Hideaki Itsuno, the legendary developer who reinvigorated the Devil May Cry franchise and created Dragon's Dogma, recently ??announced that he was leaving Capcom after working ??there for over 30 years. After a few months of radio si??lence, he ju??st announced the next chapter of his career.

On his personal Instagram account, Itsuno revealed that he is now the head of LightSpeed Japan Studio, a brand-new division of LightSpeed Studios, the company that made PUBG Mobile, which is owned by the enormous Chinese technology conglomerate??, Tencent. In his post, Itsuno stated: "I’m confident we’ll create original AAA action game titles alongside our amazing team, delivering aesthetic and innovative experiences to players worldwide".

LightSpeed Studios' official website reveals that this new Japanese branch is based in Osaka and Tokyo and, like Itsuno revealed, i??ts main focus is on developing high-quality AAA action games. The company's president, Jerry Chen, said: "It is our great honor to have Hideaki Itsuno join LightSpeed Studios. The establishment of LightSpeed Japan Studio is a significant step in LightSpeed Studios' expansion and? demonstrates our commitment to bringing the best possible games to our players".

After months of speculation, fans on Instagram reacted very positively to Itsuno's announcement, since this confirms that he isn't retiring and that he'll keep making action games, which are his bread and butter. One not??able figure who congratulated Itsuno is Johnny Yon?g Bosch, Nero's voice actor in the Devil May Cry games, and Dante's voice actor in the upcoming Devil May Cry animated series.

Hideaki Itsuno is perfect for LightSpeed Japan Studio

The main goal of Lig??htSpeed Japan Studio is to develop original AAA action games, so it couldn't have hired a more suitable person for this job than ?Hideaki Itsuno. After all (and as the studio proudly claims on its official website) Itsuno's contributions to the action genre ended up changing the industry forever.

While he directed popular Capcom fighters like Power Stone and Rival Schools, what eventually put him on the map was his work on Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, a fantastic hack & slash adventure that saved the franchise after the monumental failure that was Devil May Cry 2 (which Capcom made him direct years earlier). After working on Devil May Cry 4, Itsuno finally pitched Dragon's Dogma to the company, a new IP that he created on his own. He later came back to Dante's franchise, when he directed 2019's Devil May Cry 5.

Over time, Itsuno became synonymous with dynamic and over-the-top hack & slash games with refined combat systems and incredible boss fights. So while his departure from Capcom was quite unfortunate - especially because it meant he would never work on Devil May Cry or Dragon's Dogma again - his new position at LightSpeed Studio Japan gives him the chance to create something entirely new and special that has the potential to influence the industry as much as his previous works did??. We just hope that Tencent and LightSpeed Studios will keep their promise and give Itsuno as much artistic freedom ?as he needs.

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If you're looking to check out Monster Hunter Wilds ahead of its February launch, Capcom is ready to roll out an open beta. The company announced the official schedule?? for the round of testing, which starts with early acc??ess for PlayStation Plus members on October 28.

PS Plus members testing on PS5 will get their exclusive run until October 30, with the rest of the platforms following on October 31. You'll be able to spend your Halloween night in the world of Monster Hunter PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Steam from October 31 to November 3. The beta will support crossplay between the thre??e platforms. 

Here's a breakdown:

Monster Hunter Wilds open beta start times

PlayStation 5 - PlaySta??tion Plus Exclusive Early Access:

• Starts: Monday, October 28, 2024 at 8:00 p.m. PT

• Ends: Wednesday, October 30 at 7:59 p.m. PT

PlayStation 5, ??Xbox Series X|S, and Ste??am (with Crossplay):

• Starts: Thursday, October 31, 2024 at 8:00 p.m. PT

• Ends: Sunday, November 3, 2024 at 6:59 p.m. PT

According to Capcom's overview, the beta will let players tinker with character creation, and the res??ulting Hunter and Palico ?data can be carried over to the full version. There's also the Doshaguma Hunt, which involves taking down the alpha of the Doshaguma pack, and a trial of the story that includes the opening cutscene and the Chatacabra Hunt with tutorials to help along the way.

Roun?ding out the announcement is a new trailer, The Black Flame. This one introduces the third location in the Forbidden Lands, the Oilwell Basin.

Monster Hunter Wilds launches in full on February 28, 2025.

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After the recent reveal of the Darkstalkers Gala Fighting Pass for Street Fighter 6, Capcom fans began asking what they always ask whenever this classic fighting game franchise makes a reappearance in another title: When is Capcom going to make another Darkstalkers game?

Curiously enough, the director of Street Fighter 6, Takayuki Nakayama, shed some light on this situation in an unexpected post on his personal Twitter/X account. On a thread in which he was disclosing his experiences while working on Otoranger (an old rhythmic game released on mobile devices back in 2013) he posted the fol??lowing tweet:

Here, Nakayama explained how he hoped to work on a fighting game that was not Street Fighter, but Capcom stopped the development of this mysterious title before he eventually joined the Otoranger team. While Nakayama didn't explicitly reveal what this fighting game was, his cryptic use of a bat emoji heavily implies that this was going to be a brand-new entry in the Darkstalkers series.

At first glance, this may not seem all that exciting, since this happened around 10 years ago. But it's important to keep in mind that - without taking ports and remasters into account - there hasn't been a new Darkstalkers game since 1997, more than 27 years ago.?? So a modern HD revival of this classic monster brawler made would have certainly breathed new life into this forgotten franchise.

Darkstalkers fans are tired of waiting for a new entry

Naturally, Darkstalkers fans didn't take Nakayama's revelation very well, with many of them wondering what this scrapped project could have been like and if it could have prevented their beloved franchise from further fading into obscurity. Many others are still hoping that Capcom will attempt to develop another modern Darkstalkers game in the near future.

As over-the-top as some of these reactions may initially seem, they are completely justified. After all, the Darkstalkers franchise was one of the mainstays of the fighting game genre during its boom in popularity during the late 90s, and its iconic characters are still relevant due to their appearances in crossover games and collections, like Capcom Fighting Collection, Puzzle Fighter or the Marvel vs. Capcom series. However, despite all these cameos and ports in other Capcom IPs, this beloved franchise is l?ong overdue for a completely new en??try.

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I love to pick the brains of developers when given the chance, so I knew the opportunity to interview the developers of Dead Rising: Deluxe Remaster was too good to pass up. How?ever, so??mething was lacking in this offer.

The offer was to ask “the development team�questions via email. Pressing for more information, I wasn’t told who my questions? would be going to. That makes it difficult for me to know what sort of questions I should ask. Would they kn?ow anything about the development of the original? Whatever, I thought, it could be interesting.

As it turns out, my questions were answered?? by Producer Kei Morimoto, Art Director Satoshi Takamatsu, and Director Ryosuke Murai. What’s more, I found their answers to be very insightful, so I am more than happy to share them with you. Stick around until the end to learn what is up with those convicts in the courtyard.

Zoey: With the original version of Dead Rising still available on modern ??platfo??rms, why did it seem like a full graphical overhaul was necessary?

The original Dead Rising had an excellent game design when it first released, and even now, I think the game feels unique. That said, Dead Rising is an 18-year-old game with certain “usability�challenges by today’s gaming standards. The controls aren’t the most user-friendly for an action game either. Our goal was to preserve the original’s gameplay experience as much as possible, so we took a careful look at every element of the original game. I think the visual enhancements in Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster are the most obvious change from the original game. Th??e development team wanted to renew characters�aesthetics and background graphics and elevate the game’s visuals to modern standards in hopes of sharing the appeal of?? the Dead Rising series with an even wider audience of gamers.

Kei Morimoto (Producer)

Zoey: Was the goofy, B-movie tone of Dead Rising intended from the start, or did it happen organically as the gameplay began to develop and take shape? I guess what I’m ask?ing is: what’s up with that dark-as-hell opening prologue cutscene?

From early stages of development, our goal was to create visuals with inspirations from the medium of film, but we were only able to achieve a B-movie level of production based?? on hardware limitations at the time.

For Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, we were able to create a creepy atmosphere, more realistic lighting effects, area-specific thematic designs, and even the finer d?etails of a zombie outbreak �none of which were possible in the original game. Based on this, I think DRDR offers players the chance to experience the atmosphere of a horror movie. I was in charge of lighting design for the original game, so I’m elated to be able to ?reflect my learnings and know-how of the last 20 years in Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster. Players often emphasize the more comical elements of Dead Rising, but the story itself is a serious one. Thus, I think it’s only natural that the prologue would set the tone with darker contents that make viewers feel like they’re stepping into dire Hell-like circumstances.

Satoshi Takamatsu (Art Director)

Zoey: Was there anything that you wanted to change or add to the rema?ke that didn’t get implemented?

There are certain aspects of Frank’s move set and the Psychopaths�battle designs that could use some fine-tuning when compared to the breadth of action games available to gamers nowadays. We considered mak??ing significant adjustments to these elements, but we ultimately decided against major changes such as adding new skills to focus on creating a remaster that values players�memories of the original game. Instead, we made detailed adjustments to item and skill parameters, increased “usability�for some of Frank’s skills, and tweaked some of the Psychopaths�routines among other things to make it easier for players of a??ll backgrounds to feel and appreciate the charm of the original game. If another opportunity presents itself, I’d love to take a stab at creating a unique and exciting action gameplay experience that preserves the essence of Dead Rising.

Ryosuke Murai (Director)

Zoey: Was it difficult to mainta??in the density of the zomb??ie crowds when porting the game to the RE Engine?

It was difficult trying to maintain zombie density while keeping gameplay elements inta??ct. The engine and programming language used to develop Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster were both different from those used for the original game, so naturally we encountered some problems.

There were definitely some accidents with imaging where the number and density of zombies on screen didn’t match our expectations, but we plugged along and made corrections while cross-referencing the appearance and actual code of the original game. In addition, rende?ring a large number of zombies with higher polygon counts than those in the original game naturally impacted performance. Since reducing zombie count and density goes against DRDR’s concept, we made various optimizations to ensure we could maintain performance in the final product.

Ryosuke Murai (Director)

Zoey: One of my memories of the original Dead Rising on Xbox 360 is how frustra??ting it would get to try and lead survivors to safety. I didn’t have that same issue with the Deluxe Remaster, but I had trouble identifying what the specific improvements were. Can you explain what was changed?

While the frustration of guiding survivors in Dead Rising was certainly an issue, I think the humorous moments and the sense of achievement players felt when successfully rescuing survivors were also very memorable. For this reason, we’ve done our best to preserve survivors�original behaviors as their personalities, actions, and disregard for Frank’s requests illustrate how panic-stricken individuals would probably respond in a zombie outbreak. That said, we’ve made some adjustments to frustration-inducing elements that players can’t solve on their own, such as friendly fire among survivors or survivors getting stuck in certain areas due to a poor navigation system. I think ??these types of improvements have helped create a less frustrating gameplay experience that stays true to the original game.

Ryosuke Murai (Director)

Zoey: Did the mechanics and controls (good or bad) in later entries in the Dead Rising series influence what was change??d in the Deluxe Remaster?

We made sure to analyze the gamep?lay systems and mechanics in previous Dead Rising games, but our priority for Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster was to preserve the unique charm and appeal of the first mainline entry and make the necessary adjustments to ensure that modern action game fans can play the game comfortably. For this reason, we’ve made some changes to controls that make it easier to execute skills and commands characteristic of modern-day third person shooters. However, we have not made any adjustments that would drastically aff??ect the gameplay loop and feel of the original Dead Rising such as combo weapons or changes to item slot specifications.

