Summary
- Capcom's recent trend of revealing and launching games within a year may not continue with Monster Hunter Wilds, which has a tentative 2025 release window.
- It seems that Capcom is primarily focused on franchises like Resident Evil and Monster Hunter, leaving fans wanting to see the return of other classic games.
- The cancellation of games like Mega Man Legends 3 and the closure of the Breath of Fire series as a free-to-play mobile game show a lack of confidence in expanding certain franchises.
Capcom has been doing well over the last few years because of its tight reveal-to-launch ratio. Resident Evil and Monster Hunter are two great franchises that have been following this track of launching within a year of their announcements. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case with the recently announced Monster Hunter Wilds which has a tentative 2025 release window.
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Capcom has put out some of the most popular gaming franchisers of all-time. These are the best selling in their impressive repertoire.
Is that going to be a trend going forward? Also, are these the only two franchises that Capcom cares about anymore? There are so many of their classics that fans would love to see come back. If Sega can do it with games like Crazy Taxi and Shinobi then so too can Capcom.
8 Bionic Commando
Get Your Cybernetic Arm Ready
Bionic Commando
- Released
- May 19, 2009
- Developer(s)
- Grin
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC
Bionic Commando began in the arcades like many Capcom franchises which featuring a cyborg warrior with a grappling arm. This was in 1987 and there were a few console and portable ports and original games after this. The final game, Bionic Commando Rearmed 2, was released in 2011 as a digital exclusive to platforms like the PS3. That game was 2D and was more in line with how the series began, but Capcom published a more ambitious 3D game in 2009 that tanked hard. That 2009 reboot is probably why confidence in the series floundered and why it has been dead for over a decade.
7 Breath Of Fire
Ryu Is More Than A Street Fighter
Breath of Fire III
Almost every major Japanese company in the 80s and 90s has at least one RPG franchise under their belt. Capcom’s was Breath of Fire which began in 1993 for the SNES in Japan and a year later for the West. There were two games on SNES which also got ports to the Game Boy Advance, and then two PS1 games. The fifth and final console game was Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter in 2003 in North America, a year after Japan. Even though mobile games don’t count and will rarely be mentioned on this list, this franchise is special. See, in 2016 Capcom released the next numbered sequel, Breath of Fire 6, as a free-to-play mobile game. In 2017 it ceased operations which is wild on many levels.
6 Dino Crisis
Resident Evil Plus Dinosaurs
Dino Crisis
Resident Evil quickly took Capcom to new levels when the first game was released on the PS1 in 1996. It got numerous sequels and spinoffs quickly and has since gone on to be a huge deal for Capcom. They even made attempts to make clones internally like Dino Crisis in 1999.
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When a company has a legacy as big as Capcom's, some games are bound to slip through the cracks. We'll never get to play these canceled Capcom titles.
Instead of zombies, players fought dinosaurs in a similar Resident Evil gameplay style. This game then got a PS1, PS2, and original Xbox sequel which was the last game as of 2003 which wildly took the series into space.
5 Mega Man Legends
Too Many Mega Men To Consider
Mega Man Legends 2
It’s hard to know where to start with this series as the last new game overall, Mega Man 11, was in 2018 and that’s not counting collections or ports. Mega Man Legends is the internet darling though and has quite a distressing history with Capcom, so let’s begin here. This spinoff series started in 1997 on PS1 in Japan and then it came over here a year later on PS1. It got a spinoff soon after, The Misadventures of Tron Bonne, and then a proper sequel in 2000. It has a notorious cliffhanger ending that fans have been dying to see answered for decades. There was hope for answers when Mega Man Legends 3 was announced for the 3DS but it was canceled in 2011.
4 Okami
Zelda But With A Wolf
Okami
Okami was a legit challenge to The Legend of Zelda franchise which proved to be a critical darling when it was released in 2006 on the PS2. Part of the charm was the watercolor art style and the wolf protagonist which helped it stand out from other Zelda clones. It took a while but it did eventually get a sequel in 2011, in North America, for the DS and it was called Okamiden. The original game has been ported and remastered more times than one can count but the DS sequel has remained obscure ever since as have plans for a third installment. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom paved the way for a slew of copycats to follow and it would be interesting to see a more open Okami sequel in this style.
3 Onimusha
Resident Evil Samurai
Onimusha: Warlords
Onimusha is another internal Capcom attempt at making a new horror franchise to rival Resident Evil. This one took place in feudal Japan and centered on samurai fighting demons. The first game was released in 2001 on the PS2, which was remastered in 2018.
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Resident Evil or Street Fighter - Capcom is responsible for many classic franchises.
It had a good run for five years with sequels and spinoffs aplenty. The last real game was in 2006, also on PS2, which was Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams. Besides that game and the 2018 remaster of the original, Capcom did give the rights to have an anime made in 2023 for Netflix. As for games, nothing has been mentioned for quite some time.
2 Strider
The Last Great Ninjavania
Strider
Strider technically started before there were video games as there was a manga in 1988. That manga then got turned into a Capcom classic series that began in arcades in 1989 which is also when the first NES game was released. There would be a smattering of console games after this up until the PS1 era. Things died off until 2014 which is when the last game, simply titled Strider, was released digitally. The genres differed between sequels slightly as some were pure ninja action games while others were Metroidvania adjacent experiences.
1 Viewtiful Joe
Henshin A Go Go Baby!
Viewtiful Joe
- Released
- June 26, 2003
- Developer(s)
- Clover Studio, Capcom
- Platform(s)
- GameCube, PlayStation 2
Viewtiful Joe debuted in 2003 and quickly got a sequel in 2004. Then, in 2005, there were two spinoffs aka Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble and Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble. And that’s where things left off, not counting the anime which was also short-lived. It’s amazing that a series could start and end in a few years, but here we are. The things players enjoyed about the two main games were the cel-shaded visuals, combat with slow-mo action, and the silly story straight out of a Power Rangers episode.