Fighting games are a decent portion of SNK and Capcom’s individual libraries, but the two companies used to make crossover fighting games with each other’s properties. The SNK vs. Capcom series has been inactive for decades, but it appears as though at least SNK is interested in reviving that relationship.
【EVO2022 SNK x Capcom】
After more than a decade, SNK and Capcom are back for two collaborative posters from the legendary illustrators Eisuke Ogura and Shinkiro!Come get yours at the SNK Booth!#KOF15 #KOFXV #Evo2022 pic.twitter.com/s1xTpz2Awg
— SNK GLOBAL (@SNKPofficial) August 5, 2022
According to an interview with Video Games Chronicle, Yauyuki Oda, who was producer on multiple recent fighting games like Samurai Shodown, SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy, and The King of Fighters XIV, said he was into the idea of bringing those crossover games back.
“Definitely in the future, that’s something that I think everybody on all sides, in both parties, are interested in making a reality,” he said.
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While he spoke on Capcom’s behalf, a company he used to work for, he admitted that SNK hasn’t talked “in detail” with Capcom yet.
“We haven’t really talked in detail with anybody at Capcom about it. It might have come up as a vague comment,” said Oda. “However, we have a lot of experience [in crossovers] with things like Akuma and Geese in Tekken, Terry [Bogard] in Fighting EX Layer, Terry in Smash Bros., and Baiken in Samurai Showdown. But recently, we haven’t actually done anything with Capcom, even on character collaboration stuff. So that poster [at Evo], in our sense, was the first step towards maybe something like that happening in the future.”
The posters he referred to were at Evo 2022, which showed both Capcom and SNK fighters officially together on the same piece of art. Some thought this was leading up to a special Evo announcement that never came. However, it seemed as though the reaction to that art did show how much fans want another SNK vs. Capcom or Capcom vs. SNK.
“Especially after we saw the reaction to the [posters], it helped us reconfirm that that is probably one of the most wanted things from the fighting game community across the entire world,” he said.
Oda also noted that waiting another 20 years would be too long for him and that they will “try and get it done in 10.”
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Nothing has been confirmed and Capcom hasn’t replied. But Capcom vs. SNK 2 Director Hideaki Itsuno told Polygon in an oral history on the series posted in January 2021 that he would “love to eventually make Capcom vs. SNK 3” and that he had two ideas for a one-on-one fighting game. He then stated that it was more about getting an opportunity to make it and that there was a “decent but far from confirmed chance” of him personally working on another fighting game. Itsuno is now working on the recently confirmed Dragon’s Dogma 2. He also noted that they were working on a third entry for the PlayStation 2, but it was canceled when SNK filed for bankruptcy.
SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium was rereleased on the Switch in early 2021. SNK Producer Adam Laatz told Nintendo Life that Capcom was integral in getting that port released and that he hoped that it would “serve as an opportunity for more releases to come in the future.”