Kei Morimoto (Producer)

Zoey: I’m sure there’s nothing to announce, but is there any desire to remake Dead Rising 2 in a similar way?

As part of Capcom’s strategy, we’re always looking for opportunities to reactivate Capcom-owned IP’s, and we believe that Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is one title that fits well within that strategy. If Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster performs well, I think it cou??ld open up various possib?ilities for the Dead Rising series in the future.

Kei Morimoto (Producer)

Zoey: Why do the convicts keep coming back to life?

Similar to the original gam?e, the convicts that players face after the initial encounter on Day 1 are

supposed to be different people than the original? trio.

Ryosuke Murai (Director)

Wow, I’m not sure if I considered the possibility that the respawning convicts were meant to represent different people. I think they technically have names and prisoner numbers, but perhaps their appearance wasn't varied with the limitations at the?? time.

I also found t?he information about the game’s technology and art to be interesting. Satoshi Takamatsu suggested that the team was aiming for the feel of a higher-budget film and landing in B-movie territory to be fascinating. That makes me wonder about how Servbot heads and zombie bees came into the original vision, but I’m happy they did. Meanwhile, I imagined the challenge of getting the zombie hordes to fit on the RE Engine would be difficult, and the response from Murai?? certainly confirms it.

I really enjoyed Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster. I have a soft spot for the original, but found aspects of it to be frustrating, but in ??its overhaul, they’ve all been polished over making it closer to the experie?nce I was hoping to have in 2006. Not every glow-up turns out quite as well, but it’s obvious the team knew the mission.

The post Interview: Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster team tells us what’s up with those respawning convicts appeared first on Destructoid.

Darkstalkers ??is a legendary fighting game franchise that has??n't had a new entry in over 25 years, but it does live on in crossover games and downloadable content for other Capcom fighters. And the company's most recent foray into the genre, Street Fighter 6, is no exception.

Capcom posted t??his brand-new trailer on its social media pages, which revealed the Darkstalkers Gala Fighting Pass, a new battle pass that will arrive to Street Fighter 6 this October. Althou??gh it hasn't revealed a concrete release date y??et.

The first thing that immediately stands out is the inclusion of Jon Talbain, the iconic werewolf character of the Darkstalkers seri??es. However, this is not an actual playable character, but gear that the player's customizable Avatar can wear in order to look just like him. It has a surprising amount of detail, and it even comes with a new emote that lets the Avatar howl like a wolf.

That's not all, because the Darkstalkers Gala Fighting Pass will also add other interesting content that references this iconic fighting game series, like a photo frame of Jedah, stickers of Morrigan, Lilith and Baby Bonnie Hood, 3 new music tracks, 3 new profile titles, a special effect for the challenger screen and even the addition of original The Night Warriors to the Classic Games collection.

When will Darkstalkers come back for real?

Fans had a relatively mixed response to the Darkstalkers Gala Fighting Pass. While most Capcom fans are always glad to see this legendary fighting game series being referenced once again - e?specially when it's with ??a character that is not Morrigan Aensland - many other Street Fighter 6 players are disappointed that Jon Talbain was ??added as a mere ?cosmetic skin for the Avatar and not for one of the many other famous characters in the game's roster. Other fans even went a step ahead and told Capcom? that it sho??uld have added him as a fully playable character instead.

But the biggest takeaway of this battle pass is that fighting games fans really miss Darkstalkers. With its combination of classic horror movie monsters, wacky, Looney Toones-esque animations and solid fighting mechanics, these series became a mainstay of the genre during the 90s. However, Capcom hasn't released a new entry since 1997, except for a few remasters and collections. Public outcry regarding the Darkstalkers Gala Fighting Pass proves t??hat maybe it is time for the company to develop a brand-new game?? in this series.

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On September 26, SNK announced Street Fighter's Ken Masters and Chun-Li are joining the roster of its upcoming Fatal Fury title. The announcement was made during the developer's block at Tokyo Game Show along with a teaser trailer.

Coming just days after Fatal Fury protagonist Terry Bogard's release in Street Fighter 6, the ne??ws that Capcom characters a?re crossing over into SNK's intellectual properties as well, lit the fighting game community on fire.

Beloved YouTuber Maximilian Dood's hilarious reaction to the trailer is already being memed into oblivion, and ques??tions of what's next in this working relationship between two fighting game titans are swirling in the rumor pool.

Fighting game players, especially of the older generation, are familiar with past crossovers between Capcom and SNK, such as the Capcom vs. SNK games and SNK vs Capcom: SVC Chaos. These crossover titles h?old a legend??ary reputation and were foundational in the development of the FGC. They run so deep in the community that the CvS games held spots at EVO when it was still called Battle by the Bay.

2003 was the last time gamers received a full crossover fighting game from the two developers, but with Terry and Mai Shiranui in SF6 and Ken and Chun in Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, it's very likely one is in the works. But the Street Fighter crossover isn't the only one SNK is working on presently, as the company strangely announced soccer star Ronaldo's involvement in its new title just one day before that.

Fatal Fury is available for pre-order on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox S??eries X|S, and PC before its release on April 24, 2025.

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The fact that Monster Hunter Wilds is coming out on PC day and date with all the other platfo?rms is excellent news, but there's a hefty caveat in place. Capcom published the full and fairly detailed list of system req??uirements, and they spell bad news for owners of regular, non-superpowered PCs.

More specifically, everything points to Wilds being effectively a repeat of what's gone down with Capcom's previous RE Engine open-world RPG, Dragon's Dogma 2. On day one, Dragon's Dogma 2 was an infamously poor performer. Capcom did end up ??pushing out some performance update??s not too long ago, but players had to resort to some... questionable actions to get it to behave. According to the official Monster Hunter Wilds PC hardware requirements, we're in ?for something similar w??ith it, too.

It's either frame-gen or 30 FPS for us regular mortals in Monster Hunter: Wilds

First thi??ngs first, here are the recommended PC specifications taken verbatim from Steam, as of September 25:

• OS: Windows®10 (64-bit Required)
• Processor: Intel® Coreâ„?i5-11600K or Intel® Coreâ„?i5-12400 or AMD Ryzenâ„?5 3600X or AMD Ryzenâ„?5 5500
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2070 Super(VRAM 8GB) or NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 4060(VRAM 8GB) or AMD Radeonâ„?RX 6700XT(VRAM 12GB)
• DirectX: Version 12
• Network: Broadband Internet connection
• Additional Notes: SSD required. This game is expected to run at 1080p / 60 fps (with Frame Generation enabled) under the "Medium" graphics setting. DirectStorage supported.

Note the 'Additional Notes' bit at the end, in particular. Your RTX 4060 is only going to be able to pull a very humble 1080p/60 at "Medium" settings, but the real kicker is the fact that it won't even get a native 60 FPS to begin with. Instead, the game will have to rely on frame generation to reach even 60 FPS.

For those who may be unfamiliar with how frame generation works in general, the problem with this performance goal is that the technology doesn't really work all that well at lower frame rates. It is generally recommended for both Nvidia and AMD's frame generation technologies to be turned on with a stable baseline of 60 FPS. Anything below that delivers seriously subpar results with excessive rendering anomalies and reduced input latency. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I want shoddy latency in a Monster Hunter game.

There's no way for Capcom to pull a miracle and get sub-60 FPS frame generation to work well in Monster Hunter Wilds??, so it's almost guaranteed that the game will be a poor performer across the board. To say nothing of the fact that even the 4060 can't get a native 60 FPS at 1080P.

So, we're in for a hell of a ride. If Dragon's Dogma 2 is anything to go by (and it likely is), Monster Hunter Wilds is going to suffer from being heavily CP?U-bottlenecked, and there might be no easy fix for that. Stay tuned for perfo?rmance reviews, I guess!

The post Monster Hunter Wilds’ recommended PC specs suggest a hard road ahead appeared first on Destructoid.

Thank goodness it's not a Leap Year! The highly anticipated Monster Hunter Wilds revealed its official release date as February 28, 2025, during today's State of Play. Pre-orders are available now with a MH Wilds Digital Mini Artbook for those who do so.

I'm so excited for Wilds but until now it only had a 2025 release date, so I assumed it would be mid to late next year. I'm glad that's not the case! Wilds is also getting three unique editions: Standard, Deluxe, and Premium Deluxe. The Delux includes a Deluxe Pack DLC, while the Premium Deluxe includes the Deluxe Pack, two COsmetic DLC?? packs, and other "premium bonuses".

The trailer also showed off some gameplay including some new monsters, but what caught me by surprise was how much story there appears to be in Wilds, based on the d?ialogue segments. Which to be honest, I'm all for.

Monster Hunter Wilds is set to release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on February 28,?? 2025.

The post Monster Hunter Wilds sets a release date f?or February 28 appeared first on Destructoid.

I’ve often wondered: if Dead Rising had released a few years later, would it have done as well? Releasing in 2006, it was at a time when people were just getting acquainted with the Xbox 36??0 and the new generation of hardware. Games released in that window often get a bump, both critically and sales-wise.

Don’t get me wrong. I have a massive soft spot for the original Dead Rising, partially because I played it during the 360’s honeymoon period. It was a convincing display of what would be possible in the new console generation with its hordes of zombies. However, I had my frustrations with it. Enough that my attempts to return to it years later never went very far. Well, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster addresses almost all of those complaints.

Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster (PC [Reviewed], PS5, Xbox Series X|S)
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Released: September 18, 2024
MSRP: $49.99

If you haven’t played Dead Rising in the past 18 years, I’m going to remind you that it has a ridiculously dark opening cutscene before the game even starts. After that, it introduces Frank West, and less than an hour later, you might be dropping Servbot heads onto zombies or driving a lawnmower over them. It feels like one of the designers really hated the writer and wanted to undermine them at every turn. As such, Frank West has a character arc where he goes from seedy paparazzi to determined hero while also chug?ging back entire jugs of creamer.

The story involves said seedy paparazzi arriving in Willamette, Colorado, pursuing a story about strange happenings in the town. Upon arriving, he finds it infested with zombies. He clearly exists in a world where zombie movies exist, so either ?he’s never seen one, or he has terrible eyesight, because he drops onto the roof of a mall for closer inspection.

Despite having no idea what the situation is, he asks the helicopter pilot to pick him up in exactly 72 hours. Then, as he watches the helicopter pilot get chased off by the military, he just assumes that the guy will totally be back at the promised time?.

Anyway, the mall g??ets filled with zombies, and Frank West searches for answers among the tide of undead. Weirdly, despite Willamette being a town of over 50,000 people, the answers are located exclusively in the mall.

The mall itself is a sandbox. With rare restrictions, you can r??oam and explore it as much as you want. The whole?? town has shown up, so it’s packed wall-to-wall with walking carcasses, but with society temporarily suspended, you can help yourself to whatever you want to wield as a weapon.

It’s fun. The freedom the sandbox provides was always the best part. It leaves lots of room to experiment with the many, many things you can find. Frank West’s camera providing extra experience p?oints for certain compositions just gives more incentive for screwing around. You will also no doubt learn where a??ll the best stuff is, going back whenever you need more wine to chug.

What?? got stuck in the craw of many, back in 2006, is the fact that you’re on the clock. Frank West is expecting his ride out 72 hours after he arrives, and there is an in-game day/night system constantly ticking. The main story objectives have to be done within a certain time and within a certain window. If you miss them, you’re lining yourself up for the bad ending.

