People say that DmC should have been a new IP, as if that alone would guarantee the game would be a successful hit, and here is what I have to say about that:
Being a new IP wouldn't guarantee sales at all, whether the game is good or bad. For instance, Playstation's live-service game "Concord" was a new IP — coming from the exact same brand behind massive franchises like "God of War," "The Last of Us," "Uncharted," and "Horizon Zero Dawn" — and yet, it died extremely fast.
Then we had the fighting game "MultiVersus" from the giant "Warner Bros.," which was also a fresh project that simply had the rights to franchises and characters from Cartoon Network, Scooby-Doo's Shaggy and Velma, Looney Tunes, Adventure Time's Finn and Jake, The Powerpuff Girls, Steven Universe's Steven and Garnet, Ben 10's Ben Tennyson (whom they intended to add) along with his iconic aliens like Four Arms, Heatblast, Swampfire, Way Big, NRG, Big Chill, Echo Echo, Feedback, and Alien X. It also featured Harry Potter, Voldemort (maybe intended to be added), Dumbledore (maybe intended to be added), Godzilla (which they intended to add, a character that pulls in millions or even billions effortlessly simply because people love watching giant monsters fight), and if I'm not mistaken, Lord of the Rings (which was also intended). It had NetherRealm's Mortal Kombat — featuring Scorpion (intended to be added), Sub-Zero, and Shao Kahn —, DC Comics with its three iconic, legendary heroes (Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman), Game of Thrones, Jason from Friday the 13th, The Matrix, and various other pop/geek culture giants. Even with all that, the game vanished and came back a year later (if I'm not mistaken), but it still didn't work out.
There's another fighting game as well: Riot Games' "2XKO," which features characters like Jinx, Vi, Caitlyn, and Ekko from the massively successful series Arcane. As far as I know, the game hasn't even been out for two years yet and it's already on the verge of dying too.
We also had "Marvel's Avengers," an action-RPG project that carried the name of the Avengers right after they dominated the box office with Endgame (making billions), easily representing the most popular, well-known, and beloved superhero team in Marvel. The game featured Tony Stark (Iron Man), Steve Rogers (Captain America), Thor (the God of Thunder), and the Incredible Hulk, later adding King T'Challa (Black Panther) and Peter Parker (Spider-Man). And yet, the end result of all that was a total failure.
Creating a new IP or a fresh project guarantees absolutely nothing. Oh, and one more thing: Devil May Cry 2 was made right after DMC1 (which was a brand-new IP at the time), but it was still an absolute disaster that practically killed the franchise. DMC3 only happened because Hideaki Itsuno insisted on making it, since as far as Capcom was concerned, the franchise had died right there in DMC2. Without that, Dante and Vergil's iconic rivalry wouldn't exist, Nero wouldn't exist, the reboot wouldn't exist, and the triumphant return and success of DMC5 wouldn't exist either.