Hunter (DmC)

"You are dead...just like your whore mother."

- The Hunter to Dante.

The Hunter is a vicious demon and one of the villains in DmC: Devil May Cry.

Appearance
The Hunter resembles an excessively large gorilla-like monster with gangly proportions, and dark gray skin and black fur. A deep scar runs down the center of his face, and his nose is completely gone, with only a large, open nasal cavity remaining. He wears a metal harness over his torso, and has a strap on his right leg to hold his grappling gun.

History
This huge, beastly primate-like demon is encountered at the pier near Dante's trailer. After a raucous night out, Kat wakes the young demon hunter from a hangover to warn him that he has left a trail for the demons to follow. Moments later, Dante is pulled and dragged into Limbo by the Hunter, sitting in the water just off the coast. The Hunter proceeds to latch onto Dante's trailer with is grappling gun and pulls the abode off the pier. As Dante gathers his effects, battles ensue with Stygians, and soon afterwards a battle with the Hunter himself.

Defeating the Hunter, Dante slashes his face to render him unconscious, but the Hunter is encountered later on as Dante explores his childhood home.

Trivia

 * The Hunter's scar bears a strong resemblance to that of another monstrous bipedal demon whose face was scarred in battle, Beowulf the Lightbeast. It's possible the Hunter may have also received his scars from Sparda.
 * The physicality and general hairless appearance of this character bear striking resemblances to Gollum from the Lord of the Rings films, portrayed by Andy Serkis, the same actor who has had a celebrated run with Ninja Theory and played the villain King Bohan from Heavenly Sword, but was never involved with DmC.
 * The Hunter's design appears to be based on the Nue of Japanese mythology. The Nue was said to be a mythological creature with the head of a primate, the limbs of a tiger, the torso of a racoon and a snake as its tail (the "tail" in the case of Hunter being the grappling hook) and were said to cause misfortune. The Nue appears in the Tale of the Heike where the creature transforms into a cloud hovering above Emperor Konoe's palace at 2 o'clock in the morning, which caused him to fall ill (much like how The Hunter's appearance caused Dante to end up in Limbo immediately after Dante woke up). Nue is later killed after being shot with an arrow, leading its corpse to fall from the cloud and end up in the Sea of Japan and wash ashore. The locals, fearing the corpse was cursed, buried the Nue near the shore. The Nue is also referred to as a "Japanese chimera".
 * The Hunter's name is likely a reference to the profession of bounty hunting or contract killing, which involved a wanted target (in some cases, a criminal) being hunted down and brought to justice, dead or alive.