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It’s a very exciting time for Marvel vs. Capcom fans right now. After years of silence, tricky licensing issues, and a seemingly shaky relationship between Marvel and Capcom that painted a hopeless picture for the franchise, “Mahvel” is back with the upcoming Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics.
The masses have long been convinced that Marvel vs. Capcom would not officially return, but against all odds, the companies have come together once again to not only collaborate, but also revive seven classic titles that have been absent from modern platforms for centuries. This, coupled with several other factors, hints, and words directly from developers (both recent and past), indicates that the chances of a new Marvel vs. Capcom game (or Marvel vs. Capcom 4, as many are calling it) actually happening are higher than ever right now.
The Marvel vs. Capcom and Versus series as a whole are beloved by fans and competitors in the fighting game community.
Even without an active modern game on the market today, gamers around the world have kept these titles alive in a variety of ways, including finding better ways to play older games against each other online, adding to games like Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite via PC mods, and continuing to create content that not only delves into the specifics of these games, but also the landscape around them and the likelihood of a new one being created.
As for the main entries in the series, the last time we saw a new full Marvel vs. Capcom game was in September 2017 with the release of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite.
Unfortunately, many fans did not consider this particular entry to be a “real” Mahvel game for a variety of reasons, including its poor visual design, lack of major mainstays in the roster due to licensing conflicts for X-Men and Fantastic Four characters, and its 2v2 battle format that strayed from the traditional 3v3 assisted formula that people know and love.
This means that the last truly solid entry in the franchise that people took seriously in competition (and still actively play) was 2011’s Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Needless to say, we’re probably overdue for a legitimate new title in the franchise at this point.
Thankfully, things are finally looking up on that front, and you don’t have to look far to see the signs of it. For starters, and as mentioned earlier, the release of the upcoming Marvel vs. Capcom collection — which includes re-releases of X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes, Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, and The Punisher — is a pretty clear indicator that Marvel and Capcom are at least willing to work together again and see the value in the franchise.
This alone has fans thinking that a new game in the series could be in the works, but that’s not all. Additionally, the developers of Street Fighter 6 also recently shared some more information about Capcom’s latest crossovers with Marvel and SNK and not only expressed their strong desire to create new collaborative games with these companies, but also explained that seeing all-new entries for Marvel vs. Capcom and Capcom vs. SNK will be determined by fan interest in current and upcoming products such as the Marvel vs. Capcom Collection.
“The Capcom development team has big dreams,” Street Fighter 6 producer Shuhei Matsumoto told Dexerto in a recent interview while discussing the potential for new crossover games. “Maybe there’s an opportunity for a new Marvel vs. Capcom game. Maybe there’s an opportunity for a new SNK game based on Capcom.”
“I don’t know. But if it were to happen, it would take time and effort to achieve it. [to] create and publish these kinds of games, but in the short term, what we can do now is at least reintroduce these old games to a new audience, to people who may not have the opportunity to play them because they may not be available on modern or current platforms.
“What we can at least do now is show that these series exist. We love these games. We hope you love them too, and maybe in the future, if people become familiar with these series, there might be future opportunities to make bigger games,” Matsumoto concluded.
While Matsumoto’s words are encouraging in and of themselves—especially since we all know that the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection is going to be a hit, and has already hit the top of the sales charts before it even has an official release date—the developer’s comments are similar to those of former Marvel vs. Capcom and Versus game developer Ryota Niitsuma during another pivotal time in Capcom’s legacy.
In January 2010, Niitsuma told Kotaku that Capcom might announce another Versus game if sales of the current title Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars were strong enough in the United States. He also expressed interest in creating more Versus games with other companies.
“I’d like to do more game series, more types of games like Marvel vs. Capcom 2,” Niitsuma said in the 2010 interview. “There are all these possibilities to work with other companies, to see what we could do with them. There are so many game companies I’d like to work with.”
“If sales are really good (for Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars), then you might see an announcement sometime this year,” Niitsuma said at the end of the interview.
Funny enough, a few months later, in April 2010, Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds was officially announced. It was released on February 15, 2011, and its update Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 followed in November.
Capcom later noted that they had already planned to reveal MvC3 early in the development process and even before they had everything in place to bring Tatsunoko vs. Capcom to the West, but this could even be seen as further evidence that something is already in development right now.
Ironically, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom wasn’t as successful as Capcom had hoped sales-wise, yet we saw the announcement of another Versus title in Marvel vs. Capcom 3. In 2012, former Capcom USA senior vice president Christian Svensson didn’t provide actual sales figures for TvC, but he did paint a clearer picture of its sales performance.
“Investor Relations never released any official numbers,” Svensson began his 2012 post on the old Capcom Unity forum. “Let’s just say it didn’t perform as well as Street Fighter 4 or Marvel vs. Capcom and leave it at that. I wish it had a bit more success (and for the game being as good as it was, it definitely deserved it) but I’m not unhappy with the North American performance overall.”
With a new compilation featuring seven classic titles on the way, Capcom developers expressing great interest in creating new crossover games, Marvel being fully on board with Capcom to make the compilation, and recent developer comments resembling what we’ve seen back in the day before a big game announcement, it feels like the chances of a brand new Marvel vs. Capcom game are better than they’ve potentially ever been in history.
That said, we’ll just have to wait and see how things play out, but for the first time in a very long time, MvC fans can have some hope.
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