Mega Man Universe [Cancelled – XBLA / PSN]

Mega Man Universe [Cancelled – XBLA / PSN]

Mega Man Universe is a cancelled 2.5D platformer game that was being developed by Capcom for XBLA and PSN. It was officially announced on July 16, 2010 with a short video made by Iam8bit.

Its first gameplay video was unveiled at PAX 2010, showing three different levels and some of the available characters; the stand outs of which were “Bad Box Art Mega Man“, and a teaser for Ryu from Street FighterArthur from Ghost n’ Goblins was planned to be playable too.

Six months later, Mega Man Universe was playable at TGS 2010, where its main features were introduced in more detail.

The same three stages from PAX, created only for demonstration purposes, appear here too; each one representing a different difficulty level (Easy, Normal and Hard).

Megaman-Universe-9

Megaman-Universe-8
Megaman-Universe-7

However, the biggest novelty for the series was an editor where players could create new stages by dragging and dropping blocks, items, enemies before sharing their creations online.

Megaman-Universe-15

Megaman-Universe-16

Megaman-Universe-17

Six characters (classic Mega Man, universe Mega Man, “Bad Box Art” Megaman, Gust Man, Chop Man and Metto Man), were available in this build; each with their own special abilities (life energy, weapons energy, shot, move and jump). Every robot could also equip items such as the energy tank or choose a special weapon.

Megaman-Universe-12

Another key new feature, as highlighted in the below screenshot, was that the player would have been able to make entirely new characters by combining the various body parts to mix and match their abilities.

Megaman-Universe-19

DLC characters such as a Mega Man version of Gachapin were also planned.

megaman universe gachapin

[Source: Dengeki Online]

However, after about half a year, Capcom announced in March 2011 that the game was cancelled. In an IGN interview, Christian Svensson, the senior VP of Capcom America at the time, said that the project was shelved due to its low quality:

Svensson: It was pretty far in production. I will say that we weren’t pleased with where it was, collectively at Capcom as a product from a quality standpoint.

In October 2014, Rockman Corner discovered a patent related to the game:

 Universe would have allowed creators to adjust enemy behavior, their movement patterns and how much damage they dealt to the player.

The patent sheds new light on a quality assurance system, once designed to deter impossible to beat stages. Mega Man Universe required players to actually beat their homemade stage before sharing it online.

megaman universe

You can see the patent here.

Images:

 

Videos:


What do you think about this unseen game? Give your vote!

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
Loading...


Would you like to add more info, screens or videos to this page? Add a comment below!

(your first comment will be moderated before to be published)

yota




4 thoughts on “Mega Man Universe [Cancelled – XBLA / PSN]

  1. Mickey Morse

    just a heads up, Mettaur man or “Metto man” as he is called in this game was being teased since Rockman Power Fighters, he’s in the background during the last boss fight.
    and i think he had a cameo in another game, but i can’t remember which one

    not to be a conspiracy freak but, i think the reason for the cancellation is untrue, i mean, what are the odds of 3 megaman games being produced and all three cancelled at the same time and for the same reason.
    my guess is when inafune departed they halted all megaman titles and they decided to use that reason to avoid backlash ( it’s the most logical since most ppl won’t grieve over a bad game, except it didn’t make sense on mml3’s case since they later even reused the core, engine and assets for ex troopers. which suspiciously remains the only lost planet game not released in the west btw. )

    good article tamaki, i didn’t know about arthur but I remember capcom trying to push him everywhere after makaimura R for some reason

  2. Vince

    I’m really interested to know who, exactly, worked on this game. Because Christ is it hideous. I remember it being ugly back in 2011, but it really is nasty. The angular art in the 2D portraits (just look at that awful ROLL!), and the 3D models themselves… and this all happened AFTER Mega Man Powered Up happened, a game that is gorgeous and adorable (and also instituted user created levels and online community sharing — really, Capcom should’ve just ported that to PSN, XBLA).

    Capcom Internal NEVER put out a downloadable game during the generation; everything was outsourced to a Western team back then. The Japanese side seemed intimidated by “HD power”, as it were, so stuff like Commandos 3: Wolf of the Battlefield went to Backbone, and Bionic Commando ReArmed went to GRIN. Everything on the “Capcom Digital Collection” for Xbox is from a Western developer; Flock, Rocketmen, the HD Remix versions of Street Fighter, etc. The chances are, this game was handled by a mediocre Western team too – but who? No wonder it got canned; whoever did the art for this game should not be proud of their work…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *