Dante, “let’s see Him protect you from me.”

In truth, it’s God who ought to protect Gabriel from Dante. After losing a tag-team boss battle in which he fights against you with his fellow angels – and witnessing your impressive spirit powers – Gabriel’s skepticism dissipates. Believing in Dante’s mission (“I feel Him in you…”), he orders his underlings to help rather than hinder us. From here on out, the player will be fighting alongside Gabriel’s angels, not against them.

Level 6: Wrath

On the next terrace, Wrath, Dante and Virgil find Beatrice. Greeting Dante by punching him in the face, she’s still angry about everything that happened to her in the first game, and although – pious Christian that she is – she’d rather earn her way into Heaven through honest penitence, news of Lucifer’s approaching army convinces her to come along.

On this terrace, Dante and Beatrice enter a Vision Cave together. Inside, they are confronted with two episodes from their past: one of the night Dante slept with another woman while he was out fighting in the crusades, and another of the night Beatrice, having learned of Dante’s betrayal, spitefully agreed to marry Lucifer. Afterwards, Dante battles not a sin-demon, but Beatrice’s Queen of Hell-form, vanquishing her for good.

With Lucifer’s forces hot on their tail, Dante, Beatrice, and Virgil head for the next terrace. On the way, they again run into Gabriel, who offers to give them a ride. Before they can take off, however, they are interrupted by another archangel, Uriel, who is in a very bad mood. He’s recently discovered that neither Michael nor Gabriel have heard from God in a very long time, and so every order he’s obeyed since Lucifer’s exile has been based on lies.

Gabriel tries to explain himself, but Uriel didn’t come looking for answers: he tears off his brother’s wings and cuts off his head with a flaming sword.

Separated from Virgil and Beatrice in the ensuing chaos, Dante runs into Lucifer. To everyone’s surprise, he’s not here to fight you but to thank you. After all, you helped him escape from Hell, opened the gates of Purgatory, and mowed down hundreds of angels standing between him and Heaven. You aren’t fulfilling God’s plan – Lucifer doubts He even exists. Instead, you’re a pawn in Lucifer’s plan, and have been from the very moment you first followed Beatrice into Hell.

“Know the truth, Dante,” he says. “It has always been I, guiding you in your darkest moments, destroying everything you loved. Your entire life leading you to this moment has been shaped by me, and no other!”

Having dented Dante’s spirit, Lucifer vanishes. Alone and full of doubt, Dante is eventually discovered by Lucia, who – once she’s been filled in – can neither confirm nor deny what you have heard. She has no proof – only faith. It’s enough for her. But is it for you?

Levels 7, 8, and 9: Sloth, Greed, and Gluttony

Reuniting with Virgil (Lucia has taken Beatrice with her up the mountain), you discover that Lucifer’s forces have overtaken you, turning the remaining terraces of Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, and Lust into apocalyptic wastelands littered with dead angels, downed warships, and enemies Dante previously faced in the original game.

As the duo hurries to catch up, a cutscene set in the demon camp shows Lucifer telling Lilith that, from here on out, she is no longer second-in-command, but will be taking orders from Uriel, who has officially crossed over to the dark side. When Lilith protests, Lucifer – suggesting he never loved her – casts her out.

The next three terraces all revolve around big set pieces. In Sloth, you have your final encounter with Lilith. Determined to hit her ex-boyfriend where it hurts, she’s decided to kill Dante herself. The boss battle – which sees her trick Dante by pretending she’s actually an innocent person under Lucifer’s spell – ends with her death.

On the climb to Greed, you fight a Phlegyas – one of those gargantuan fire-demons you encountered in the Anger level of Dante’s Inferno – which is scaling Mt. Purgatory like the Titans from God of War 3. Climbing its body, you defeat it by triggering a Possession-powered explosion that leaves a “Death Star”-sized hole in the mountain.

On the Terrace of Gluttony, Virgil is captured by vine-mouthed demons. They imprison him inside a cage dangling from the Tree of Knowledge, the same tree that bore the fruit which Lucifer used to drive Adam and Eve out of Paradise. Corrupted by Hell, it now resembles the love child of a hydra and a Venus flytrap. To save Virgil, you have to fight the tree and restore it to its original form.

Level 10: Lust

On Lust, the final terrace, Dante and Virgil finally catch up to Lucifer’s army, which is trying to break into the Garden of Eden. After they explore the final Vision Cave and confront Dante’s lustful desires (complete with.. ahem… a love-making QTE sequence), Lucia shows up with an airship to take you to the summit.

