For almost 10 years at this point, we’ve seen Capcom have only one active fighting game that they’re supporting, from Street Fighter 5 to Street Fighter 6, but there are many signs to indicate that this may be changing.
While Capcom have many different fighting game franchises under their helm which could fit in such a secondary slot, probably the most notable one for the fighting game community as a whole are the Capcom Vs titles, where Capcom pairs their characters together with a different company in a crossover fighting extravaganza. So why do I posit that it’s likely to happen now after such a long hiatus? Well, let’s have a look together.
The first and most obvious tell is that Capcom are very actively working on reintroducing many of their old franchises to the masses again. As a company which holds some of the most iconic intellectual properties in the entire gaming industry, it was kind of a downer for a while where Capcom were mostly just producing their biggest sellers — Resident Evil, Monster Hunter and Street Fighter.
With the exception of some entries here and there such as Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice and Devil May Cry 5, this was largely what we were seeing from Capcom for about the last decade, and it made sense since those are their biggest earners.
However, this trend has clearly been changing and Capcom themselves have been quite vocal about this themselves as well.
Just looking at what’s been releasing in recent years, we’ve seen Dragon’s Dogma 2 and the newly released Onimusha: Way of the Sword and we already have both Mega Man: Dual Override and the currently untitled Okami sequel, showing that Capcom are quite serious about their focus on bringing back many of their all-star franchises.
They’ve been reaping rewards with it as well — Capcom’s latest financial report showed that Onimusha: Way of the Sword sold one million copies on its launch day and within said report, they reaffirmed something they’ve been clearly showing the public for a while, namely their commitment to reviving even more of these classic series.
“In addition to regularly releasing major new titles each year, Capcom is focusing on re-activating IPs that haven’t had a new title launch recently,” reads part of the report.
Now, given the wealth of Capcom franchises, this could obviously be referring to any number of different projects, so what makes me so sure that a Capcom Vs game is one of the re-activations they’re referring to here?
Well, to start off, we can look back to a few years ago when Capcom held international polls asking fans which franchises they want to see new games for, something we extensively reported on here at EventHubs as well.
The final results showed that consumers of all ages, from their teens up to their sixties, were quite enthusiastic about seeing a return of the Capcom Vs. series with it placing inside the top 7 for all of these demographics.
In overall numbers, the Capcom Vs. series actually placed in 6th, beaten only by Dino Crisis, Mega Man, Devil May Cry, Resident Evil and Darkstalkers, actually putting it ahead of both Onimusha and Okami which are getting new titles.
But hold on, wait a minute — the numbers say that Darkstalkers outplaced Capcom Vs., so why am I talking about Capcom Vs. here instead of singing the praises of Darkstalkers, exactly?
There’s actually a simple reason for that — we have even more things pointing towards a Capcom Vs. game being a likelihood.
One of the most recent news stories we’ve seen in the fighting game community lately is the takedown of the fan game Sega vs. Capcom via a Cease and Desist from Capcom themselves.
This in itself isn’t necessarily unusual as it’s quite common for large companies to enforce their copyright, but what’s interesting is the timing. Sega vs. Capcom was a highly publicized project for a long time, in fact we wrote many articles on it during its development, even going as far back as 2023. Which begs the question, why now?
Well, Capcom just released three big titles this year with Resident Evil: Requiem, Pragmata and Onimusha: Way of the Sword, with Resident Evil: Veronica and Mega Man: Dual Override being next in line, meaning that we’re likely going to see some new titles announced soon for an upcoming marketing push.
In this case, the timing for suddenly shutting down the development of Sega vs. Capcom feels eerily on point for something coming up soon. On top of that, we’ve even seen the companies themselves lay the seeds for it.
The obvious tell is the fact that Capcom and SNK have openly been cozying up by adding each other’s characters to their current fighting games, with Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui joining Street Fighter 6 for its second season and the inaugural season of Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves including Ken Masters and Chun-Li in its roster, with direct homages to their crossover series.
We’ve also seen comments from several developers on it. SNK’s Yasuyuki Oda said last year “That would be something, wouldn’t it? However, there is nothing I can talk about at this moment.” when asked about a potential Capcom vs. SNK 3.
Capcom vs. SNK2’s original developer Hideaki Itsuno, who spent a very long time at Capcom but left recently after the development of Dragon’s Dogma 2, outright said that he wanted to make a Capcom vs. SNK 3.
“I do want to make a fighting game like Capcom vs. SNK, but now I’m neither Capcom nor SNK,” said Itsuno, followed by “If they license it to me, though, I want to make Capcom vs. SNK 3. I want to make a fighting game, and it’s at the top of my list of games I want to make.”
Such a practice wouldn’t be uncommon at all. A good example is Masahiro Sakurai who hasn’t been at Nintendo for well over 20 years at this point, but has still been heading the development of every Super Smash Bros. game since his departure back in 2003.
Of course, there are other possibilities as well when it comes to a Capcom Vs. game, even though Capcom vs. SNK 3 is by far the one with the most traction and evidence to support it as of right now.
Perhaps the one most fans dream of is a potential Marvel vs. Capcom 4 and while it might seem unlikely given we have another Marvel fighting game out at the moment, never say never.
Despite the release of Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, Marvel as a company have often had competing games out with their intellectual property. There are even multiple digital card games with the Marvel property right now, called Marvel Duel and Marvel Snap respectively, so competing against themselves in the market, so to speak, is not new to Marvel’s gaming division.
On top of that, the fact that we got the Marvel vs. Capcom Collection a few years ago and it surpassed one million copies sold is also a very good sign that the relationship is still strong between the two companies.
On the other hand, it could also be something so crazy as an actual Sega vs. Capcom game being in the works, making the cease and desist to the fan-game even more necessary on Capcom’s end.
Whatever the case, all signs are pointing towards a Capcom vs. SNK 3, or perhaps another type of Capcom Vs. game, being revealed sometime in the near future.
It’ll be interesting to see how Capcom would manage such a thing from the competitive side of things if it were to happen, since Capcom Cup has always focused on Street Fighter specifically. Perhaps it would lead to having a major event focusing on multiple tournaments, similar to the SNK World Championship?
What are your hopes for a potential Capcom Vs. game coming up? Would you like to see a Capcom vs. SNK 3, Marvel vs. Capcom 4, perhaps even a followup to Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars, or something entirely different?
Also, do you now feel convinced that it’s likely to be happening sooner rather than later? Let us know in the comments.