On top of that, people will occ?asionally materialize. These take the form of survivors and psychopaths. The survivors are hapless people who have taken shelter in the mall. You can, optionally, save them and take them to the security room where everyone is holed up. The psychopaths, you can’t reason with. They’re also optional (for the most part) and take the form of boss battles. Your ending doesn’t depend on them, but there are bonuses you can get for taking care of them.

What annoyed me most about the original version of Dead Rising wasn’t the time limit. In fact, I think th?e timer is a great mechanic that adds a sense of urgency. No, it was trying to get the survivors to safety that vexed me greates??t. Eventually, I just stopped trying to save them at all.

The survivors in Deluxe Remaster are not a whole lot brighter, but? they’re much better at, well, surviving. I’m not entirely clear on what entirely changed wi??th them. They will still follow you directly into a zombie horde, but they’ve got a Teflon coat on. Zombies don’t seem as eager to attack them, and they can easily slip through even tight packs. The result is that saving survivors is actually an enjoyable experience. Instead of avoiding them, I would plan my route through the mall to grab as many as I could to take back to the security room.

Speaking of the security room, the second most annoying problem I found with Dead Rising 2006 was Otis. This is largely because I originally played it on an SDTV where it had the notorious problem of having an unreadably small font for subtitles and Otis did? not have a voice-over. He'd call constantly about survivors and mall locations, and I couldn't even read what he was saying. Now, not only can I read the subtitles, but Otis talks. He’s no longer a nuisance, but a friend.

Deluxe Remaster is a much b??etter experience overall. The big graphical glow-up manages to make things look a lot more modern without losing the overall feel of the original, but the subtle tweaks are what really make it so much more enjoyable.

There are some changes that got highlighted by others that didn’t really bother me. The voice actors, for example, have changed. TJ Rotolo was replaced by Jas Patrick as the voice of Frank West, which doesn’t sit well with some. I understan?d why some fans would be disappo??inted, but I barely noticed the difference. Likewise, one character was changed from what could be interpreted as an offensive stereotype into something more generic, and another had their lines replaced with something subtler. Personally, I don’t think these are big, upsetting changes, even if I don’t really think they’re necessary. It all depends on where you’re coming from.

One pla?ce that I did have an issue was with performance. While playing on the PC version, I found that things ran very well for the most part, except it would hitch and stutter frequently. Usually, if a camera angle changed, it was accompanied with a visual pause. I’ve read some possible fixes online, but have yet to try them. There’s also a good chance you won’t see these at all, considering that PC environments vary substantially. It wasn’t even a deal-breaker for me, but it was intrusive.

For me, the benefits of Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster’s modernization far outweigh the problems. As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, I was fondly lukewarm of the original version. Deluxe Remaster makes enough changes that ??I can say without reservation that I enjoyed it. A lot.

When Dead Rising launched in 2006, it was an inventive game. It felt like a game that was informed by the new possibilities afforded to it by the new generation of hardware. But it had a lot of problems that were easier to overlook through the lens of the time period. Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster retains the things that made it great while addressing everything that held it back. The graphical upgrade just helps it shin?e brighter.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Hideaki Itsuno recently announced his departure from Capcom, and Devil May Cry fans are absolutely heartbroken. After all, he's a talented and influential developer who worked on multiple hit games: Apart from his impeccable work on the DMC franchise, he also directed cult classics like Rival Schools and Dragon's Dogma.

Itsuno may not be the most renowned Capcom developer but he's one of the most important ones, and his influence on the company should never be underestimated. He had both ??a fascinating career and a complex relationship with Capcom, and both should be studied f??rom beginning to end.

His humble origins as a fighting game aficionado

Like most Japanese gamers of his generation, Itsuno was a passionate fighting game fan who Capcom hired in 1994 to work in their Arcade Division. He was obviously a big fan of Street Fighter II, but he also revealed that he played the competitor's titles during this time: "I always loved fighting games, so it was always a certain fighting game with yearly installments. The one I played all the time was the '94 edition", he told Takayuki Nakayama in an interview, referencing the beloved SNK fighter The King of Fighters '94.

He began working on multiple ports of Street Fighter II and even worked as a designer in Street Fighter Alpha until he eventually got the opportunity to direct new fighting game IPs, like Rival Schools and Power Stone. Itsuno applied his vast knowledge to every project he worked on: "Rival Schools was a game where we put a l??ot of effort into ma??king sure it was easy to play."

He and his team knew that, unlike other arcade fighters, Capcom was eventually going to port Rival Schools to home consoles. With this philosophy in mind, they developed the PlayStation 1 version in just three months, with the goal of selling 1 million copies. This was Itsuno's f?irst expe??rience with home consoles, and it eventually changed the course of his entire career. He also carried his penchant for accessibility over to every subsequent project he worked on.

He transformed Devil May Cry into what it is today

The gaming market was radically changing during the 2000s, and Capcom began taking developers from their Arcade Division and forcing them to work in home console games. In an outrageous decision, Capcom began its plans to make a sequel to their brand-new IP, Devil May Cry, without consulting Hideki Kamiya and his team. The company put Capcom Studio 1 to work ??on it instead.

The development of Devil May Cry 2 was quite rocky, and eventually, Capcom promoted Itsuno to director during the ??final months of development, replacing the original director of the game, who ultimately went uncredited. In the book Devil May Cry: 3142 Graphic Arts, Itsuno explains how Capcom practically forced him to direct: "The bosses came in and said, "Alright, do we have a director for DMC2?" Just?? as we were all thinking, "Nope. We actually don't," they said, "Okay. You do it."

Itsuno tried his best and really put a lot of effort into trying to improve and refine DMC2 as much as he could. But his efforts weren't enough to save what was already a low-quality product, so when Capcom finally released DMC2, fans and critics immediately panned it. "It's strange to be a director as a helper in the first place. But the development of DMC2 was too short, and there were some parts that I felt I had left undone and hadn't been able to be fully satisfied with", he said later in an interview with Famitsu.

Devil May Cry 3 was just what Dante (and the franchise) needed

To the surprise of everybody, DMC2 was a financial success, which led Capcom to greenlight another sequel. Itsuno didn't want this game to be his legacy and he just knew that he could create something truly special if he got to work on it from the beginning. "I even went s??o far as to ask directly, 'Please let me do DMC3'", he told Famitsu. Capcom accepte?d?, and he immediately began recruiting his team.

He brought most of the DMC2 staff to work in the sequel, and they knew what they had to do: make Dante more energetic and youthful once again, so they decided to make DMC3 a prequel. Itsuno also brought over everything he learned from working in so many fighting games: "I decided to just go all out and include all the fun of combos in fighting games, so I was glad that I was able to compete in an area where I was confident." His experience working on fighting games also influenced the way he utilized music in his games: "Ever since the "Rival Schools" series, I've made a note of directing scenes with the music in mind," he explained in DMC: 3142 Graphic Arts.

Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening quickly became a critical and commercial success. Audiences endlessly praised it for going back to the series' dynamic and challenging roots while also giving Dante his charming personality back. Itsuno and his team didn't just make yet another excellent DMC game, but they also brought new life into?? the fra??nchise. And this was just the beginning.

Devil May Cry 4 introduced a new protagonist at the worst moment

In DMC: 3142 Graphic Arts, Itsuno revealed how he became the director of the next installment in the series: "Someone else was given control of DMC4, but one of the bosses said, "Dealin?g with the new PS3 hardware is going to be tough, so we need someone more experienced to take charge. You do it." I wasn't particularly against the idea, so I accepted the position.

Itsuno and his team knew they needed to do something bold and unexpected to keep the Devil May Cry franchise fresh and interesting. That's why they came up with a new devil hunter named Nero. He always had great plans for this new character, but he did fear that he was going to get extremely negative feedback for "replacing" Dante, so he was included as well: "It was a gamble for us to even introduce a new character," he revealed in an interview with Games Radar.

Dante was created by Hideki Kamiya, so it makes sense for Itsuno to prefer the new characters he personally conceived. "I like Vergil and Nero. I have an appreciation for Dante, too, of course, but I feel less of a connection with him because he's not a character I created myself", he said in DMC 3142 Graphic Arts.

Devil May Cry 4 would eventually get a mixed-to-positive reception. Over the years, there was a rumor among fans that Capcom was to blame for this, as they either rushed the development of the game or forced Itsuno to cut a lot of content, but the director never officially confirmed it. Even though it sold over 1 million copies by the end of its first fiscal year, DMC4 didn't meet Capcom's high?? expectations, especially because its development had a bigger budget than usual.

He left DMC behind in order to work on his magnum opus

During the late 2000s, Capcom decided to follow a brand-new direction, as the company began to prioritize the development of Western-styled games, which were much more popular and profitable at the time. Capcom chose Ninja Theory to develop a brand-new Devil May Cry reboot and even assigned Itsuno as a supervisor and advisor for this new team. The final result was DmC: Devil May Cry, a solid albeit extremely controversial game.

As much as Itsuno obviously cherished the Devil May Cry series, he never felt that the series was his creation, as he explained in DMC: 3142 Graphic Arts: "When explaining my relationship with DMC to people, I like to say that I'm not so much a parent to the series as I am a foster parent. Or maybe "stepmother" is more appropri??ate. That usually seems to get the point across pretty well."

He did have his own idea for a unique action RPG with an innova??tive Pawn mechanic that he came up with even before he joined the DMC2 team: "After (development of) CAPCOM VS. SNK 2 ended, I was actually in the m??iddle of planning to launch a??n original RPG," he said about his new IP.

So, when Capcom asked him for an idea for a large-scale project that could make millions, he pitched what would eventually become Dragon's Dogma, and Capcom greenlit the project. Why did the company approve of it? While executives clearly had confidence in Itsuno based on his impeccable previous work, it was mainly because he convinced them that this was going to be a western-styled RPG, and he even used titles like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Fable II as examples. This fit perfect??ly with the company??'s aforementioned new direction.

The surprise success of Dragon's Dogma

Itsuno began working on this new game with the help of his DMC4 team, and it took them three years to complete it. Thanks to the evolution of home console technology, he was finally able to make his idea into a reality. Dragon's Dogma quickly becam??e a surprise hit because gamers criticized most action RPGs for ?their lackluster combat at the time, so its dynamic combat system and epic boss fights helped it become a standout title.

The critical and commercial success of Dragon's Dogma cemented the IP as a new RPG icon, and it led to the creation of an expanded version, a spinoff and even an animated adaptation for Netflix. Years later, Hideaki Itsuno would state: "The (game) that was the biggest success in my mind, the one I'm most proud of, that's probably Dragon's Dogma." He ?even wanted to work ON its sequel al?most immediately, but he didn't know that DMC would need him again very soon...

Devil May Cry needed its savior, once again

In 2015, the success of Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition and DmC: Definitive Edition proved to Capcom that there still was a shared interest in the iconic hack-and-slash franchise. Itsuno decided to pitch Devil May Cry 5, and it worked quite well: "The reactions from everyone around me were positive, and the production discussions went smoothly," he told Dengeki Online in an interview. But Itsuno said on Twitter/X that DMC5 had been in development since 2014, so they likely had plans to ?reviv?e the franchise much earlier.

In 2013, in an interview for the book DMC: 3142 Graphic Arts, Itsuno said: "That's why even now, the DMC4 staff is clamoring to make a sequel starring Nero. Of course, a sequel with Dante wouldn't be bad either". These ideas would eventually come to fruition in DMC5, a game th??at featured Dante and Vergil, but Nero was ultimately the ?main protagonist of the adventure.

