Marvel vs Capcom Infinite - What Happened? ft. Maximilian

[Music] welcome once again to another episode of what happened the show are we 24/7 365 [Music] but no one is better taking their fans for a ride then Capcom the seminal Japanese publisher / developer who's probably responsible for everything you've ever liked about videogames however that ride has undoubtedly had some peaks and valleys along the way some of those Capcom franchises or characters that you fell in love with have since been flipped from history nowadays though if you're into Resident Evil dub may cry or Phoenix right you have it pretty good in all honesty but there's one fan base that have it not so pretty good and those are the ones that maybe support a Capcom the most and that's the piano 9 fans that I mean fighting game fans last several years have been kind of very rough for a variety of reasons being lukewarm launches poor communication or if you DLC practices but while Street Fighter 5 more or less managed to turn itself around Cal Combs on the other fighting game of this generation Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite has to be one of if not the biggest failure in the realm of fisticuff in whoa whoa slow down there did you really think you were gonna hog this subject all to yourself why if it isn't Guinness Book of World Records winner for most subscribed channel the specializes in fighting games Maximilian dude hey there hello Matthew stop calling me that anyway with Max's help we're gonna be tag teaming and break down the long tragic journey a Marvel vs. Capcom infinite so without further ado let's go [Music] so grab your time stone and let's travel back to one of the most glorious years in all of the years 19 goddamn 94 the world was fertile and vibrant and blessed with many natural wonders such as Jamie Lee Curtis and True Lies Ace of Base Donkey Kong Country but that's all garbage why cuz x-men children of the atom that's why this absolute magnum dick of a fighting game set a new standard for graphics and gameplay in the arcades as it took full advantage of Capcom CPS to board it also set an exciting precedent for fans of comics or video games in general if Capcom is making Marvel games would it both sides clash in an epic struggle what if we you could Dragon Punch Cyclops what if Zanghi could piledrive Cyclops and what if m bison could kill Cyclops unfortunately those questions would go unanswered for about two years because then x-men vs. Street Fighter was released thus kicked off half a decade of amazing manic over-the-top combative fanboying between two pop-culture powerhouses this culminated in 2000 as it saw Marvel vs. Capcom 2 New Age of Heroes released which really cemented the legacy of capcom vs fighters clocking in at 56 goddamn characters upping the teams to an insane three versus three and introducing my personal favorite the sexy seductress a mingo marvel to establish itself as an absolute classic things only got more hype from there as the unbalanced but nevertheless fun and deep gameplay exploded in popularity just two years later as it was heavily featured in the early Evo's becoming a pillar of the fighting game community then for a long time nothing happened during these Dark Ages fighting games particularly 2d ones struggled to find relevance in a market place filled with games like Virtua Fighter 4 Dead or Alive 3 and of course the king of them all Mortal Kombat deception then in 2008 capcom returned to the arena mistreat fighter 4 which proved to be a sales success and felt they needed to capitalize on this fighting game renaissance while it was hot and what better follow-up and clashing once again with the Marvel Universe things had changed since the late 90s however and rather than being almost out of business business was a booming and a whole heap of Marvel heroes now had maximum mainstream exposure we're talking about guys like iron money hot God and captain duty and since his movie was in the works at that time they threw in sassy doctor as well Marvel vs. Capcom 3 fate of two worlds released in 2011 with one of the worst logos ever and longtime fans lost their collective [ __ ] the game featured a bold comic book art style had a great balance of fan favorites and newcomers and was generally really fun to play a lot of skeptics however assumed Capcom would just put out a better version a few months later which they did but hey Ultimate Marvel 3 had some awesome new additions and was seen as a superior iteration with that being said the game definitely needed some balance changes but official support had dried up and Capcom wasn't talking the next time Marvel 3 was mentioned was when it was delisted from all digital services in late 2013 in fact this even kicked off lots of Marvel franchises disappearing from the digiverse including Marvel origins collection and it's terrible terrible Fox arts this move to start regaining their franchises that they had license out to companies that were now smaller than them and infinitesimal next to Disney is a behavior that would be intrinsically linked to Marvel vs. Capcom infinite's eventual fate in December of 2016 Capcom announced a new game in the series at PS X what's bsx you ask well it was