It has been five years since the release of the last Mega Man game. Capcom, the developer of the franchise, is taking its time to come up with new concepts for the long-running video game series – the company is considering “how to approach” the future of the series.
Capcom has released only three mainline titles in the Mega Man series since 2008’s Mega Man 9. The studio followed the game up with Mega Man 10 in 2010 and its most recent title, Mega Man 11, was released in 2018. The game developer has been reduced to releasing compilations of older titles in recent years.
In its latest annual shareholders meeting, Capcom was asked by a shareholder about its plans for the Mega Man series moving forward. The shareholder pointed out that the latest Mega Man retro collection sold over 1 million copies suggesting a strong interest in the series and a good avenue for “user expansion”.
“Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection was released in April and has surpassed 1 million units in sales, contributing to existing IP utilization and user expansion. What are your plans for the Mega Man series?” the shareholder asked.
“Including Mega Man 11, the latest entry in the franchise, Mega Man is one of Capcom’s historic IPs and is loved by fans, and as such we want to take care in how we develop the series,” Capcom replied. “We are considering how to approach the production of new entries in the series, which requires numerous factors, including the development of a solid concept, ideas and gameplay, etc.”
When asked about plans for more ports and retro compilations, the studio said, “We are considering our approach to ports of past entries titles, which includes addressing technical issues.” Some of the re-releases have drawn criticism for their buggy states at launch.
Capcom may be taking its time in developing new entries and carefully considering what changes can be introduced to newer titles to attract new players. The game developer must strike a balance between the gameplay elements it intends to retain from previous titles for long-time fans and new mechanics to entice more players to buy its newer games.
Capcom can take inspiration from Sega which reinvented the Sonic series when it introduced an open-world game in Sonic Frontiers, which itself was just the latest in a long legacy of reinventing the core gameplay loop for the blue blur.
The Mega Man series is the first title that the developer released on home consoles and helped establish the studio as a major player in the video game industry. The Mega Man series is also fourth of the best-selling video game series from Capcom. The franchise has shipped over 38 million copies since the release of the original Mega Man in 1987.
Resident Evil is Capcom’s best-selling video game franchise of all time with over 142 million copies sold. It is followed by Monster Hunter at 92 million and Street Fighter at 49 million.
