What are Capcom working on - A look at their studios
2022 was a big year for Capcom, at least if you were a Monster Hunter or Resident Evil fan, outside of that a lot of what they talked about throughout the year, was looking ahead to 2023.
We have the remake of Resident Evil 4 coming, as well as Street Fighter 6 and another Mega Man Legacy Collection, but there are also other games. Exo Primal has been silent for a while and Pragmata has been even quieter. What does 2023 hold for Capcom? Let’s take a look and see if we can’t work out what is going on.
Division 1
Series known to them: Resident Evil series, Mega Man series
Division 1 had a big-ish year in 2022, as they finally released the expansion for Resident Evil Village and Shadow of the Rose was something a little different, but it did well. The Mercenaries, the additional mode got an update and after decent a wait Resident Evil RE:Verse finally saw a release and then quickly vanished. Switch owners were given the short end of the stick with three more games in the RE series, all of which require the cloud to play, more so when they are all made on the same engine that Monster Hunter Rise and that’s on Switch.
As for 2023, there is the highly anticipated Resident Evil 4 Remake coming on March 24th, assuming there are no delays. The game is meant to be full of the same content from the original Gamecube title, just with refined gameplay. As this is the division that takes care of Mega Man, while not developing it, they are overseeing the Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection that is coming in April. Beyond that, there isn’t much else out there on what they are doing, that being said Devil May Cry 5 is now 4 years old, so its possible we might see something from that team. For now the focus will be on Resident Evil 4 Remake and that is how it should be. Something else that we might learn more about this year is Dragon’s Dogma 2, which this division is also responsible for, will the game release this year, unlikely, but a statement from the games director Hideaki Itsuno, has stated that development is going well.
Division 2
Series known to them: Monster Hunter series, Ace Attorney series
2022 was a good year for Division 2, as they released the big expansion Sunbreak for Monster Hunter Rise, along with a host of massive free updates, including some crossover content. Most of the rest of their news was related to their 2023 title, Exoprimal, oh and randomly Capcom announced that Monster Hunter Rise would lose the console exclusivity from Switch and then bring the game to the other consoles this month.
2023 will start with Rise, the base game at least, getting release on PlayStation and Xbox, with the expansion coming later. Beyond that though, the next big game from this division will be Exoprimal. The game had a few network tests in 2022, giving many players a chance to play it. Sadly for now there is nothing more beyond 2023 for that game, but given that Sony like to host State of Play events in March, where this game was first announced and I think the date will come from that. The other thing we might see from this group is another remaster for Onimusha, as the first game was remastered back in 2018 and did fairly well. Given the series has another half-dozen games that they could pull from, or they could create something new, we just have to wait and see.
Division 3
Series known to them: Street Fighter series, Lost Planet series
Last year I said that the reveal of Street Fighter 6 was due to be revealed and I was right, though that original logo was pathetic. Thankfully that first confirmation was a tease and the full reveal came at not-E3 in June, which confirmed new modes. At The Game Awards 2022, we got the release date for the game, along with some extra looks at the modes, but that was about it.
With Street Fighter 6 dated for a release in June, the team there are likely going to spend time talking about modes and new characters over the next few months. This division is also where Pragmata is meant to be in development, but I can’t get confirmation of that. That was the game that was announced way back in 2020 and then in October of 2021, Yoichi Egawa the director and executive corporate officer of Capcom’s Development Divisions, stated development is going well. So well in fact that one month later the games 2022 release was pushed back to 2023 and this where the problem lies. Since November 2021 until today, there has been no updates on the title, no social media posts, no YouTube videos, nothing. In fact the Capcom Japan website, doesn’t even contain any reference to the title.
Capcom Mobile
Series known to them: Street Fighter IV: CE, Shinsekai Into the Depths
Capcom Mobile are the group that focus on mobile versions of the popular console games, like Street Fighter and Ace Attorney. The problem is that they haven’t released a new game in a while, their last big one was Shinsekai Into the Depths and last year they only showed life when they gave updates to Monster Hunter Stories in April and Ace Attorney Trilogy in June.
Last year saw news that a new Monster Hunter game was coming to mobile devices, but development is being done by Timi, the same studio behind Pokémon Unite, so if this group is involved, it will be in a very small way. Sadly, as with all mobile focused developers, we won’t hear anything from them until the title is ready to release, or registrations are being accepted. I just wish there was more to know about this quiet arm of Capcom.
Blue Harvest LLC
Series known to them: Unknown
I said the below last year, when talking about this extremely mysterious Capcom studio
Apart from having a name that references the original Star Wars movie, there is next to no information on what this studio has done or is doing for Capcom. They make games for them, but that is all we know, we don’t know if they make for consoles, PC or mobile, heck we don’t know if they make their own or just support others. So, given the scarcity of information around them, if they release a game in 2022, we might never know it was them.
In the 12 months since last years story went live, nothing has changed. Capcom are still reporting them as a subsidiary studio, but there is nothing on them anywhere. So if they are doing something, they are being so quiet, that not even the dark corners of the internet can work out what is going on.
K2 Co., Ltd.
Series known to them: Ghosts 'n Goblins: Resurrection
2022 was a good year for this group, they got their name out their more with the Resident Evil Village DLC, but that was basically it. As they have been given the role of support studio, there isn’t a lot that we can expect from them this year, outside of their support work on Resident Evil 4 Remake.
So there you go, some likely outcomes for Capcom this year and a few guesses, how accurate they are, well we will just have to wait and see. What do you think? Were we on track or do you think we missed something? Be sure to sound off in the comments.
