An SNK veteran has revealed what it will take for us to see Capcom Vs. SNK back, in the same way we just got Marvel Vs. Capcom back.
While this month’s series of gaming events peaked for fighting games with the reveal of Marvel Vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, there’s a lot of activity that’s already going on in that video game genre.
SNK is currently promoting Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, the first game in the franchise that’s been made in the last 25 years. This game is being built on Unreal 4, and is coming to Windows, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S in early 2025.
But much sooner than that, and also revealed this month, was the addition of two guest characters to Street Fighter 6. Terry Bogard, who also made the cast of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and Mai Shiranui, who wasn’t allowed to join Smash for the sake of the ‘good boys and girls’, are both joining the fight in their rival’s key franchise, as upcoming DLC.
While we don’t know the full details of the DLC release, but the potential is very exciting. Every playable character in Street Fighter 6 has so far received special content, where you can train with them in World Tour, and each character has their own special mini-open world that you can explore. Since Terry and Mai live in Southtown, we might get our first big look into that famed city for the first time, again, ironically in Capcom’s fighting game.
That that’s even possible shows just how close the two former fighting game rivals have become. In a new interview with Final Weapon, fighting game designer Yasuyuki Oda talked about how this crossover came about, and what else Capcom and SNK would love to work on:
“We’ve been talking with Capcom for two years since EVO 2022, where we had a fun collaboration that hit the news with the “Welcome back to EVO!” signs. We had a couple of dinners with their teams, and we obviously wanted it to happen. It took a while, but we’re so happy that they were able to announce it – congratulations to them.
In general, we have a great relationship with their Street Fighter team in particular. We meet with them pretty often, having dinners and stuff. The more that these collaborations are successful for both companies and such, the more chance that the one thing we both want the most is going to happen.”
So, Oda didn’t say it outright, but every fighting game fan knows he was clearly referring to the Capcom Vs. SNK franchise. There have been three games in the franchise so far, which could be expanded to six if you count the Card Fighter’s Clash RPG series. While Capcom and SNK were fierce rivals during the 1990s boom of the fighting game genre, they found cause to work together in the years after. It’s similar to how Sonic and Mario still get to be together in video games after a decade long rivalry.
In the same way that so many fans were clamoring for the return of Marvel Vs. Capcom, they would love to see the return of Capcom Vs. SNK, and that would definitely include both a rerelease of all the classic games, and a new modern sequel.
As much as Capcom Vs. SNK games were huge fan favorites, they were not all exactly big money makers, for either company. Given the appetite for rereleases of older games, it’s likely that the two companies were already planning out how to do a collection of the classic games, especially since they can do it dirt cheap.
So what Oda is referring to could be Capcom Vs. SNK 3. But for this incredible sequel to happen, SNK needs to see that the crossover could really work out in this modern era. Let’s hope that the next few months are favorable to Street Fighter 6 and Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, because that could really take us there.