Itsuno proudly exclaimed "DMC IS BACK!", and everybody went crazy

He had a concrete idea of what he wanted to make from the get-go, which was helpful in creating a more streamlined development process. Just like they did with DMC3 years before, the team brought back what made the series so beloved in the first place but also implemented fresh new ideas. Surprisingly, DmC also inspired them. "In terms of the flow of the series, after DMC4 there was DmC: Devil May Cry, and after that there was DMC5. The staff had the feeling that they wanted to surpass both works in terms of image creation, and they studied them", Itsuno told Dengeki Online.

Capcom revealed DMC5 during Xbox's E3 2018 conference with a fantastic trailer. Hideaki Itsuno went up on stage and proudly exclaimed, "DMC IS BACK!" He was right: When the game was released months later, it immediately became a critical and commercial success once again. It seemed that everything Itsuno and his team touched ?turned into solid gold.

Everybody praised Devil May Cry 5 for its many positive qualities, and it seemed that, after years of unfounded negativity, the franchise was back to its roots and was more relevant than ever. Not only did DMC5 satisfy longtime fan??s, but it also bro?ught in a slew of new fans. And all of them were ?eager to see where the franchise was going next.

He finally got the chance to work on that Dragon's Dogma sequel

Before DMC5 launched, Itsuno had to make a difficult choice: In an interview with VG247, he said he went to Capcom's founder Kenzo Tsujimoto and said, "Look, I want to make either DMC5 or Dragon's Dogma 2 next", to which Tsujimoto replied "Okay, do whatever you want. Do whichever one you want,' so he prioritized DMC5 and began working on Dragon's Dogma 2 immediately after that. His main goal with this sequel was to expand on everything he did in the original game??, including ideas and mechanics he originally had to scrap.

This resulted in Dragon's Dogma 2, released this year by Capcom. Unfortunately for Itsuno, however, the game got a? divisiv??e reception due to stuff that was entirely out of his control. The mishandling of microtransactions and optimization issues contributed to the game's negative reputation. Dragon's Dogma ??2 is still a solid action RPG, but it was nowhere near as well receive??????????????????????????d as Itsuno's previous projects.

Hideaki Itsuno's undeniable legacy

One should never underestimate Itsuno's contributions to Capcom and gaming in general, especially for someone who started his career as a mere fighting game fan. He may not have created Devil May Cry, but he saved the IP not once but twice?, cementing it as one of the most successful and beloved hack-and-slash franchises. And if that was??n't enough, he also managed to d?evelop a unique Western-styled RPG in Japan with Dragon's Dogma, ultimately proving that he's also capable?? of creating successful new IPs from the ground up.

In his countless interviews and press releases, Itsuno told multiple stories about how the executives at Capcom almost always let him have the final say on which game he would develop next. So it's e??vident that he was not just a mere employee for the company but that Capcom actually trusted his vision because it was sure he was always going to develop a qu?ality product. Capcom still hasn't responded to Itsuno's departure, but it is definitely going to feel his absence.

When he left, Itsuno stated: "I will start developing a new game in a new environment. I hope to create fun, beautiful games that are as memorable as, or even more memorable than, the o?nes I have created so far" which tells fans everything they need to know about the future of his career: He's going to keep making incredible video g?ames, regardless of which company he's working for.

The post How Hideaki Itsuno became one of Capcom’s best developers appeared first on Destructoid.

Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection was only released on September 12, but the legend of a play??er called the "Wazzler" is already spreading.

According to Steam reviews, this guy is like Thanos; running into him on ranked is inevitable. The unholy beatdowns he delivers are, too. It all makes perfect sense, though, because the Wazzler is none other than Justin Wong, 9-time EVO champion and the greatest Marvel vs Capcom player of all time.

Getting bulled in a fighting game by Wong is nothing new. For example, a clip of him showing an eight-year-old the ropes in Mortal Kombat X has made its rounds on the in??ternet for years. But Marvel vs Capcom is Justin's specialty, and this time, it's adults quitting the game in frustration.

The first mention of the Wazzler comes from Steam u??ser? "TongOfDmg," who claimed that their run-in not only ruined his night but drove him to refund the game. Meanwhile, several other users have left reviews warning of the impending danger of Wazzler and the dire consequences of his wrath.

But maybe they've got Justin all wrong. Maybe?, in a twisted way, his reign of terror is for the benefit of mankind. I mean, Ste?am user "formerly" said they made their entire family dinner while locked in an Iron Man combo. And anyone who brings family together like that is alright in my book.

Justin himself seems to be having f??un with the situation and acknowledged it on his Twitter. But what he said next might shake Marvel players to their core. After reaching the number one rank on the Steam and PlayStation 4? ladders, he announced the Nintendo Switch would be next.

It appears no platform is safe from his expanding empire, and I worry for myself and other Xbox players when the MvC collection comes to Xbox One next year. The only certainty is that if you dare go online with the Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection, you must beware Wazzler.

The post Justin Wong i??s terrorizing the online ladder in MvC Fighting Collection appeared first on Destructoid.

Capcom is digging back into its vault and finally unearthing one of its most asked-after classics, packaging its pixel-era Marvel crossovers into a single game with the Marvel Vs. Capcom Fighting Collection. It's a compilation that would, indeed, like ?to take you for a ride.

While this collection is probably most notable for making Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 conveniently playable, it's also a tour through a fascinating, arguably foundational, era of Capcom's brawler development. So, to tackle its disparate parts, we've put two reviewers on the case. First off, I—Eric—will dig into the multiplayer fighting game aspect, from X-Men: Children of the Atom up through Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. Then Zoey will weigh in with expert knowledge on The Punisher, the side-scrolling bea?t 'e?m up packaged in with the bunch.

Marvel Vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics (PC, Switch, PS4, PS5)
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Released: September 11, 2024
MSRP: $49.99

Wanna learn how to do an infinite?

It’s still a little surreal to see Capcom’s Marvel crossovers playable on a modern platform. Once Arcade1Up put out its Marvel cab, it felt inevitable that some kind of port would follow. But even for preservation’s sake alone, this collection is a big deal?.

When the collection bears the name �em>Marvel Vs. Capcom�on the title, you know what the focus is. Everything here centers on Capcom’s legendary series of crossovers, starting with a few core Marvel games and building into Marvel Vs. Capcom 2.

Seeing these games in sequence like this really helps illustrate how Capcom built these characters and concepts up over time. You can see the first iterations of Cyclops and Wolverine duking it out and how those fighters shifted over the years from X-Men: Children of the Atom all the way through to MvC2.

Laying out the lineage like this is a nice touch, and thankfully, it’s pretty easy to play through a few rounds on every game. Though the lobby system is a little finicky for my taste, it certainly functions just fine, and the netcode felt solid in the matches I ran with someone across the States from me. Playing a first-to-three in Marvel Super Heroes and then swapping over to an X-Men or MvC is pr??etty smooth, making it easy to jump around through Capcom’s development timeline.

While the history is nice to see, there are obvious standouts. X-Men Vs. Street Fighter is a personal favorite of mine, and it’s been done well here. The original Marvel Vs. Capcom holds up well, too, and it’s neat ??to see how the tag and assist systems evolved in these crossover fighters over time.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is the star of the show, though. It’s been years since I spent hours trying to climb in the Xbox 360 port, and many more since I first put a quarter in an MvC cab, so I do think it’s important to stress: Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is one hell of a game.

I mean this in a few ways, too, because as fun as it is to play so many characters that feel so powerful, the line can quickly veer into something busted. It’s a rite of passage to go online in MvC2 and get bowled over by an Iron M??an infinite or someone running a classic composition of god-tier fighters.

All the nastiness is here in spades, and for the sickos who want that, I think they’ll find it. Even as a critic, I’d still recommend the absolute MvC diehards check out in-depth reports from the likes of Justin Wong to see whether the granular details have translated well. But for someone like me, a casual MvC ??fan who just wants to play my favorite version of Jill Valentine and fight my friends, it’s a solid offering.

A few modernizations could help onboard newcomers, like the increasingly popular one-button specials option. It’s nice to see a good training mode in here, too. All of this points to a collection that could revitalize competitive interest in MvC; while the diehards have been using alternative methods for some t?ime, this is another? point where putting these games on a modern platform helps out.

Sadly, even modernization doesn't help all of these games shine as brightly as others. The aforementioned standouts are there, and I'm pretty sure if you're buying this collection, you're buying it for Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. Everything else is gravy on top. But after a handful of rounds in some of the other games, I felt fine not running more, especially when they had fewer character options compared to the massive MvC2 lineup.

Ultimately, this collection feels like a time capsule of Capcom history. Putting all these games together clearly illustrates the through-lines, showing how Capcom and Marvel built a working relationship over years of fighting game crossovers. In that respect, it might feel a little lacking in variety. Rather than a smorgasbord of differing styles, it’s focused on a lineage, the way previous collections like the Street Fighter 30t??h laid out decades of iteration on a core concept.

But it’s this focused encapsulation that makes this collection so endearing for me. So much artwork and music has been packed in, alongside options that make it easy to tinker, train, or just experience the explosive wonders of MvC2 for the first time. I think if you’re a fan of fighting game history, this collection is a no-brainer. I wouldn’t recommend it to someone looking to “get into�fighting games, but I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who gets rosily nostalgic every time they hear “I wanna take you for a ride�ring out through their speakers. - Eric Van Allen

It's punishin' time

It’s always a cause for celebration when a licensed game somehow gets rereleased in modern times. While the Marvel Vs. Capcom Fighting Collection centers around the mashup titles, The Punisher sits at the beat-’em-up lunchroom table alone. A surprising addition, but one that deserve?s attenti??on.

Without thinking too hard about it, Capcom was the best when it came to belt-scrolling brawlers. 1994 was a good year to be a fan, as that was when Alien vs. Predator and The Punisher were released. While AvP is probably the better game overall, The Punisher is no slouch.

You can play as either The Punishe??r or Nick Fury. I have no idea why Nick Fury is here, aside from the fact that he’s one of the few Marvel characters who will use a gun. I thought it would be explained in the opening demo, but it isn’t. I’m not sure why a government agent would join a vigilante in a full assault against an organized crime family. If that sort of thing was allowed, they probably could have just kil?led the Kingpin a long time ago.

Anyway, that’s all The Punisher is. It starts off by having you beat up thugs in a casino. Then y??ou just follow the trail of thugs until you get to The Kingpin. You go through various crime-y locations, such as a bus, a mansion, a waterfront warehouse, and an underground grow-op. There are bosses at the end of each. You know the drill.

Perhaps the biggest twist to the beat-’em-up brawler that The Punisher brings is that if a thug pulls a gun on Mr. Punisher or Mr. Fury, they’ll pull out their pistols and respond in kind. That sounds like they were trying to say that they only shoot thugs in self-defense, but you can later pick up Uzis and assault rifles and kill indiscriminately. I guess it do??esn’t count when you’re using guns you pick up off the ground: It’s the five-second rule for murder.

Overall, The Punisher is a solid brawler. The art style is one of the best parts, especially for the perpetually seething Punisher. You can practically see the veins popping out of his head. The levels feel kind of short, but the entire game clocks in at just over 40 minutes. When you get tired of the smorgasbord of fighting games that ??make up the rest of the collection, it makes a pretty great palette cleanser. 

