Capcom Really Wants to Make a New Vs. Series Game – Shuhei Matsumoto Interview

One of the biggest surprise announcements this year happened during the June Nintendo Direct, when from out of nowhere, Capcom dropped a trailer for Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics. A collection that bundles together six of the games that make up the foundation of the beloved vs series, including one of the most highly regarded fighting games of all time, Marvel vs Capcom 2.

At Evo 2024, I got a chance to talk with Capcom producer Shuhei Matsumoto to ask some questions about how this collection finally came to be, the significance of its release in relation to the future of the Versus series as a whole, and also got to hear about the origins of the SNK crossover that’s happening with Terry and Mai joining the cast of Street Fighter 6 as part of the year 2 character pass.

How long has this collection been in the works?

Shuhei Matsumoto, Producer Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics:

So we’ve been planning for about three, four years to make this project a reality. We’ve been talking with Marvel for quite a while. And back then, we just didn’t have the opportunities to release this game. But now after those discussions with them, we were finally able to do so.

Speaking of talking with Marvel, can you describe what Capcom’s relationship is with Marvel right now?

Matsumoto: Yeah, it’s very positive. As we mentioned, we’ve been in talks with them for a few years now and they’ve really been excited and motivated to release these classic games. So overall, it’s been really good and positive.

You mentioned in another interview that Capcom has big dreams for the Versus series. Can you talk a little bit about what those dreams are and what the Versus series means to you as a whole?

Matsumoto: So yeah, this doesn’t just apply to the Versus series. We have a lot of other legacy fighting games that we know fans out there really want them to be re-released again on modern platforms. And the feeling is mutual on the development side. We want people to get to know all these other classic games. So hopefully what we can do right now is to try to re-release them and so that people who may have never had the chance to play those games to get familiarized with them. And from there, hopefully we can go into bigger and better things.

Speaking of some of those classic Capcom fighting game series, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike just had an incredible top six at Evo. That’s a game that’s been re-released several times over the years. Is that something that still you’re looking at also kind of giving a “definitive edition” in the future?

Matsumoto: So definitely. We want all our classic games to be available for modern consoles because we just want to be able to reach as many people who may have never had the opportunity to play these games back in the day. So we constantly think forward and we want to make sure that it’s as accessible as possible for all audiences.

So going back to Marvel vs. Capcom for a second. This is a game that means so much to fans across the world, especially popular streamers [and pro players] like Maximilian Dood and Justin Wong. I was wondering, have you seen any of those reactions and what’s your reaction to how people have received the announcement of this collection?

Matsumoto: Yes, we definitely saw all the reactions and the comments and the positive feedback when we were able to make the announcement. And the feeling is mutual. Once we realized that we were able to re-release these games and it became green-lit and official, our reaction matched that same energy. So yeah, we’re definitely excited.

It feels like a door has been opened with regards to the Marvel vs. Capcom series because we’ve heard nothing about it for so long. Is this the kind of thing where if this game does well, the future of the Versus series is wide open and there could be more collaborations between Marvel and Capcom or other franchises out there?

Matsumoto: So to answer your question about whether or not we want to make a brand new Versus series title, the answer to that is yes. And the best thing that we can do right now is to re-release these classic titles that some of our fans may not be fully aware of. And of course, there’s constraints, there’s different schedules, it’s going to require collaboration with other non-Capcom parties in order to make this happen. And that could take some time, but we feel that the best that we can do right now is to re-release these games to energize the community.

Switching gears for a second to Street Fighter 6, you guys announced recently that Terry and Mai from Fatal Fury are going to make their appearance in Street Fighter 6. How did that collaboration come about?

Matsumoto: So Capcom has had a long relationship with SNK and we’ve been discussing with them for quite a while now. And actually during COVID, there was a period of time where we couldn’t have any offline tournaments. But then once restrictions started to become a little looser and once Evo was able to start up again, we were talking with them to see is there anything that we can do to celebrate this moment now that we’re all back together. And the idea that came out of those conversations was to do these collaborative posters where both SNK artists and Capcom artists draw each other’s characters in their own style. And at that time, we were also working on actively developing Street Fighter 6, so we really wanted to see if there’s any opportunity to introduce some of their characters. So we asked if it’s possible to get Terry and Mai in Street Fighter 6 and they were very open about it and positive. And yeah, it started small to see what we can do in the short-term. But then through conversations, we tried to see what else, what’s something that’s even bigger that we can do. And we’re finally to the point where both Terry and Mai are going to be coming out shortly. So hope everyone’s excited.

Terry is a character that fits obviously very well in the SNK style of fighting game. How has it been translating his move set and his play style over to Street Fighter? If you can talk a little bit about how he’s going to play in Street Fighter 6.

Matsumoto: So this doesn’t just apply to the SNK characters, but during our selection process for any characters that join the game’s roster, we always try to think about whether or not they’re a good fit in terms of the game system, game mechanics. And Terry and Mai passed that test and they felt that they would be a great add-on to this lineup. So yeah, we’re very excited for them to come out.

The mainline Street Fighter series has historically not included any guest characters. So I was just wondering what changed to finally open the door for guest characters to come in? And is that door open so much to the way that other fighting game properties might find their way into Street Fighter?

Matsumoto: So Terry and Mai are joining the roster starting from the year two lineup, which is relatively early in the lifetime of the game. However, we were all very excited about the positivity that we saw online once we made the announcement. We’re very much looking forward to actually seeing people play with these characters. And based on that reaction and based on how people are engaging with these characters, we would like to consider other options maybe in the future. So this was quite a big challenge for us to even incorporate these guest characters. As you mentioned, this is the first time. But hopefully things move forward in a positive way and there’s more opportunities that open up for us.

Final question, this is something that I’ve been asking pretty much everyone that I’ve talked to here at Evo. But what do you think is the next kind of evolution for the fighting game genre? To give you an example, netcode was something that a lot of fighting games struggled with, and then rollback netcode came along and it kind of pushed the genre forward and has become largely standard among new fighting games. What do you think is the next thing that will push the fighting game genre forward?

Matsumoto: So to speak on Street Fighter 6, we took on a lot of different challenges and our goal was to get people as interested in fighting games as much as possible. And we feel that because of our efforts, we were able to reach an audience that might’ve never wanted to play a fighting game. We’re seeing a lot of engaged players, especially in Japan, and people who this may be their first time playing a fighting game actually enjoying it. So whether it’s technical improvements or just constantly servicing the game to provide new content, we feel that us and companies in general need to think about all these things in order to reach this audience and explain to them and get them to realize that, hey, fighting games are a lot of fun and they’re worth checking out. So there’s probably a lot of different things that we need to continue to think about and yeah, we hope to be able to reach more people in the future.

Mitchell Saltzman is an Senior Producer at IGN. You can find him on Twitter @JurassicRabbit