During a recent interview, Mega Man series producer Kazuhiro Tsuchyia confirmed that the next entry in the long-running franchise is currently in active development. Perhaps news of a new Mega Man game doesn’t come as much of a surprise following the recent success of retro-infused sequel Mega Man 11, but the revelation that Capcom has plans surrounding the classic franchise that span “at least over 10 or 20 more years” is altogether more unexpected.
The Japanese development studio’s commitment to the Blue Bomber is plainly dictated by Mega Man‘s history as a franchise, featuring what’s frankly a mind boggling number of mainline and spin-off releases since its NES debut back in 1987. Still, hearing of plans that stretch that far into the future is usually reserved for service games like Anthem and Destiny, which often controversially back out of such agreements well ahead of time.
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The context is admittedly very different here, however, as Tsuchyia spoke of his and Capcom’s plans for “constant stimulation” of the property, presumably through tapping into the many different Mega Man spin-off series. Tsuchyia also asserted that subtitled games like X and EXE (Battle Network) are not spin-offs in his mind, rather “every saga is a main series on its own.”
It’s an interesting stance that could lead us down some new paths over the next decade or two of Mega Man content, with Tsuchyia stating that “we’ll be able to experience new titles alongside new players.” Perhaps Capcom will also revive some of the old subtitled offshoots that many players have been clamoring to see brought back for decades.
At this point, it seems safe to assume that the new Mega Man game that’s in the works is Mega Man 12, though series producer Kazuhiro Tsuchyia did say that he’d like to “keep the specific details hidden” for the time being. You can check out his full interview with 4Gamer, though you will need to be fluent in Japanese to make sense of it…
