This Fighting Crossover Series Could Return After Almost 20 Years

Without a doubt, crossover fighting titles have become one of the more celebrated and weirdest genres in gaming in recent years. On the back of successful crossover brawlers such as "Marvel vs. Capcom" and "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate," worthy competitors such as "MultiVersus" have emerged and carried the torch for gamers who love the idea of pitting characters from several different iconic IPs against each other and having them brawl it out. It's a formula that has worked time and time again and one that is constantly fueled by both the imagination of gamers and the weird crossovers that already exist. And one of its earliest adherents could be making a comeback soon.

Japanese companies SNK and Capcom collaborated to bring gamers a series of collaborative fighting games, "SNK vs Capcom," as well as "SNK vs Capcom: Card Fighters Clash," a crossover between SNK's "The King of Fighters" and Capcom's "Street Fighter" IPs for the Neo Geo Pocket Color. The crossover attempt wasn't received all too well by critics, but it was obviously successful enough to spawn a handful of sequels. The last mainline title in the series would be 2003's "SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos" which received mostly mixed critical reception, but became a cult classic. Since then, the crossover series has been dormant while others of its ilk have excelled in the gaming market, including Capcom's own "Marvel vs. Capcom." But fans of this old series could see a new "SNK vs. Capcom" title in the near future, nearly two decades after its last offering.

After the emergence of "SNK vs. Capcom" posters at the 2022 Evo tournament, it seems that there has been a score of gamers interested in seeing the legacy crossover series come back for one more run. And in a recent interview with VGC, SNK producer and designer Yauyuki Oda said that after nearly 20 years without a sequel, a new entry into the series isn't outside the realm of possibility. "[It's] definitely in the future, that's something that I think everybody on all sides, in both parties, are interested in making a reality," Oda said of a potential "SNK vs. Capcom" sequel being developed. "Especially after we saw the reaction to the [Evo posters]... it helped us reconfirm that is probably one of the most wanted things from the fighting game community across the entire world."

According to Oda, there haven't been any official discussions between the two companies regarding the making of another "SNK vs. Capcom" title — only tiny mentions here and there. But he remains optimistic that something will be done eventually. "[R]ecently, 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."