Or maybe you’re just tired of kicking the crap out of your friend and want to team up for a change. You can briefly immerse yourself in the camaraderie between Mr. Punisher and Mr. Fury a few years before Mr. Punisher shoots Mr. Fury in the back. - Zoey Handley

Gather ye stones

On the whole, the Marvel Vs. Capcom Fighting Collection does exactly what it sets out to do: take these classic crossovers, appl??y some modernizations, gather up some historical assets, and package them all neatly together.

It's not the most wide-ranging appeal, but for those within that niche, it's hard to find too many ??complaints. There's rollback netcode, some fantastic games, and a Punisher beat 'em up for when you'd rather co-op than fight. If you're a nostalgic fan of the originals or someone curious a??bout one of the most storied games in fighting history, this collection makes it easy to take a ride back in time.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Perhaps in an effort to show that mobile gaming is so much more than Homescape and cash grabs from notable franchises, Capcom released recent Resident Evil games for iPhone and iPad. We're now living in a world in which it's possible to play RE7, RE Village, and the remake of RE4 while waiting in line for a croissant.

However, thanks to a recent update, it looks as though you now need an internet connection to boot up the aforementioned games, even though they're all single-player. The report comes from VG247, which links to ?a Reddit thread where many are evidently displeased wit?h the new changes. The thread opens with user Hall_Such insisting people not initiate the updates.

DO NOT UPDATE RESIDENT EVIL!!
byu/Hall_Such iniosgaming

Indeed, if you look on the Apple Store pages for all three Resident Evil titles, you can see under the "What's? New" section that "due to changes to the startup process,? an internet connection is now required when starting this app." The patch started rolling out on August 27.

Who's the real Evil here?

Far be it from me to explain Capcom's reasoning behind this. Most woul??d argue that a single-player game should not need an internet connection to boot up. Speculations suggest it could be for data collection or DRM checks, but it's difficult to confirm whether this is true or not.

Some might not see it as much of a problem, given that the majority of us have easy access to a?n internet connection of some kind. However, we're talking about mobile ports here; it's understandable that many would take umbrage over needing to be connected when you can never be sure how stable the internet will be while out and about (subways are a classic example).

The iOS versions of the modern Resident Evil games have not exactly sold well to begin with, and it stands to reason that forcing an internet connecti?on as of now can only do more harm than good.

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Hideaki Itsuno, who directed many beloved titles from well-known franchises such as Devil May Cry, Dragon's Dogma, and Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001, has announced his departure from Capcom. After 30 years, he's moving on from the company to make games in a new ?environment.

Itsuno made the announcement on Twitter. Fans are both absolutely devastated that he's leaving and excited for what the future holds. His post explains how he's not leaving the games industry but moving on to "start developing a new game in a new environment." His hope is to create games that are just as memorable, if not more so, than some of the titles he's worked on throughout his career. The last game that he directed and shipped at Capcom was the phenomenal Dragon's Dogma 2.

Thank you Hideaki Itsuno

Ever since he was asked to direct Devil May Cry 2, Itsuno has directed every game in the franchise. I remember Devil May Cry 3 and Devil May Cry 4 being two of the best games of t??heir generations, making a splash even with those who'd never played the series. Fans of the franchise and those who Itsuno's games have impacted over the years have replied to him on Twitter to wish him well and express what they feel is a huge loss to Capcom.

User PTSDbag sums up fans' feelings incredibly well in one comment. "This is devastating. I was hoping for Devil May Cry 6 with you at the he?lm?. However, your work at Capcom is responsible for creating work that guided me through some of the toughest years of my life and I’m very grateful for you."

While Itsuno has worked on some of the biggest video game franchises, he got his start at Capcom as a planner on Quiz & Dragons: Capcom Quiz Game, a title that combined roleplaying, tabletop board game simulation, and?? a quiz.

The games that stand out from the many he's worked on aren't the Devil May Cry entries, though. While it's only a special thanks, Itsuno is mentioned in the credits for the Resident Evil Outbreak series. Two games that I adore and am incredibly thankful to everyone who worked on them that they exist at all. He obvi?ously had a positive ??influence in order to warrant thanks.

The fact that Itsuno is moving on from Capcom shows that he want??s something new from his career. He still wants to make games, but for whatever reason, he wants to do it elsewhere. Whether that's achieved by him founding a brand-new indie studio or working with an already established one remains to be seen.

I think e??veryone completely understands that what Itsuno might need is something fresh and new. Sometimes, the challenge of starting all over again yields the greatest results, and the chance to prove yourself from scratch is both terrifying and exhilarating. We wish Itsuno the best of luck in whatever he has planned.

The post Legendary dev behind Devil May Cry and Dragon’s Dogma is leaving Capcom after 30 years appeared first on Destructoid.

Recently, Resident Evil legend and former Capcom employee Shinji Mikami made it pretty clear that there was no room in the modern gaming era for a Dino Crisis renewal. This is despite the fact that it's the most-wanted Capcom revival that fans are after. Given this, it's not surprising that people are deciding to forge their ??own path instead.

As noted by DSO Gaming, fans have been attempting to create unofficial remakes of Dino Crisis, and there's another one in the pipeline. Called Project Crisis, the developer has shown o?ff an announcement trailer for the game, which is being built in Unreal Engine (UE4 specifically, according to the report).

The teaser above is brief, but gives a li?ttle dollop of what may come. However, as it's very much a w??ork-in-progress, it's likely that things will change as development moves on. There's no information about when we can expect it to release, but we do know it's "coming soon" to Itch.io.

If it comes out at all

Given that this is a project not officially endorsed by Capcom, we can expect this fan remake to hit quite a few barriers along the way. DSO suggests that, as exciting as it would be to see Dino Crisis make a comeback, it's unlikely to be as polished as something like the Resident Evil 2 remake, and the original developer/publisher may not be ple??ased with people tinkering with its IP, even if the company itself isn't doing anything with ??it.

It would be a shame if the plug did get pulled, but we may get lucky. The video is probably enough to whet the collective whistles of those who remember the original 1999 survival horror game, especially as the last one we got was Dino Crisis 3 way back in 2003. Sadly, this last entry was not exactly well received, with a Metacritic score of just 51%.

Mikami's reasoning behind Dino Crisis probably not being given another shot is basically down to Monster Hunter. The h??it Capcom series is evidently filling a hole that seems to render a game about fighting dinosaurs moot at this point. He goes on to say that he was surprised to see fans are eager for a new game in the long-dormant franchise?, but it definitely looks like it's not going to be happening any time soon.

We can only hope the studio has a change of heart, or we at least get to experience Project Crisis before the lawyers get involved.

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After the exciting reveal of Capcom Fighting Collection 2 and a release date for Marvel Vs. Capcom Fighting Collection, we're learning of a very peculiar piece of news regarding the latter. One of the most mismatched characters to ever duke it o??ut with Marvel superheroes is retaining his roster spot.

Although fans had speculated that Norimaro, a playable character only seen in the Japanese version of Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter,?? would not be present in the re-release, that's not the case. We just learned that Norimaro is both making a return to the ??Japanese version and having his debut in the international one. Don't worry if you don't know why that's surprising; Norimaro's confusing origin, and mysterious life story, only adds to his charm.

Who is Norimaro?

Though you can use cheats to unlock him in the international version, Norimaro's only video game appearance is in the Japanese version of '97s Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter. He looks like a bit of a nerdy caricature, but he's powerful enough to not be chained to either Marvel or Ca??pcom's univer??se.

Norimaro was created and voiced by Japanese comedian Noritake Kinashi, and was originally intended to make his debut in a Street Fighter title. Kinashi showed the process of creating the character in a Japanese TV show, where Norimaro ended up getting his name from a fan letter that Kinashi picked out of a pile. Norimaro's Japanese voice lines show that he's a fan of Chun-Li and of Marvel characters, and the Gouki (Akuma) dolls that he throws at his opponents seem to point out that he's a fan of the fi??ghter as well.

Thoug?h Norimaro has a move set decent enough to make him a capable fighter, his ??moves aren't a surprising display of badassery, but rather a reflection of his cowardly nature, or at least of his very out-of-place situation.

Please enjoy this clip of Nori???maro literally getting Apocalypse melted solely by hitting him with his satchel:

Do not underestimat??e this man, as Norimaro's ending reveals that he would go on to rule the world as a tyrant.

Though details on why exactly he never made it to the main roster of the International Arcade and PS1 versions are scarce, it's possible that it had somethin??g to do with the rights for the character, as hinted by the copyright mentions from Noritake Kinashi's agency that appeared in the Japanese version of the game.

Moreover, Yoshiki Okamato, then Capcom's head of development, talked about the character's peculiar copyright situation, and revealed that Marvel didn't want the character to be included in the game back the??n. Was that because Marvel thought it'd make The Hulk look cruel for (non-accidentally) putt??ing his muscles to use on a civilian? Could it have been because Marvel feared Norimaro would be seen as a tasteless caricature of certain fans? Or maybe because Marvel just didn't like Norimaro's questionable throw animation? We don't know.

What we know is that some Capcom fans were saddened to see that Norimaro see?mingly wouldn't make it into the re-release's roster, as he'd been removed from the game's post??er:

But they were wrong. All possible copyright and mismatching disp??utes have seemingly been resolved, as Norimaro is there not only in t?he Japanese version, but also in the International one.

And so is Cyber Akuma, an even more menacing version of Akuma, whom I'm betting is there just to give the Street Fighter crew a fighting chance against the beast that is Norimaro. Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics will release on September 12.

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Capcom has neglected to include crossplay in many of its past Monster Hunter titles, so some fans have given up hope that the next entry would have it. However, there may be a change in direction that lets us have Monster Hunter Wilds crossplay.

Does Monster Hunter Wilds have crossplay?

Yes, Monster Hunter Wilds will have crossplay from day one. The game's official website ?confirms the feature, stating that all "players will be able to match with other players across all available pl?atforms." You'll also be able to become friends with these players, no matter the system. If you don't like the idea of crossplay, it can be disabled from the in-game options.

Crossplay is a significant boost to the Monster Hunter community as it allows everyone to play together, no matter their console or PC set up. It will also surely keep Monster Hunter Wild's community thriving for many years to come.

Is there Monster Hunter Wilds cross save?

There is some bad news to deliver you, however. Monster Hunter Wilds will not support cross save, at least? at this time of writing. "Save data (game progress, paid DLC etc.) will be managed separately by each platform," says the official website. "For this reason, it will not be possible to share save data across the different platforms."

If you're playing Monster Hunter Wilds on PS5 or Xbox Series X|S systems, you'll need to purchase either PlayStation Plus Essential or Xbox Game Pass Core to team up online. I??t's certainly a benefit to play this game on PC, in this instance.

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GOG has announced that their PC re-release of Capcom’s 1998 classic Resident Evil 2 will be available on August 27, 2024. I mean the original version of Resident Evil 2, not the 2019 remake. Of course. Just clarifying.

While Resident Evil 2 is often best remembered as a PS1 title, it was al??so released on other platforms, including Windows. Unfortunately, PC games from the era can be extremely finicky on modern platforms. There’s plenty of voodoo you can do to pull it off, but for those who don’t want to bother, GOG’s re-release will be pretty tempting. Rather than simply re-introduce the original Windows version back into the wilds, they’re going the extra mile to make sure it’s more comfortable on our futuristic super-computers.

