GN Expansion Pak: Is Mega Man Dead? A Comprehensive 2024 Autopsy

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The year is 2024. Anxiety swirls in the air. People are divided. Robots threaten to overtake society. The future seems uncertain, and we all know why: Mega Man is dead!

Or so the internet tells me. I recently read an interview with Tim Miller, the filmmaker behind Secret Level, an upcoming video game anthology series. The interview touched on the subject of Secret Level’s collaboration with Concord, the recent high profile Playstation game that flopped so dramatically that Sony removed it from existence and paid everyone who bought it back so that we can all politely pretend like the whole thing never happened.

Mr. Miller only had kind words to say about Concord, which is to be expected from a professional. Less expected was that he then compared Concord’s fate to Mega Man of all things:

Now the Rolling Stone didn’t directly quote Mr. Miller, so maybe he didn’t call Mega Man a dead franchise in those exact words. Still, the implication here says more than enough. Getting lumped in with Concord in any capacity is a death sentence in and of itself.

I’m not saying that to be mean. Sony spent serious time deliberating on Concord’s future, and ultimately decided that taking a complete loss on the project and burying it forever would be more cost effective than any attempt to salvage it. The studio behind it shut down, you can’t play the game at all, and there is no financial or logical reason to ever return to the property. People won’t even be able to hold a grudge since they got their money back. It is simply a fact that Concord is as dead as a game franchise can possibly be.

Which brings us to today’s exercise: is Mega Man dead? It certainly sounds fatal to say “Mega Man hasn’t had a new game in six years!” out loud. I won’t deny that I haven’t seen him breathing lately. However, basing the health of a series on new games alone doesn’t tell the full story. I hypothesize that there are actually varying degrees of death, which can be objectively measured via the following dumb chart that I have devised:

As you can see, the question isn’t “is Mega Man dead?” so much as “how dead is he?”. You can be dead yet still receive plenty of acknowledgement and merchandise to ensure that you are not anywhere near as dead as Concord. In fact, the more a brand has going on, the more likely it will return with a new game in the future. If Zero can hide himself to repair himself, so can Mega Man. Theoretically, anyway.

Let’s test that theory. We have the technology to perform the definitive autopsy of Mega Man. By harnessing the limitless power of my chart and directly comparing it to the state of Mega Man in 2024, we can scientifically determine Mega Man’s level of deadness.

While I may be entertaining the idea that Mega Man is dead, he’s obviously not Concord dead. After all, you can still play a Mega Man game. Several, in fact. If we accept that premise, then we also need to accept that Mega Man’s controversial “successor”, Mighty No. 9, has more life in it than Concord too. Not only can you still buy and play Mighty No. 9, you can still see echoes of its existence eight years after its initial release.

Did you know that Mighty No. 9 characters featured prominently in a retail video game release in the year 2024? The INTI CREATES Gold Archive Collection repackages several different titles, chief among them being the Mighty Gunvolt duology. These games cross the Mightyverse with the Gunvoltverse and the Galgunverse for some 2D platforming action. If you felt burned by Mighty No. 9, Mighty Gunvolt Burst in particular may be the cool-off you need. No, Inti Creates did not pay me for this paragraph (although if they want to send me a check my inbox is open). I’m just trying to make a point.

Somehow, some way, Mighty No. 9 exists to this day through crossovers. Maybe not new crossovers, but crossovers nonetheless. While we’ll likely never get a Mighty No. 9 sequel, I can’t in good faith say we’ll never Mighty No. 9 again thanks to its proven ability to latch onto other things. If you take a look around the landscape in 2024, Mega Man himself knows this fact.

This may actually be the year of the crossover for Mega Man. Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster added a lot of new Mega Man costumes (for a price), with my favorite addition being to blare some Mega tunes out of the mall speakers. Street Fighter 6 convinced me to buy my one and only Fighting Pass to date via the promise of Mega Man content. The costume looks terrible, but I can’t say I regret it…at least entirely. Mega Man made a similar appearance in Exoprimal this year. Exoprimal’s costume looks way better, but comes with the caveat of playing Exoprimal. I like summoning raptors as much as the next person, but I can’t say the concept had much staying power.

Outside of the Capcom sphere, Mega Man showed up in all kinds of weird places.From Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival to Funko Fusion, Capcom seems to be selling out the franchise in bulk. Mega Man came to Medabots. Mega Man came to Brawlhalla. At this point, Mega Man will be coming to your house, so keep your door unlocked.

While not always the case, typically crossovers work as a type of mutually beneficial promotion. Both sides of the exchange get a little boost from breathing the same oxygen. That deal also implies that both sides have something to boost. Given the volume of Mega Man crossovers you’d expect something big to have happened this year, but I think we’re close enough to the end of it to say that nothing happened at all. So what’s the deal?

