It’s hard to believe that it’s been over 15 years since Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was released on February 15, 2011. Though Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite would be released years later on September 19, 2017, it features entirely different design philosophies. Many players don’t even consider Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite to be a true sequel to Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
Regardless, it’s been years since Capcom has done anything with Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Seemingly out of nowhere, the game has been patched on Steam with a bizarre balance adjustment implemented… technically.
Modifications have been made that adjust the credits, Steam API and EXE. Any mods that were directed at the EXE are now unusable with this latest version of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
This seems to suggest that one of the objectives of this patch was to disable the community’s efforts to modify the game. According to Xeno, modders are reportedly having a difficult time poking around in the code.
‼️UMVC3 On Steam Just Updated!
Changes to note were that the Credits, Steam API, and the EXE were modified. Support for Ogg and Vorbis Formats was added.
Stuff like mods that effected the exe are now Broken and anything that used to mess with the exe is now borked. Folks are… pic.twitter.com/1Vpul436Y1
— Xeno ⏳ (@Xeno_TG) June 15, 2026
However, the oddest thing about this update is that it actually affects one of the playable characters in a major way. Indeed, Phoenix (Jean Grey) has been heavily nerfed, though it appears to be entirely unintentional.
Phoenix naturally adopts one of the most extreme design philosophies ever seen in a fighting game. She’s a glass cannon to an extreme degree.
With only 375,000 stamina points, she has half as much durability as the fighters tied with the second lowest health total — Akuma, Rocket Raccoon and Strider at 750,000 stamina.
By design, Phoenix is intended to be an “anchor” with the game’s only level 5 hyper art. Upon having her entire health bar depleted, she’ll transform via Dark Phoenix Rises, assuming she has five full bars of meter stocked up at the time of her “death.”
Dark Phoenix’s stamina will gradually turn into gray life for the remainder of the match, but this is intended to keep Dark Phoenix in check since she has some of the craziest attacks and movement options ever seen in a fighting game.
Fans have noted, however, that the Dark Phoenix Rises hyper art will no longer trigger when Phoenix has her health diminished to 0. It doesn’t matter how much meter the player has stored.
According to Xeno once again, the latest patch made it so that Phoenix now requires “greater than” five bars of meter instead of exactly five bars in order to transform into Dark Phoenix. Since the game caps meter at five bars, this is now impossible to do.
More than likely, this will be fixed in a later patch, but we’re stuck with a version of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 that’s without Dark Phoenix in the meantime.
So Capcom pushed a small update to UMvC3 on Steam earlier today, and now this is apparently a bug that applies in all game modes.
RIP Dark Phoenix 2011-2026 pic.twitter.com/v5lwxvjAG6
— RoR | T.Hawk (@GiveTHawkAGunMD) June 15, 2026
‼️WHY DARK PHOENIX IS BROKEN IN UMVC3 RN!
YOU NEED AN IMPOSSIBLE 5+ BARS TO TURN INTO DARK PHOENIX NOW???So its that WHOEVER THE HELL messed with the code for Marvel 3 in this new update managed to ALSO mess with Phoenix’s function check on her Dark Install. The game USED to… pic.twitter.com/0g2xik7fb3
— Xeno ⏳ (@Xeno_TG) June 15, 2026