The list of improvements shows items that are both necessary and hilarious. They include things like “Issue-less game exit�and “Improved game registry settings�among the audio fixes and improved subtitles. Then there are fewer must-haves like The 4t??h Survivor and The Tofu Survivor being available from the beginning.

The re-releases of the original versions of the first three Resident Evil games were announced this past June, along with the sudden appearance of the first title. 2 and 3 were left pending without a given release date, though you could buy the full trilogy in preparation. We’re still waiting to hear when we’ll see Resident Evil 3.

For my money, Resident Evil 2 is easily the best game in the series. While I have a strong fondness for the 2001 Resident Evil remake, I find that the infested police station is a much better setting than the Spencer Estate. The Resident Evil 2 remake is fantastic in its o?wn right, but something gets lost when you remove the tank controls and fixed camera angles.

The PC re-release of Resident Evil 2 will be available on GOG on August 27, 2024.

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I was in college in 2006 when Dead Rising came out. HDTVs were already not in the majority of homes, but they were definitely a rarity in dorms. It was yea??r??s before I learned what Otis was trying to tell me.

There was a common issue with Dead Rising: the font on subtitles was too small to read on SDTVs. You could often make out what was written on screen, but it would take effort. More effort than you could fit into the timeframe it re??mained ??visible.

Otis was the worst. He contacts you ?regularly to tell you t??he location of survivors and would talk to you as you try to safely navigate past hordes of zombies. Trying to discern the microscopic text while watching your movements was next to impossible. Then, he’d get offended if he was interrupted for any reason. We all hated Otis.

But not anymore, because Otis�dialogue is voice acted in Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster. Too? ba?d my days of playing it on a standard definition display are long past.

Dead Rising was an impressive, influential, and ambitious game for 2006, but it was also a flawed one. I loved it when it was first?? released, but I can clearly remember a lot of frustration. B??eyond Otis calling my a jerk for getting interrupted, the controls weren’t great and escorting survivors was also a quick shortcut to going mad.

If you weren’t around, Dead Rising is the story of boastful and somewhat sleazy photojournalist Frank West, as he drops into a zombie-infested mall to try and uncover a scoop that will make him famous. Unfortunately, he has to wait three days for his ride? back to safety to arrive, and when it comes?? to finding a story, he may have bitten off more than he can chew.

You’re left to run aroun?d a sandbox-ish mall full of zombies. There’s a persistent clock running, counting down 72 in-game hours until you’re saved. There’s a central plot that requires you to be in specific places at specific times, but you’re otherwise free to explore, save peo??ple in need of help, or take down “psychopaths�who have snapped beneath the weight of zombie-induced stress.

Deluxe Remaster doesn’t really change tha?t. Well,?? aside from reducing the frustration.

Many of Deluxe Remasters�changes aren’t even immediately noticeab?le. In fact, if your memory is flawed, or you just didn’t play as much of the 2006 version as I did, you might only notice that it looks nicer. But that’s only because Capcom has been sly about what got upgraded in terms of gameplay.

You might think that weapons always had a durab??ility gauge, but the truth was that you just had to guess. Your katana would doubtlessly let you down by snapping when you needed it most. Now you can tell when it grows brittle. You can also move while looking down the sights of your gun. As I mentioned earlier, Otis can actually talk, so you don’t need to watch the subtitles while you hear about who isn’t looking too good in the cosmetic store in the entrance plaza.

Most importantly, the survivors that you rescue are better at defending themselves and staying out of harm’s way. They aren’t super-capable, so you still need to lead them through safe routes and trim the zombies so they can get through. But they won’t immediately get swarmed the moment you take your eyes off of them, as they often would back in �6. I remember growing so frustrated in the original version that I stopped rescuing people, but it doesn’t look like it will be an issue with the Deluxe Remaster.

I played through the Deluxe Remaster from the beginning to 11 am on the second day; the length that Capcom would let me play through. Much of it felt familiar. The graphics have been glossed up with the RE Engine, but you can tell they’re applied over an older game. Dead Rising was impressive when it was released. The characters had more detailed movement and expressions than what you’d often s??ee in cutscenes at the time, but there’s still some of the telltale stiffness of the earlier days.

Impressively, the new assets and effects work extremely well overtop the dustier parts of the game. The graphical effects and character models still have slightly exaggerated qualities to them that make them feel familiar. The mall is also a nicely sterile consumer environment that incorporates the upgraded lighting and reflection effects well. It avoids looking too much like a fan-made HD mod, and instead seems to understand Dead Rising’s aesthetics.

I’ve heard that some don’t really dig Frank West looking so much older in Deluxe Remaster, but ??I think it fits the character. He’s covered w??ars, you know.

On the other hand, I did notice a number of graphical weirdities in the PC version I played. I had a lot of issues with the framerate stuttering, though it typically ran fine. More noticeably, the depth-of-field blur wouldn’t mind its own business. Focusing in the camera mode was unreliable. More distractingly, the blur would sometimes cover characters in cutscenes. We’re still over a month out from release, which is usually the period of heavy bu??g squashing, so, with all likelihood, this will be fixed by launch.

With only a day of gameplay under my belt, it’s hard to say if this quality holds up throughout Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster’s runtime. While I’m happy to see b?etter survivability among the, er, survivors, I’m? not certain how they will do in later sprints back to the security room. Likewise, I’ve always kind of hated the “Overtime Mode�of the original and want to see how it feels this time around.

Fortunately, we don’t have to wait long to find out since Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster releases on September 18, 2024. If you’re savvy, you’ll notice that ?this is the day before the events in the game took place (Septem??ber 19, 2006).

I’m optimistic, to say the least. I’ve been putting off a replay of Dead Rising for quite some time now, and this glossed-up version of the original seems like it will be the ticket. It was never a perfect game, and it’s unlikely that Deluxe Remaster will be, either. However, it doe??s nudge the cla?ssic title a notch closer to perfection.

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Capcom is one of the biggest companies in the gaming world, a position it's pretty much held consistently for seve?ral decades now. As such, you'd think it would know what it's talking about when it comes to the industry at large, and it seems as though physical games are still very much within the developer's wheelhouse.

According to a Q&A session, as noted in the 45th Ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders, Capcom is still keen on providing physical products to its customers. A question on page three asks whether the increa??se of digital sales could change? the way the company deals with physical games. The answer from Capcom reads:

Given that a significant ?number of end users demand physical games we currently do not expect to eliminate physical products.

Do note the word "currently" in that response. However, it's nice that those who still want the option of having disc versions of Resident Evil, Street Fighter, and the like are being catered t?o, and it's quite ??surprising to see that demand for physical products is still "significant."

You can't have "stacks" of digital downloads

The increase in digital sales should not be a shock to anyone. The advent of faster internet speeds and the convenience of on-demand content means a lot of gamers prefer the ease of not having to go out and buy a disc. In an actual shop. How archaic!

We are definitely on the way to an entirely digital society, just because there's very little effort in pressing through a few options on-screen and downloading what you want within minutes. In that regard, the idea of procuring physical games from bricks and mortar pl??aces may seem antiquated to some.

I can't say where I stand on the matter. I'm somewhat old-school, or at least I thought I was until I subscribed to Xbox Game Pass. With books, I like an even mixture of the two: shelves of actual paperback and hardbacks, but also the benefit of e-books neatly s??tored on a digital device. I feel the same way about gaming.

Whether Capcom will eventually move away from physical video games in the future remains to be seen. The company has been around for longer than many of us have been alive, and if the Mega Man and Monster Hunter creator says users want physical games, who are we to argue? Oth??er than the actual users th??emselves who can make that decision with our wallets, digital or otherwise.

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Recently, Capcom announced it was bringing back the original Dead Rising game in the gu??ise of?? a deluxe remaster. Since then, the studio has run its summer showcase, where it unveiled a release date of September 19. However, there's one thing PC users should know about the title.

According to the Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster Steam page, the game will be incorporating "3rd-party DRM," in this case the ever-unpopular De??nuvo. Fans who are all too familiar with ??Capcom's work probably won't be surprised to know this, but it still may come as a disappointment to some.

If you're not aware, Denuvo is essentially anti-piracy software that often gets shipped with a lot of games. However, it's considered controversial and is often to blame for poor performance and framerate issues, particularly on PC. Some games like Back 4 Blood and Doom Eternal have removed DRM, though not until years after release.

Dead Rising vs. Digital Rights Management

That aside, the new remaster of Dead Rising sure does look tasty. Given that the original came out way back in 2006, it's aged quite a bit in terms of its visuals. For the Deluxe Remaster, Capcom is giving the graphics a much-needed boost through its in-house RE Engine, the same development toolkit used for the modern Resident Evil games.

Dead Rising really?? hit the spot back in the day. It absolutely nailed the George A Romero-style of zombie apocalyp?ses, tasking players with remaining inside a shopping mall for three days, surrounded by hordes of the undead.

I can't speak for the?? fan base regardi?ng the use of Denuvo DRM. I just know two things:

1. A lot of gamers don't seem to like it.
2. Publishers and developers have been known to take it out after the fact.

We'll see what happens in this case.

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During the recent Capcom Next showcase, Capcom took some time to highlight the upcoming mobile port of Resident Evil 7. This meant bringing in that game's director, Koshi Nakanishi, to offer some insight on the development of the original release. However, Nakanishi had one extra surprise to share with fans; he's back to direct the next Resident Evil game, presumably Resident Evil 9.

A new Resident Evil was always going to happen, but this is the first bit of official info we have about the game. It's not much, but given the success of Resident Evil 7, knowing Nakanishi is in charge of the project (be it Resident Evil 9 or something else) is enough to warrant excitement. Towards the end of Capcom Next, all Nakanishi could say about the game is, "It was really difficult to figure out what to do after [Resident Evil 7]. But I found it, and to be honest it feels substantial. I can't share a?ny details just yet, but I hope you're ex??cited for the day I can."

As a reminder, Resident Evil 7 was a significant turning point for the franchise. A lot of fans weren't thrilled with how the series had diverged from its survival horror roots and became more action-oriented. This came to a head with 2013's Resident Evil 6, which didn't meet Capcom's initial sales expectations and proved woefully unpopular with most fans. During Capcom Next, Nakanishi even admitted Resident Evil was "off-track" when Resident Evil 7 ?entered development, acknowledging the negative fan reaction to the emphasis on action.

"In the end, an RE game has to be scary," continued Nakanishi, which played a part in the decision to have Resident Evil 7 be a first-person game as opposed to all the previous entries. Hopefully, this will mean his next Resident Evil game will bring the scares too, and maybe serve as a counterpoint to Resident Evil Village.

Despite Resident Evil Village being a direct sequel to Resident Evil 7, Nakanishi had no involvement with its development, with Morimasa Sato (a designer on RE7) taking over as director. Village retained the first-person perspective and, while not without horror elements, opted to focus on action and combat once more. It still proved to be a critical and financial success, but perhaps its follow-up will swing back in the survival?? horror direction.

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In case you missed it, the first details for the Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster were shared during a recent Capcom Next s??howcase. Not only has the game seen quite the graphical overhaul wh??ile still retaining the core gameplay fans of the series love, but it's out in just a couple of months on September 19. And if you're willing to pay a bit extra, you can get a bunch of fun costumes for protagonist Frank West.

The base game is being sold for $49.99 / £39.99, and pre-orders come with three costumes from throughout the Dead Rising series. The best one is easily the Frank West 2006 costume, making Frank look how he did in the original game, which is perfect for nostalgic players or anyone who isn't thrilled with his updated redesign. The other two are also fun additions; you have a costume based on Chuck Greene, the protagonist of Dead Rising 2, and?? the costume for the Willamette Parkview Mall Bee mascot. That last one will definitely make every cutscene far sillier. All three also come?? with additional background music you can play while running around the mall.