Are these leftovers from Mega Man’s dud of a 35th anniversary? Could a quiet year for Mega Man be due to unintentional development woes? Is Capcom literally resorting to selling out Mega Man for money? Maybe all of the above!

Notably, none of these crossovers go “big” per se. I don’t know a single person who has played Brawlhalla and adding Mega Man to the game didn’t change that. Minecraft’s bizarre Mega Man X DLC from last year easily trounces all of these crossovers in impact. You’d think if Capcom were serious about growing the brand, Mega Man would be blasting people in Fortnite or at the very least sponsoring some V-tuber. I expect that the year Capcom chooses to bring Mega Man back for real, he’ll be showing up in bigger stuff.

Some video game brands exist in a purgatory-like state that I refer to as the “Merchandise Brand.” Companies use these series to sell everything except actual new games. Collections, plushes, shirts, statutes; you name it, they’ll make it as long as it isn’t the thing you want the most. Regardless, I suspect that everyone buying this stuff hopes deep down that the rightsholders will see the interest and stage some grand revival for their favorite series.

Darkstalkers famously failed an infamous “Capcom Test” for interest in the brand and now Capcom won’t even entertain the idea of it ever coming back for real. That won’t stop them from selling you a new Morrigan statue, though.

Although Mega Man risks eventually turning into a dreaded Merchandise Brand, we’re not quite there yet. These days Capcom seems to straight up tell us when buying this stuff will lead to a brand new game and when it won’t. Mega Man 11 happened specifically because Legacy Collection did well, and the Battle Network Legacy Collection did even better. We haven’t failed any important tests yet, so you can still delusionally buy as much merchandise as you want!

As far as the landscape this year goes, Mega Man didn’t see any collections, but he did see some rereleases. Mega Man’s Gameboy game catalog released on Nintendo’s online subscription rental service, and I guess that’s mildly exciting. I like these games well enough and they have some quirks that are worth talking about. Not today, but later. That said, this move implies that Capcom won’t be releasing an actual collection of these games that you can own outside of indefinitely giving Nintendo their protection fee. Lame!

Mega Merch otherwise looks typically how you’d expect. All of the usual models, shirts, and plushes reported for duty this year. Honestly the announcements this year felt pretty uneventful…with one exception.

During this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, publisher Udon Entertainment dropped a lot of bombshells for Mega nerds such as myself. Udon announced that they would be bringing the recently concluded manga runs of Mr. Mega Man and Little Mega Man to the west, localizing the X Dive artbook (like a week after I bought the Japanese one, oops!), and even creating a brand new art book containing the “gaps” in the current collections, like the Legends and ZX games. That last book is like the holy grail for my artbook wishlist, so I’m very excited.

Perhaps Udon’s most intriguing announcement, however, was that they obtained the rights to publish brand new Mega Man comic books. While Sonic the Hedgehog has enjoyed a long and fruitful history with western comic books, Mega Man’s has been considerably more troubled between his Archie and Dreamwave runs both ending prematurely. I’m hoping for the best here, although to be honest I’ve read some of Udon’s Street Fighter comics and was not impressed. Time will tell how their Mega Man run turns out. Regardless, I can’t deny that having any new Mega Man material whatsoever at least seems promising for the future.

Speaking of promising futures, let’s talk about Gex. Alright, promising might be a strong word, just hear me out. Call it a gut feeling, but I suspect that it may be tail time sooner than you think. I go outside on any given day and I see one thing: groundswell. Groundswell for Gex. You can hear it deep in people’s hearts. You can feel it in the air. Everyone yearns for Gex. Eventually, humanity’s collective consciousness will materialize a new Gex game into existence. No one can hope to stop it.

Don’t believe me? Explain this collection. Better yet, go online. Read some opinion articles. Join the Gex community. Ask your neighbor. For whatever reason, people care about Gex. Enough people care that someone out there is thinking right this minute that there’s enough power in this brand to cash in on it.

And Gex isn’t alone. Famicom Detective Club? Called it. Ty the Tasmanian Tiger? Why not. A sequel to Gimmick! released this year, which may be the last thing I ever expected to exist on Earth. Nintendo will never admit it, but I’m positive the reason they try so hard to keep Metroid around despite its mediocre sales (by Nintendo standards) is its fanbase. Even the nichest of fanbases can bend reality to their will as long as enough people care (and have money). Fans just have to be noticeable enough that the prospectors in charge of these brands know where to dig. If Bubsy can get a new game, so can Gex!

Better yet, so can Mega Man. Some lunatic once said that you are Mega Man’s future, and it’s true. Mega Man’s fanbase carries this brand far further than Capcom could ever hope to on its own. While Mega Man has been eerily quiet on official channels, this has been a great year for fan efforts.

