This year marks the 30th anniversary of Mega Man, Capcom’s unfathomably influential side-scrolling action platforming franchise, which has spawned dozens of sequels, offshoots, spin-offs, sub-series, and a whole indie market for knock-offs and clones. I would go so far as to say that next to Mario, Mega Man could be the most important character in the original console generation. And there’ve been sequels up to fairly recently, with Mega Man 10, a downloadable, 8-bit retro throwback dropping in 2010. On Monday Dec. 4, however, Capcom made fans of super fighting robots salivate the world over when it announced a brand new Mega Man would be coming in late 2018.
Get equipped with Mega Man 11, coming to Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and PC in Late 2018! Watch the #MegaMan30 livestream at https://t.co/qn8POJ2KIj! pic.twitter.com/wpz3x4rybj
— Mega Man (@MegaMan) December 4, 2017
Mega Man 11, which will be available for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, keeps the traditional elements that made Mega Man so popular (side-scrolling action, difficult platforming schemes, varying stages, upgradable weaponry based on boss battles) and gave it a next-gen console makeover. The colors in the trailer really pop and give a good sense of the visuals and play-type for the game. It’s a combination of retro level design and skill and modern 3D animation and backgrounds.
Mega Man’s official YouTube channel also released a longer 30th anniversary trailer taking us through the timeline of all the games and showing bits of the games in the main Mega Man series.
After attempting to play through the original Mega Man and Mega Man II recently, I was dumbstruck by just how hard 30 year old games were, so if this new game gives us that level of frustration–especially in a post-Cuphead world–we’re in for long, long nights.
Let us know your thoughts on Mega Man 11 and the entire franchise in the comments below!
Image: Capcom
Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!
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