Capcom could be tapping into the well of awesome to provide something special to us. 2012 hasn’t exactly gotten off to a good start for Capcom as there haven’t been any major surprises, Dragon’s Dogma was a slight bust, and Resident Evil 6 has failed to garner an immense amount of hype for a multitude of reasons. But there’s a chance Capcom could finally pull one of those legendary surprise announcements that involves none other than the Darkstalkers franchise.
With the fighting genre resurgencing thanks to the success of Street Fighter IV and Mortal Kombat, we’ve seen a lot of old titles return but one that has been left in the shadows was Darkstalkers. Capcom’s extravagant fighting game definitely has a fanbase (who doesn’t love a busty succubus? ), but it appeared as if the game wasn’t deemed to be a property with immediate value i.e. Capcom didn’t think it could sell 1.5 million units. Things may have seemed grim for the Darkstalkers series, but Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono has teased about a new entry being made, even going as far as to make fans at a San Diego Comic Con panel raise their hands with money to show Capcom that the fans want a sequel.
Well a new Darkstalkers game may indeed happen as Capcom is slated to make a mysterious arcade centric announcement this Sunday. Capcom will be attending the Game Summer Festival event in Japan this month and in turn will be announcing a new game. Unlike other video game tradeshow events, the Game Summer Festival exclusively revolves around arcade games as opposed to covering console and mobile titles. So could we finally be on the cusp of a new Darkstalkers game being revealed?
As of now there’s not a lot of info pertaining to what Capcom may possible reveal this Sunday but over the last few months signs have definitely pointed to the revival of Darkstalkers. It was originally hoped that Capcom and Ono would make some kind of an announcement at the San Diego Comic Con earlier this month, but sadly that wasn’t the case as we just got a whole bunch of SF goodness. Previously rumors did surface which stated that a new Darkstalkers game was indeed for development, would be utilizing the SF4 engine, and would have Ono at the helm again. Seeing as how SF x Tekken is done and was kind of a bust, it did seem reasonable to believe that Capcom would jump onto Darkstalkers next, especially when you factor in the constant teases and trolling done by Ono.
The announcement of a new Darkstalkers game at an event like Game Summer Festival does seem slightly odd, but if Capcom is making a heavy push for the game in the arcade scene it does make some sense. An announcement at EVO 2012 would’ve perhaps made more of an impact or even a great showing at TGS would’ve made more sense in the grand scheme of things, but this is Capcom we’re talking about after all.
Of course knowing that this is Capcom we’re talking about it does lead to the possibility that this imminent reveal doesn’t concern Darkstalkers. Capcom may not be as active in the arcade scene as Namco and Sega still are, but it’s completely possible something odd could be announced such as a Monster Hunter arcade game, which of course would be exclusive to Japan. I wouldn’t say that a Darkstalkers announcement is a 100% lock for this Sunday, but one can only hope that Capcom will at some point give the fans exactly what they want for once.