Just months ago, fans preserved some major parts of Mega Man history and made them accessible to many people for the first time ever. Two previously Japan-only Battle Network phone games were dumped, emulated, and then fan translated for everyone to enjoy. On top of that, several other phone games were preserved, including some fun oddities like Mega Man Tennis. I actually helped fund these efforts several years ago, so it’s awesome to see this team’s hard work come to fruition in such a comprehensive way.

Equally exciting: the biggest missing link in Mega Man Legends history finally become available for English-speaking fans to enjoy. Rockman DASH 2: Episode 1 serves as both a prologue and fun curiosity. For anyone who spent years wishing they had just a little bit more Mega Man Legends to fill the void in their soul, I can vouch for this missing chapter hitting the spot.

Of course, fan game efforts also continue to go strong. Mega Man Maker continues to receive updates. A sequel to Mega Man Unlimited seems to be in the works. The Mega Man X8 Demake stole the show this year and continues to expand through mods. There’s plenty of Mega Man to play with and without Capcom’s involvement!

On a personal note, I also think this year has been a great time for fans looking to gain some more insight into this series. The once elusive Mega Man creator Akira Kitamura resurfaced earlier this year on Twitter of all things. Since then, he’s basically been dropping insight into his game design philosophies and how he approached Mega Man on a regular basis. It’s been surreal to directly hear from him and even see him directly confirm many of the things I’ve always felt about this series. These are exciting times, even if it doesn’t always seem like it.

There are some brands where you just know that a new game will happen. Castlevania may be the most obvious example ever. Konami seems to be reviving everything under the sun, they licensed the series out for Smash Bros. representation, and the terrible, terrible Netflix show has six seasons and counting. It’s so obvious that Castlevania will get a new game that it technically did get one earlier this year, just in a weird way that’s hard to count. An unambiguously new Castlevania game will happen and this series will revive – it’s a matter of when, not if.

My scanners indicate that Mega Man sits right about here on the death chart. You may be thinking: didn’t Mega Man 11 revive Mega Man? Well, that was six years ago. It’s likely we still have some time to go on top of that before the next new entry. Time waits for no one. Virtually an entire generation of kids will have grown up without a single new release. The next Mega Man will likely have to do Mega Man 11’s job all over again.

That’s the biggest drawback for these dragged out, bloated video game development cycles: people have shorter memories than ever and are spoiled for choice. It’s far more difficult to build up the kind of fanbase Mega Man specialized in when you only have one new game every 8-10 years. You end up with a disconnected brand coasting largely off the goodwill of an aging fanbase that won’t be around forever.

Capcom needs to start taking Mega Man’s future more seriously if they want it to stick around, and I think they are. Their ruminations will just take some time. I talked about it in more detail last year, but it seems relatively safe to say at this point that the long-rumored Mega Man Match game likely died with the departure of Mega Man’s producer, Kazuhiro Tsuchiya. Suffice to say, I don’t see Capcom pulling a new Mega Man game out of their back pocket any time soon.

However, just because Capcom put Mega Man on the backburner doesn’t mean they’re done with him entirely. According to Capcom earlier this year, “Mega Man is one of our highly-valued IPs and we are considering how to create games for it on an ongoing basis.” Hey, that sounds just vague enough to be promising! Ongoing basis implies some kind of regular release schedule. I wonder what kind of games they’re considering?

Oh…remakes of old games…? How exciting…? Look, I used up all of my feigned enthusiasm on the Gameboy rereleases from earlier.

Capcom’s “Super Election” event held earlier this year offered a sobering look into where Capcom’s head is at with Mega Man. Capcom floating this remake concept publicly says to me that they basically have no idea what to do with this series. It’s one thing to try to seek public approval for taking Mega Man into the blandest, safest direction possible, it’s another entirely to ignore that you already went the remake route for Mega Man multiple times before. I struggle to imagine a less exciting direction than this, yet it seems so inevitable that I can only begrudgingly accept it.

Yet the actual results of the Super Event election held better tidings. Capcom’s stupid Mega Man remake plan fell noticeably below multiple other choices. Mega Man cemented itself as the #2 choice of fans for the series that should get a new game, only behind…uh, Dino Crisis? That might be the doing of the bots threatening society that I mentioned earlier. Capcom also specifically highlighted a comment so on point about their slow release schedule and lack of new Mega Man games that I had to double check that it wasn’t mine.

Capcom doesn’t need to discern the will of the people through any vague feelings in the air. The people have spoken: Mega Man needs new games, not overly safe rehashes. Now it’s up to Capcom to listen.

And in the long run, I expect that they will. Mega Man may be dead right now, but he’s far less dead than you’d think. Mega Man still has plenty going on and plenty of signs indicating that he’s not down for the count. Mega Man’s fight for everlasting peace will continue in due time.