After the recent cancellations of Mega Man Universe and Mega Man Legends 3, many thought the Blue Bomber was on his last breath. It seemed like Capcom had given up on one of their most historic franchises and was ready throw its seminal mascot onto the robot scrapheap. However in a recent issue of Game Informer, Capcom’s senior vice president Christian Svensson gave his thoughts on the troubled series and reiterated its importance to the company:
“Mega Man is a key brand for Capcom and will remain so. I don’t have any products we’ve announced publicly that I can point to and say “see, I told you” but there are “top men” within Capcom thinking about the future of the brand…”
When asked about the fan backlash surrounding Legends 3 and the – eventually ignored – “Development Room”, Svensson responded with a frank and refreshingly honest answer:
“This is absolutely an issue that keeps me up at night. Unfortunately there are times that we have to make decisions that don’t make sense to the community and the fallout, while understandable is regrettable. Our relationships with fans are extremely important and I know we’ve got some that are disenfranchised right now.”
“It’s going to take time to rebuild those bridges… And the last thing I want to do is prematurely announce something in the name of sating the fans that gets cancelled or redirected later, thereby creating an even larger wound. I can only ask for people’s patience.”
So there may be life in Capcom’s platforming icon yet. The idea of creating and sharing levels as part Mega Man Universe sounded like a fantastic idea which could’ve catapulted the franchise directly into current-gen relevance, but clearly it was less of a game and more of a ‘test-the-waters’ concept. Here’s hoping Mega Man graces our screens again in the near future.
(Via Game Informer)