While those costumes are solid choices, it's the Capcom themed costumes that have caught my eye, which are exclusive to the Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster Digital Deluxe Edition (now that's a mouthful). Capcom is keeping what they look like under wraps but, hilariously, the game's listing on the Xbox store has a full list of names for all 17 costumes, as well as the music tracks that come bundled with them. Here is?? the ful?l list of costumes included with the Digital Deluxe Edition:

• Ashely Graham (from Resident Evil 4)
• Blodia (from Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness)
• Chainsaw Villager (from Resident Evil 4)
• Chris Redfield (from Resident Evil)
• Clown (from Dead Rising)
• Creepy Rabbit (from Dead Rising)
• Ken (from Street Fighter Alpha)
• Lan Hikari (from Mega Man Battle Network)
• Leon S. Kenney (from Resident Evil 4)
• Licker (from Resident Evil)
• Mega Man (from Mega Man Battle Network)
• Nemesis (from Resident Evil 3)
• Rikuo (from Darkstalkers)
• Sheriff (from Dead Rising)
• Sodom (from Street Fighter Alpha 3)
• Tron Bonne (from Mega Man Legends)
• War Photographer (from Dead Rising)

It's a good line-up, and the thought of Frank running around in a Tron Bonne outfit is very amusing, though I'm surprised there isn't a single Monster Hunter costume given that franchise's popularity. It also doesn't feel as varied as the line-up of Capcom costumes you could unlock in Dead Rising 4. That game had outfits from Devil May Cry, Ghosts 'n Goblins, Viewtiful Joe, and even Ghost Trick. Fortunately, the Digital Deluxe Edition isn't that much more expensive than t??he base game, costing $59.99 / £49.99.

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There were a few points of contention surrounding Dragon's Dogma 2 when it launched this past March. There were the launch day microtransactions, the infamous Dragonsplague, and the game's performance, with many? players complaining about frequent frame rate drops. After having already addressed that second one, Capcom has now released a patch for the console versions that adds new graphics settings that should allow for a smoother exper?ience.

As detailed on Capcom's website, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S users have the option to set the graphics settings to high or low (PC players could already fiddle with their graphics settings). Choosing the latter will obviously improve the frame rate throughout, but the patch notes add that the frame rates for busier areas, like towns, should see a general improvement regardless. Hopefully, this means players won't be as tempted to slaughter most of Dragon's Dogma 2's NPCs like they were at launch. Capcom has also promised even more frame rate improveme??nts are planned for future updates.

This isn't the only important addition included in today's patch. Inventory management has also been tweaked for the better since you can now sell items and equip armor from the storage menu. Plus, the maximum number of items of one kind you can store has been drastically bumped from 99 to 999. A??t last, you can hoard all the apples and soft-boiled eggs you want. I'm not sure why you would want that many, but it at least means you don't have to be so conservative with your item gathering. This is on top of various miscellaneous bug fixes.

First responses from players seem positive. Over on the Dragon's Dogma 2 subreddit, several fans are pleased with the inventory adjustments, while others celebrate the performance improvements. One PS5 user reports that things are noticeably smoother on the lower setting, saying, "Towns are still a bit sluggish at around 30-40 fps, but trekking the open world I'd say is around 50 fps, even hitting 60 sometimes," though it'd still dip if there were a lot of enemies on screen. An Xbox player ad?ds that the game can run at a smooth 60 fps with the lower setting, but the bigger city areas "still run like crap."

The general response on Twitter, however, seems more mixed. A couple of users feel this patch has come too late, especially with it dropping after the release of the Elden Ring DLC, while plenty of others are more eager for new content. So far, Capcom hasn't said anything about releasing new DLC or expansions for Dragon's Dogma 2, though it's not unreasonable to assume Capcom is at least thinking about it. In its last fiscal report, it even listed Dragon's Dogma as one of the key bran??ds that it wants to capitalize on for future growth.

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Yesterday, out of nowhere, Capcom casually announced it was remastering the original Dead Rising. While certainly exciting, it did confuse?? me why Capcom decided to drop this via a random ??Tweet instead of teasing it during Summer Game Fest. Turns out it was because it's saving the details for its own Capcom Next showcase.

You won't have to wait long for it either since the showcase is scheduled to take place in less than a week on Monday, July 1. It will air at 3 p.m. PT / 6 p.m. ET / 11 p.m. BST via Capcom's official YouTube channel. Don't go in expecting a surplus of brand-new reveals, though, as Capcom ha??s said it'll only run for 25 minutes and be focusing on just three titles.

Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is obviously the main highlight. The teaser trailer offered a brief glimpse at the overhauled graphics and Frank West's updated design, but Capcom Next shoul??d provide some actual gameplay and hopefully a release window. A 2024 launch would b??e a nice surprise, though I could see it being saved for 2025 instead.

Capcom will also have updates on Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, its Japanese folklore themed action-strategy game. It's set to launch in a few weeks on? July 19, so it makes sense for Capcom to give this some focus. I'm definitely curious to see how this will end up pe??rforming since it's a new IP from the company.

The only other game to get any attention will be Resident Evil 7, which is coming to iPhone, iPad, and Mac the day after the showcase on July 2. Ideally, Capcom won't dedicate too much time to this one since it's a port of a seven-year old game. I doubt anyone will be tuning in specifically for news on this over the Dead Rising remaster, especially considering the recent report on how other Resident Evil mobile ports are performing (spoilers: they're doing badly).

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Season 2 of Street Fighter 6 has officially begun today with the addition of M. Bison as a new playable character. While Capcom has already unveiled who else will be joining the roster for the game's second year, including two SNK guest characters, today's upd??ate may have already teased a pair of potential fighters fo??r the next batch of DLC: Vega and Balrog.

For context, Bison's inclusion also means there are new missions in Street Fighter 6's World Tour mode. One such mission tasks you with tracking down Vega and Balrog, who were among the highest ranking members of the criminal organization Shadaloo and worked directly under Bison. While the two don't appear in person, progressing the mission sees you receive text messages from both of them (as highlighted by the Fighting Game Anniversaries Twitter account).

As a reminder, Shadaloo fell apart during the events of Street Fighter 5 after Bison's death, but with? the dictator seemingly ba??ck from the dead (albeit without his memories), everything points to the organisation reforming. As such, in their text messages, Vega and Balrog both express an interest in rejoining, though the latter suggests he'll only come back if he's offered enough money.

It's too soon to tell, but these could be read as hints that both characters will appear in Street Fighter 6 as future DLC. It would make sense considering these two have made regular appearances throughout the series since their debut in Street Fighter 2. Plus, they (along with Sagat) are the only characters from the original release of Street Fighter 2 that have yet to be made playable in Street Fighter 6.

I'm sure most fans wouldn't be opposed to their inclusion either, though I personally hope Capcom doesn't continue to rely on old faces for future DLC. So far, the only wholly original DLC character for Street Fighter 6 so far has been A.K.I, with season 2 consisting of two series veterans and two guest characters from the Fatal Fury games. That said, ??there are still plenty of fan favorites who remai??n absent that may take priority, such as Sakura and Sagat.

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Just when you thought the season of big game reveals was over, Capcom has thrown one massive curveball by confirming a remaster of the original Dead Rising is in developmen??t. And it announced this via a random Twitter post.

Like some kind of social media zombie, the official Dead Rising Twitter account spurred back to life earlier today, posting a short teaser clip of the remaster, officially titled Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster. The clip doesn't show much, only featuring journalist protagonist Frank West jump out of a helicopter above the Willamette shopping mall, the iconic setting of the first game. This is the first post the account has made since 2018, not counting a 2019 retweet of Xbox Game Pass advertising the addition of Dead Rising 4 to the service.

This won't be the first time Capcom has re-released the original Dead Rising. There was an HD remaster in 2016, but if the visuals seen in the teaser are anything to go by, it looks like this Deluxe Remaster is giving the game a graphical overhaul. While details on the project are incredibly slim, this news is sure to excite fans of the series regardless. It's been nearly six years since Dead Rising 4, with the series pretty much going dormant afterwards. A Game History Secrets report from 2020 claimed that a Dead Rising 5 was in the works ??at one point at series develope??r Capcom Vancouver, but it was scrapped when the studio shut down.

I'm frankly baffled this wasn't even mentioned during Summer Game Fest. While Dead Rising certainly isn't as big as Monster Hunter, this teaser dropping during the showcase would definitely have elicited some cheers?? from the crowd. Aside from letting long-time fans re-experience the game, this remaster should ideally address issues in the original, and introduce it to a whole new audience. Hopefully, we won't have? to wait much longer for further info, with Capcom only saying it's coming soon.

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When you think of horror gaming, chances are you picture Resident Evil in one of its many forms. From its humble beginnings as a puzzle-based zombie game that took cues from Alone in the Dark and Sweet Home, Capcom's survival series has become almost the final word in scary video gamin??g. There's not much?? that comes close to it in terms of worldwide success and brand recognition.

With that, I'm going to attempt to rank all the mainline Resident Evil games that have been released over the decades (almost 30!) based purely on their sales figures. Now, there are a couple of things I want to clear up before I ge?t started.

First off: there seems to be some debate about whether the likes of Revelations and Revelations 2 count as "main games" in the series. As such, I won't be discussing them, as no one seems to agree. However, Code Veronica is unanimous when it comes to classing it as a canon RE game. So, in the list it goes.

As for the sales numbers themselves, there doesn't appear to be a consensus on that, either. It would make sense to use Capcom's own figures, but they don't match up with what other sources say. For example: it lists RE4 (the original) nu??merous times, depending on the platform and release version?. Given this, I'll pull information from a number of places, but I will try to keep this as accurate as I can. Also, it ultimately doesn't matter in the end. We're all just trying to get through the week, yeah?

Code: Veronica (2000) - 2.54 million

Taking place just before the military destruction of Raccoon city, Code: Veronica is smack-bang in between Resident Evil 2 and 3. The Wikipedia entry for the game refers to it as the "fourth main installment" in the series, though if you're not familiar? with the franchise, you'??d be forgiven for thinking it's a spinoff, seeing as it's not a numbered game. I've made that mistake in the past.

It's also considered one of the strongest entries, with pretty much universal acclaim across the board. Metacritic shows a review score of 94 and a user rating of 9.1 for the Dreamcast version. You'll sometimes see it on lists of the top Resident Evil games of all time. With such praise, it's no wonder there are high hopes that Capcom will remake Code: Veronica at some point.

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999) - 3.50 million

I still have fond memories of being in my teens and playing the 1999 release of Resident Evil 3. I loved ??the second game, and the third entry was just as fantastic to me. I was terrif??ied of the prospect of bumping into Nemesis at unexpected intervals, but my sweaty hands and greasy face (teenager, remember) fought bravely. And that was the last time I truly felt free. Sigh.

Anyway...three and a half million in sales is definitely noteworthy, especially for a time when gaming wasn't quite the behemoth industry it is today. Nemesis was the third-best game in Japan for 1999 �where it was called Last Escape �according to data originally published by Famitsu. That placed it ahead of Gran Turismo 2 and Dino Crisis.

