Fighting Games Friday: Fight for the Future of Capcom vs. SNK
Hopes for a new Capcom vs. SNK go up and down over time, like a figurative seesaw, depending on the actions of both companies involved. When SNK was still pumping out fighting games by the half-dozen, Capcom had temporarily left the genre behind. When Capcom returned, SNK had significantly lowered their fighting game output with the advent of HD platforms. When SNK started having a semi-regular fighting output again, Capcom had teamed up with Bandai Namco’s Tekken brand and Marvel again for crossovers instead. When… yeah, you get it by now. The timing just hasn’t been right for new titles in the series, despite how heavily requested they’ve been from fans of both companies and their big fighting game franchises.
The timing still isn’t right, but there’s been new discussion about the possibility of another Capcom and SNK crossover. This was the (presumably?) unintentional effect of the posters featuring Street Fighter and The King of Fighters characters together made for Evo 2022, to commemorate the return to the in-person event after three years. SNK in particular took notice of the recent discussions among fans.
SNK producer Yasuyuki Oda suggested to VGC that another Capcom and SNK fighting game collaboration could be feasible in the near future, and mentioned that the aforementioned cards “reconfirmed” the fighting game community’s interest in another title. “Definitely in the future, that’s something that I think everybody on all sides, in both parties, are interested in making a reality,” Oda replied when asked. “Especially after we saw the reaction to the [Evo posters]… it helped us reconfirm that that is probably one of the most wanted things from the fighting game community across the entire world.”
Oda mentioned that SNK hasn’t specifically talked to Capcom about working on a new crossover initiative, but it has come up vaguely during discussions between the fighting game team members in both companies. He mentioned the level of experience SNK has with crossovers as of late, something very noticeable over the last few years. “So that poster [at Evo], in our sense, was the first step towards maybe something like that happening in the future,” he said. “20 years is definitely too long for me [for the creation of a new game]. We’ll try and get it done in 10!”
It’s clear that Oda wants to do it, and there’s a good chance the Street Fighter brand’s new producers feel similarly. It’s been over 20 years since Capcom vs. SNK 2 released, and the fact that it’s still discussed with reverence and played in smaller tournaments after all these years is a testament to its quality and how perfect Capcom’s collaboration with SNK was. Not to mention that SNK doesn’t want their only serious fighting game effort to be the mediocre SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos. The new SNK would want to develop their own effort instead of haphazardly releasing an unfinished one leftover by staffers from the company’s previous iteration before they filed for bankruptcy in 2001.
A new title is unlikely to be in development now, because the timing is yet again not good. Capcom is gearing up to release Street Fighter 6 at a still-unspecified point in 2023, which will take time for them to establish (though ideally not as long as Street Fighter V). Considering that and the stream of other titles they have in development, it’s unlikely they’ll have the time or resources to start a new fighting game collaboration project anytime soon. SNK is slightly better positioned, with The King of Fighters XV merely needing future DLC support, but the company will be occupied with the new Garou/Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves title recently announced at Evo 2022. The teaser suggests that it’s early in development, and SNK doesn’t have access to the level of resources Capcom possesses.
I sincerely hope they’ll both get around to it in the near future. I’ve wavered back and forth as to whether the Capcom title should be one-on-one or team-based, so I’ll take the coward’s way out and not make any kind of statement regarding what it should be. But I’d love for the SNK title to utilize the tag mechanics found in The King of Fighters 2003, XI, and Neo Geo Battle Coliseum that haven’t been used in about 15 years. SNK also has more incentive to work on another title than Capcom considering the aforementioned quality of SVC Chaos. SNK vs. Capcom: Match of the Millennium was solid, but a new effort would still be preferable after more than two decades.
It should also go without saying that the rosters in both games shouldn’t focus almost exclusively on Street Fighter and KoF characters like previous games did, though they would be the easiest roster additions for a game more technical than the Marvel vs. Capcom titles.
Still, it will take years for both to get around to it, assuming they ever do. If so, the continued demand for a new game despite CvS2 releasing more than two decades ago shows how there will always be a fanbase that wants this, so they have time. If not, the least I can ask for are inter-company crossover fighters like successors to Capcom Fighting Jam/Evolution/the cancelled All-Stars and Neo Geo Battle Coliseum.
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Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
