After a player-led campaign resulted in the “#FREEMCV2” trend across social media, Disney and Capcom are now reportedly in talks to rerelease Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes on modern hardware.
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is one of the most important games in the history of esports and the fighting game community (FGC), serving as a pillar of the competitive FGC during the turn of the millennium. Here in the Philippines, the game garnered a substantial following, becoming a mainstay in local arcades, even developing its own Philippine ruleset that shifted the game’s meta.
Despite this legacy, there is currently no way to play Marvel vs. Capcom 2 on modern hardware, let alone play it online. Players looking to play this classic over the internet either have to have a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, or resort to emulation. (Read: Fighting in the time of COVID: the problems of online play and how the community has adapted)
This state of affairs led well-known fighting game YouTuber Maximilian “Maximilian Dood” Christiansen to start a campaign to bring it back under the “#FREEMVC2” hashtag. The hashtag soon started trending as more members of the FGC started to support it. This eventually caught the attention of Digital Eclipse, who had previously worked on the PS3 and Xbox 360 port of MvC2 back when the studio was still known as Backbone Entertainment. Studio head Mike Mika showed his support for re-releasing the game.
Now, that groundswell of support may have reached the IP holders at Disney and Capcom. In a recent interview with Shacknews, Mika stated that there has been some communication between Disney and Capcom and that both companies have also noted the campaign’s online presence.
In addition, Mika addresses one of the hurdles that fans may be considering in regards to a re-release—the possible bad blood between both companies. This is seen to stem mostly from the troubled development of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, which was seen to stem from the overly controlling nature of its roster or character portrayals.
Mike shot the theory down. He stated that if any of the employees involved were still in either company, they would not stay there to continue fueling this hostility.
The only other hurdle would be the copyright and the potential investments needed to bring the game back. In the two decades since the game’s initial release, there have been many changes in the climate that all three companies are in. Mika explained that lawyers would likely have to get involved and that finding all of the relevant information needed to bring Marvel vs. Capcom 2 back would take a lot of money.
“That can often be as much, if not more, than the budget of the game itself,” Mika explained.
It seems that whether or not a Marvel vs. Capcom 2 rerelease would happen comes down to the business side of the industry, and if all three companies involved would see a profit. That said, this is all speculation at this time as neither Disney nor Capcom have released any official statement regarding this. Despite this, it’s reassuring to know that there is at least some discussion regarding a Marvel vs. Capcom 2 rerelease.
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