Resident Evil 2 (1998) - 4.96 million

Now we come to my favorite Resident Evil game of all time. Is this a nostalgia thing? Almost certainly, yes. But I still recall being blown away by its visuals and the fact that the game dropped you right in the middle of the action. Unheard of at the time, when I think about it. I played this game to death when it first came out, even attempting to unlock the ability to play as Tofu.

Coming just a couple of years after the original, RE2 seemed to fall just shy of its predecessor in terms of sales. But it absolutely (in my eyes, at least) took what made the f??irst game such a hit and upped just about everything. Yes, two and a half decades later, it's dated, but it's a classic. But that first time Mr. X burst through a wall will go down as one of the most frightened I've ever been while playing a game.

Resident Evil (1996) - 5.08 million

There's some debate about when the "survival horror" genre actually began. One thing that most would agree on is that it didn't start with the original Resident Evil. However, it's generally considered the first game to be described as a survival horror. Some would consider 1992's Alone in the Dark �which influenced RE �to be the first. But the term can retroactively describe even earlier releases, ?it seems.

That aside, it doesn't detract from Resident Evil's impact on the gaming world. Its blend of exploration, puzzle solving, and a zombie infestation co??mbined to make it one of the scariest games ever released at the time. For that alone, it's gone down in the history books as probably the most important horror game of all time.

Resident Evil Remake (2002) - 5.25 million

You could argue that this reimagining of the first Resident Evil installment was what kick-started Capcom's keen interest in remaking the older games from scratch. However, this came out some 17 years before the RE2 remake, which ?is a fact that hammers home just how long the series has been going for.

This 2002 do-over of RE kept the third-person perspective and tank controls of its ancestor, but gave a boost to the visuals. It was a much darker version than the original, I found, but it retained the franchise's position in the limelight a good few ??years before the fourth game would come along and absolutely smash the boundaries of survival horror.

Resident Evil Zero (2002) - 5.45 million

With the release of both a remake and a brand-new entry, 2002 was evidently a good year to be a Resident Evil fan. If you wanted to play the games in chronological order based on timeline, Zero would be the one to start with. Covering the events before th?e 1996 game, this one is a prequel and sees you playing as both Rebecca Chambers and convict Billy Coen.

Sadly, I never finished this one, though I did enjoy the fact that you could switch between both characters at a moment's notice. This was something of a departure from previous Resident Evil games, where you typically played one campaign before playing the story again as?? someone else. Novel.

Resident Evil 4 Remake (2023) - 7 million

The numbers are starting to climb up, but we haven't yet reached the tens of millions. Also, given that Resident Evil 4 Remake is the latest installment to be released �launching in March 2023 �this number is only going to change ??as time moves on. The previous entries on this list are probably not shifting many copies now, given their general ages.

The original RE4 is easily considered one of �if not the �best game in the series. So, you can imagine the pressure Capcom was under to make the remak?e nothing short of stellar. Fortunately, the studio pulled it off, bringing everything fans loved about the 2005 release, but -- actually, you don't need me to tell you how good it is. No doubt many of you have played t??he remake already.

Resident Evil 3 Remake (2020) - 8.70 million

Don't be too surprised that this has (so far) sold more than RE4. Remember, the latter has only been out just over a year, while the remake of Resident Evil 3 has had a good while longer to rack up the numbers. It's not quite as high in terms of sales figures as some of the other games, but it's s??till a sizeable chunk, especially for such a short game.

That was largely the main criticism of RE3. That, and it dialed back the puzzles a tad. But even for a short horro?r title, it was able to capture the essence of its 1999 counterpart an??d inject some much-needed modernity into the mix. Of course, it also kept the Nemesis antagonist, which would have been criminal to leave out.

Resident Evil Village (2021) - 10 million

Now we're into the juicy numbers. It was very recently that Capcom announced Resident Evil Village had smashed 10 million copies, and is the fastest game in the whole series to achieve this. Much like RE4 Remake, we can expect the eighth installment to keep rac??king up those figures over time. But we can already see how successful the series continues to be after all these years.

Village is �in a way �the second installment that is trying to do something different with the franchise, much like RE7 before it. Gone are the classic zombies and third-person camera angles. Replaced instead by a much more involved perspective, grittier visuals, and a return to form for gamers who just want to ogle a digital matriarch.

Resident Evil 6 (2012) - 13.10 million

This one might be a surprise to some. If you know the general trajectory of Resident Evil quality, you'll be familiar with the sixth game's reputation. Pretty much tacking on horror as ??an aside, the series was, by this point, almost entirely about bombastic action than tension. This 2??012 installment is typically regarded as one of the weakest of the mainline games.

Or so I thought. The fact that it's sold over 13 million copies must be a testament to how well it did upon release, or some time after it. Steam shows it as "mostly positive" for reviews, while Metacritic has it down as 67 out of 100. It seems weird, then, that the sales figures appear to be at odds with the overall reception of RE6. But that's show business, baby!

Resident Evil 4 (2002) - 13.20 million

I'm going to confess something right now. Please don't hate me for this, but...I don't consider the original Resident Evil 4 to be the best in the series. I know, I know. It's sacrilege. But I think it's because I played it many y??ears after it was released. By this point, the control scheme felt outdated and the voice acting felt too cheesy for something that had moved into darker and more sincere territory.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy it. It's a great Resident Evil game. Just not my favorite. But I could still see why everyone loved it so much. Its switch to an over-the-shoulder perspective was genre-defining and while being more action-orientated wou??ld be the later games' detriment, it worked out pretty nic??ely in this case. It's just a shame I was late to the party to truly appreciate it.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017) - 13.30 million

When I first saw the teasers and trailers for this, I was massively excited. Capcom was rewriting their own rules for Resident Evil 7 and it was a decision that helped breathe new life into the waning series. It had lashings of P.T. (long-dead by this point) and Outlast, which did nothing to quell my thirst f?or this game??.

Going back to its horror roots, Biohazard seemed to be a way to undo what the last two or three entries had done. While Resident Evil 2 is my favorite overall for both its gameplay and trip down memory lane, RE7 is easily my favorite of the modern games.

Resident Evil 2 Remake (2019) - 13.90 million

While we mustn't forget the 2002 remake of Resident Evil, the 2019 modern take on RE2 can be said to be the star??t of a new era for Capcom in terms of remaking classic games. Nearly 14 million in sales over the past few years is probably all the evidence you need to understand just how huge this game was upon release.

Obviously, the game itself played a huge part in that popularity. Had it been a straight remake of the 1998 release, it probably wouldn't have been as well-received aside from some appeal to older fans. But bringing back the over-the-shoulder camera from RE4, addi??ng Mr. X from the offset, switching the puzzles and overall level design around to keep things fresh are the hallmarks of a great remak?e that still hits that nostalgia spot.

Resident Evil 5 (2009) - 14.60 million

Much like RE6, I was surprised to see that not only had the fifth Resident Evil game sold so many millions? of copies, it's actuall?y the highest-selling entry in the series. Right at the start of this article, I posted a link to Capcom's list of its top releases. I went through to double check these numbers. It turns out, yes, it does indeed add up to 14.6 million when you include all versions of the game.

I never played RE5 beyond the demo. The fact that it had a co-op mode �in Gears of War fashion �was a neat idea, but it's shift towards heavy action was off-putting for me. Still, you know my views on Resident Evil 4, so what do I know, eh? The?? numbers speak for themselves.

The post Ranking the mainline Resident E?vil games by sales figures appeared first on Destructoid.

Street Fighter 6 is undoubtedly a fantastic fighting game, and it's only going to get better thanks to its second line-up of DLC characters, which includes SNK guest stars Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui. However, there does remain one point of contention: the game's mi??crotransactions and monetization model. Yet despite the amount of complaints lobbied against them, it sounds like Capcom has no plans to adjust the microtransactions.

Recently, Kotaku got to speak with Street Fighter 6 director Takayuki Nakayama and producer Shuhei Matsumoto, and it asked them about the discontent surrounding the microtransactions. There is a lot of additional content in Street Fighter 6, such as customization items, that you can't just buy with real money. You have to first purchase the in-game Fighter Coins currency, and those are only available in specific bundles of 250, 610, 1,250, and 2,750, meaning you'll often find yourself with some leftover coins once you've purchased the in-game items you want. On top of that, there are monthly $5/£4 battle passes and the DLC character passes which cost $30/£27, roughly hal?f the price of the full game.

The point is, even after paying roughly $60/£50 on the game (possibly even more if you bought one of the special editions), Street Fighter 6 still strongly encourages you to spend more money on its DLC and cosmetics. The sheer amount of microtransactions and Capcom's pricing has been a sore spot since launch; I remember there being a lot of player outrage surrounding the prices of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossover content, with all four costumes costing $15 a piece, making them collectively the same price as the base game. There was a similar backlash to the Outfit 3 DLC, which added new costumes for all 18 characters in the launch roster. The top comments underneath the announcement trailer on YouTube are full of people complaining about ho??w you have to spend over $100 to get all of th??em.

From the sound of things, though, enough people are happily (or perhaps begrudgingly) spending money on these microtransactions for Capcom not to consider making any adjustments to Street Fighter 6's monetization. When pressed on the matte?r b?y Kotaku, Nakayama and Matsumoto answered:

??"I mean people seem to be very interested in purchasable content especially that associates with the actual characters in the Fighting Ground Mode. And we see a lot of interest towards that so it’s something that we will continue looking into and seeing if there’s any new stuff that we can just�but in terms of the system it’s probably going to be as is."

Street Fighter 6 is hardly the only game to draw complaints for its microtransactions; Mortal Kombat 1, for example, angered players when it offered a new Fatality for $10. Unfortunately, it's been proven that microtransactions make game companies a lot of extra money. Sticking with the Mortal Kombat 1 example, publisher Warner Bros. revealed late last year that MK1's microtransactions contributed to "meaningful" growth in content revenue (via VG247). If Capcom's ever going to reconsider its approach to monetization, it requires enough people to not pay for them, but it ?doesn't look like that will ever happ?en any time soon.

The post Despite complaints, it doesn’t sound like Street Fighter 6 will make changes to its microtransactions appeared first on Destructoid.

There was a lot of exciting news for retro gamers in the Nintendo Direct. One that got me good was the reveal of the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection. This collection brings together such out-of-reach licensed classics as The Punisher and Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

Okay, here’s the trailer:

And here’s the ??list of games. Capitalization is all Capcom marketing:

• X-MEN CHILDREN OF THE ATOM
• MARVEL SUPER HEROES
• X-MEN VS. STREET FIGHTER
• MARVEL SUPER HEROES vs. STREET FIGHTER
• MARVEL vs. CAPCOM CLASH OF SUPER HEROES
• MARVEL vs. CAPCOM 2 New Age of Heroes
• THE PUNISHER

This is extremely exciting to me. I’m always thrilled when old licensed games get re-released because I know it’s often a lot of hoops for the publisher to jump through. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is probably the top of the h??eap, but that doesn’t mean that the others included aren’t great on their own.

The more obscure entry here is The Punisher. Rather than a fighting game, it's a beat-’em-up where you play as the eponymous anti-hero and Nick Fury. It’s no Alien vs. Predator (hopefully, one day), but it’s appropriately vi?olent and an excellent arcade title.

It comes with some bells and whistles, too. There will be Online mo??des with rollback netplay, and training modes for all the fight?ing games. There is also a spectator mode, a jukebox, and screen filters.

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics will be released later this year for S??witch, PS4, and PC.

The post Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection is f??ull of retro licensed goodness appeared first on Destructoid.