Rivals

Rivals are characters that each character will meet in their arcade mode. Rivalries are entirely mutual, and they are all based around an Easter Egg, which, in this case, happens to be a bit of information, be it well-known or little known, regarding the two characters and/or their franchises. For instance, Dante's rival is Nariko, and that also means that Nariko's rival is Dante, and the fact that the two are rivals is because Dante's new game, DMC, and Heavenly Sword were developed by Ninja Theory.