Before you can reach your destination, a furious Uriel reappears. Despite hurling his flaming sword at Dante, it’s Virgil instead who takes the fatal blow. After the poet dies in his arms, Dante battles the archangel, killing him in the same way he killed Gabriel. Part of this boss fight takes place in the skies above Eden, with Dante sprouting angelic wings made of light and circling his foe.

Level 11: The Garden of Eden

Uriel may be dead, but Lucifer’s forces push onwards. In an attempt to buy himself more time to find Beatrice in the Garden of Eden, Dante helps the angels hold the line in a two-phase tower defence minigame. After blasting the approaching horde with a cannon and washing away demons by redirecting waterfalls, you’re finally able to make it to the top of the mountain.

Beatrice awaits Dante inside the garden. Searching for her in a gameplay sequence reminiscent of the opening act, their reunion is once again interrupted – not by a giant snake, but Michael, descending from Heaven in a chariot drawn forth by a griffin.

Dante begs Michael to hold open the Gates of Heaven so Beatrice can pass through. But the archangel won’t budge, having concluded that God has abandoned him in favor of Dante. “For what does it matter who rules in Heaven, if God has forsaken me?” he says, grabbing Beatrice and ordering his champions, a 24-strong team of elite angels, to kill Dante.

Over the course of the fight, Eden is gradually consumed by hellfire. Eventually, you are interrupted by Lucifer. He wields a spear, and on it – the severed head of Saint Lucia. Realising the scale of the threat on his doorstep, Michael reluctantly promises to let Beatrice enter Heaven if Dante manages to defeat Lucifer.

With Lucifer defeated, Michael lets Dante and Beatrice pass through the Gates of Heaven just before they close, as promised. Seeing the dazzling City of Paradise in the distance, they hardly have a chance to breathe before Beatrice walks up to Michael and, to everyone’s surprise, slits his throat. Smoke spews out of her mouth, and Lucifer rematerializes. Thanking you once more for carrying out his plan, he takes your scythe – his scythe – and kicks you off the edge of Paradise.

Dante falls. Past the Garden of Eden, past the terraces of Mt. Purgatory, past the beach, past the nine circles of Hell, all the way down to the frozen surface of Lake Cocytus, where Lucifer was originally imprisoned. A new traitor – Uriel – has now taken his place.

Utterly defeated, Dante doesn’t move until he notices the deepest parts of Hell being illuminated by golden light. The spirit of Saint Lucia, descending from Heaven, tells him something that changes everything: “Don’t fear, Dante. Even this is part of God’s plan.”

The credits roll on Dante’s Inferno 2.

Dante’s Inferno 3: Paradiso – The Not-So-Complete Story

But there’s more. Another internal document acquired by IGN outlines what God’s plan entails, and how it would have factored into the plot of the third game, Dante’s Inferno 3: Paradiso. Put simply, God’s plan is to destroy the Christian afterlife we’ve journeyed through, to tear down the unfair, overly strict system of punishment and redemption administered by Michael and his fellow angels, and establish a new order based purely on love.

“I remember thinking that if Lucifer’s invasion is part of God’s plan, then that plan cannot result in the maintenance of the status quo,” says scriptwriter Joshua Rubin. “On the contrary, God saw his system corrupted by his angels, over-administered, overly bureaucratic. He wanted everything torn down, and the only way to do that was to make a man fight his way through it all.”

According to the aforementioned document, the war between Heaven and Hell would spread to Earth, with a large part of the third game taking place in medieval Florence. This time, it seems, it’s Dante – joined by his daughter, born while he was off on the crusades and left behind in Italy – who would have played the role of the invader, storming Paradise with an army of people and angels to fight Lucifer and save Beatrice one last time.

For those involved, looking back on the early development of Dante’s Inferno 2 is bittersweet. On the one hand, the sequel, cancelled in its infancy, is a representation of lost potential, an invitation to imagine what could have been. “The number of games that don’t get a sequel but should,” Rubin muses. “It takes an entire game for a team to gel, to figure out how to work together. Often, it’s only in the second game where things really come to life.”

On the other hand, the work that Visceral poured into the Dante franchise was not for nothing. While the sequel ended up in Limbo, the people who had worked on it went on to apply what they had learned to other projects, from Visceral’s Dead Space 3, to Uncharted 3 and God of War 2018. It is through these franchises – the very franchises that inspired Visceral – that the spirit of Dante’s Inferno lives on.

Tim Brinkhof is a freelance writer specializing in art and history. After studying journalism at NYU, he has gone on to write for Vox, Vulture, Slate, Polygon, GQ, Esquire and more.