Eleven long years have passed since we lead the great heroes and villains from Marvel and Capcom into some of the most stunning fights which have ever been seen in a video game. Now, we`re just a week away from the spectacular comeback of the Marvel vs. Capcom franchise – on February 18th Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds will finally find its way to your PlayStation 3 systems. The game didn`t even have to hit the market to win its first prizes (E3 2010 Game Critics Awards in the category “Best Fighting Game”, Best Fighting Game award from IGN and more) and has already earned some impressive review scores.
But why did it take Capcom so long to revive this popular franchise? How did the integration of all these different and unique characters work? And what is it that makes Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds more than just an HD-Remake of MvC 2? We asked Capcom for some answers. In reaction we did not only get some insights from game producer Ryota Niitsuma himself, but also an all-new world-exclusive gameplay trailer.
Lean back and enjoy the show!
Several years have passed since Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and the game established a huge fanbase. Why did the series almost die and why is it coming back to life now?
Unfortunately, it’s hard to really say why MvC almost died, but since it was originally quite popular, and because there has been a recent surge in fighting game popularity, the renaissance came about rather organically.
I guess it was a lot easier for you to pick out the Capcom characters appearing in the game than it was the Marvel characters. How did your collaboration with Marvel work out?
Actually, since we wanted to preserve the sense of each of the respective worlds of the Capcom characters featured in this game, we had frequent discussions with the people in charge of each franchise, which turned out just as difficult. Marvel, on the other hand, was very respectful of our position—as we were of theirs—and were very helpful in discussing what characters would be popular and suitable for a video game.
How significant was Marvel’s input in developing behaviours for characters that are not specifically designed to appear in video games?
With the Marvel characters, we put a lot of work into replicating their movements, designs, and mannerisms from the comics. Marvel gave us lots of precise direction regarding the character design, but was willing to leave the actual game balancing to us at Capcom. Regarding characters not originally from fighting games, we simply tried our best to carefully preserve their essence from whatever their original source was and see how we could siphon that into an interesting fighting game character.
What makes MvC 3 an outstanding game and not just an HD MvC 2?
I suppose to put it simply, the evolved graphics. We’ve faithfully created all of the characters and stages from the ground up, not just reworked old content from MvC2. You could consider this the next stage in the series’ evolution after MvC2.
Do you plan any DLC?
As of now, we’ve confirmed the decision to release two downloadable characters, but nothing else has been decided. We are considering a number of possibilities, so please stay tuned.