For the last few years, Captivate has been Capcom’s annual showcase of its upcoming titles. It’s been their way to generate some buzz and show off games that are near release or in development before the craziness of E3 hits. This year, Capcom displayed its latest wares in Honolulu. Over the next few days, I’ll be rolling out impressions about what the Japanese publisher of the Mega Man and Resident Evil games showed off.
The rumors were swirling for months that the universes of comics and games would be clashing again, given the successful re-release of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 last year. Capcom finally conformed that those whispers were true. Just like Jean Grey returning as the Phoenix in X-Men #101 [*nerd alert!*], one of the fighting game genre’s classics finally gets resurrected in a new form.
Since this was just an announcement, actual details were scarce about Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds. The full character list is a long way from being revealed but the trailer that was shown featured Ryu fighting Wolverine, Iron Man facing off against Morrigan and Chris Redfield aiming a handgun against the Hulk. Capcom’s Seth Killian said that match-ups like these have been key to the series’ past popularity and MvC3 will be rich in fan service for fans of each universe. It’ll feature have in-game events, which, it was hinted, would reflect the connected nature of the Marvel landscape. The upcoming title’s developers–including producer Ryoto Niitsuma–come from previous Vs. titles. Unlike MvC2, which had no real plot to speak of, Fate of Two Worlds will have a story that Marvel will have input in.
Killian described the art style the dev team’s aiming for as a living comic book and talked about the effort going into creating that look. MvC3 will offer up familiar character catchphrases and will have special shaders engineered to replicate the visuals of Marvel Comics. Surprisingly, the software engine powering MvC3 wouldn’t be the same one responsible for Street Fighter IV’s graphics. Instead, it’ll be the MT Framework–the engine behind Resident Evil 5 and the upcoming Lost Planet 2–that will be bringing the characters in the crossover smackdown to life. Killian said that the MT Framework allows for more visual possbilities than the SFIV engine. As for characters, no one from Capcom or Marvel would officially commit to how deep the roster would be but reps from Capcom said there would be at least as many combatants as in Street Fighter IV. Pressed further, that range was said to be more than 30 characters. Silhouettes lurked in the background of the characters screens shown and one of them bore a winged headpiece, so an appearance by Thor or Captain America seems pretty likely. Looking at the promo images, I’m pretty sure I can spot:
- Deadpool’s sword hilts
- the ears and shoulder details of the Super-Skrull (and he’s stretching in one of the pics)
- Nightcrawler’s tail and teleportation smoke
- Chun Li’s hair and ribbons
- A jacket and collared shirt like the one worn by Dead Rising‘s Frank West
More details about MvC3 will likely be coming out at E3 but expect a 2011 release date for this long-awaited follow-up.