The Folks over at Capcom have been busy bees today, revealing some news-worthy new IPs and expanding their established franchises with all new titles (well newish, read on you’ll see what I mean)
First up, not one but two new franchises will be hitting the PS3 some time in the future. And with them it seems that Capcom may finally be ditching their ‘Western Developer’ phase that gave us dreadlocked-based Bionic Commando and Jetpack-based Dark Void. From the ‘creators’ of Resident Evil 4 and Devil May Cry comes – Dragon’s Dogma, think Monster Hunter mixed with a little Lord of the Rings. Like Monster Hunter you and a team of three other characters will travel the lands disposing of various huge beasties. Unlike Monster Hunter, Dragon’s Dogma will have a over-arcing story and there are over 200 people within the World, that you can recruit to the lay the smack down on said beasties. Dragon’s Dogma will launch sometime in 2012
Next up is another new IP called Asura’s Wrath, which is being co-developed with CyberConnect2, who are better known as the team behind the .hack and Naruto games. Capcom describes Asura’s Wrath as a seamless blend of action and narrative that will adopt an episodic nature, more akin to a TV drama series. Easy screens show it looking a bit Bayonettasque, which can’t be a bad thing. Asura’s Wrath will be hitting PS3 hard, sometime in the future.
Capcom also released some new screens from the upcoming Fighter mash-up Street Fighter X Tekken, which was announced last year and sees the Street Fighter Team create a beat-um up using the Street Fighter IV engine and characters from both the Street Fighter and Tekken universes. The guys at Namco will also be releasing Tekken X Street Fighter, same kind of ideas as SFXT but created with the Tekken engine.
Also announced at Captivate 2011 was the ‘almost sequel’ to Dead Rising 2 – Dead Rising 2 Off the Record which sees original Dead Rising protagonist, Frank West return with cameras blazing, as he snappy snaps his way around Fortune City. It will be more of the same Zombie offing goodness the DR2 offered just with some added rolls of films and flash bulbs. From the sounds of it Dead Rising 2 Off the Record with be a full retail release i.e. on a disc and will shuffling it’s way on to the PlayStation 3 before Christmas, how very festive!
Finally Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition was officially revealed (because you can never have too many versions of Street Fighter IV) This edition unsurprisingly will take it’s cue from the Arcade release of SSFIV and will feature the Arcade characters Yun, Yang, Oni and Evil Ryu. As well as various other tweaks to online play. This will be available as DLC at the beginning of June and on good old fashion disc, a couple of weeks later.
It’s good to see Capcom venture into franchises, hopefully this will payoff better than it did with the likes of Dark Void and the Bionic Commando reboot. It’s strange DMC info hasn’t been shown, could Capcom be bowing to fan pressure and overhauling ’emo’ Dante in favor of a more traditional looking lead? No doubt more will be revealed at E3 in June. This year will also see a lot more Resident Evil goodies released on PlayStation 3, with the already announced HD updates of Code Veronica and Resident Evil 4 – Resident Evil Revival Selection and the new Team-based shooter Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City.
As ever we want to know your thoughts, excited about the upcoming new IPs? Do Capcom still do it for you? and how many more editions of Street Fighter IV should be released? Comment below and be sure to head over to the forum where you can chat, win things and become a Most Honourable PlayStationer