a big PlayStation theme show that Sony just stopped doing now this was a bit odd why didn't Capcom show it at e3 or Evo PSX wasn't exactly the biggest venue to show off a brand new fighting game especially one that was multi-platform so why not just wait until e3 no there's something else something ugly something malignant regardless people were excited because the MCU was now um doing pretty good but hardcore Marvel players were a bit more subdued Infinite reverted back to the 2v2 setup of its roots and Infinity stones were added to the main gameplay loop which would be the replacement for that third character while it was nice at Cal come work shaking things up some people thought they detected the memorable stench of gems from across Tekken which would thankfully not be the case one thing however that definitely was the case was the suspicious roster now some people were pretty enthusiastic about X's inclusion yeah that was pretty good others felt it was a bit worrisome that there was nary a whiff of a mutant the months ticked by and was quiet on all fronts until III 2017 we're infinite had its first proper unveiling the story mode was highlighted in a new shiny trailer and it probably shouldn't have oh cool there's Thanos and there's Frank WestEd their rocket oh my god now we don't want to harp on this but it can't be overstated a Chumley's creepy porcelain Baby Face stuffed in a sausage casing permanently damaged the fan perception a marvel from then on out no one on the greater internet was talking about the gameplay the Infinity stones or the story itself because just take a look at this also get a load of captain duties so why did certain characters like Monster Mash over here look like Monster Mash over here conversely why the new fighters look pretty sharp well there's a good reason for that our batteries and really because the developmental details of a lot of Capcom projects especially those tied up by a bunch of NDA SCI clocks aren't really privy to the public thankfully though almost two years since its debut enough pieces of the puzzle have been put together and enough lips have gotten ever so looser close to the launch of the game some staff within Capcom under anonymity revealed that the budget for Infinite wasn't exactly high with one quote putting it succinctly by describing it as cheapest [ __ ] while exact numbers are not known marvel's entire budget for the base game was comparable to just one season of DLC for Street Fighter 5 now how comes flagship fighter did have additional backing by Sony but seemingly no such deal was put into place for infinite thus it's safe to assume Capcom was funding most of it if not all of the game by themselves and they weren't exactly splurging on it now how do you cut car in a fighting game well you just do what you do in the old days see ok so let's compare say venom and Dante notice the distinct drops in quality here here and here well that's because they just grabbed Dante's model or as animations from Marvel 3 a game of a very different art style and just plopped them into infinite do that a few dozen times and you have your roster what's more is that both games ran on vastly different engines as Capcom proprietary empty framework which they have since abandoned powered the comic book contrast Marvel 3 whereas infinite used Unreal 4 which powers just about every other fighting game nowadays this might have caused some awkward mess speaking of art styles many fans pointed out infinite slack of one maybe Capcom didn't want this to be seen as a mere upgrade to Marvel 3 so softer more semi realistic look was chosen instead it was pretty apparent that most of the models looked rushed and sort of cheap while the new fighters had a considerably more polished look according to anonymous Capcom staff these issues were raised to the higher-ups who are producing the game the concerns however were apparently waved off citing that it was a non-issue as no one would notice yeah well I'm one of them record then is it a bad idea now while this has a modicum of truth to it as all the frantic action and screen filling special moves but make it not impossible to discern such detail but that doesn't hold true if you say then zoom in on the Cryptkeeper during your story mode trailer not content with just that Capcom released a downloadable demo for said story mode that same III weekend to spread positive word-of-mouth about the game so it didn't now it might have been a good idea on paper but this demo could have possibly done more harm than good there was no vs. component of any kind no training and was compromised of just a few limp fights against computer-controlled drones that was it even as a product promoting a story mode it did little to excite and also prevented people from really experimenting with the gameplay Infinite's best feature that was the one thing people were actually pumped about as everyone playing versus on the e3 show floor were having a blast but the majority offense sitting at home were getting a vastly different experience one more thing that happened during e3 2017 and in conjunction with all the other bad press formed a type of aqui pace that just grouped on to Marvel Infinite and never let go that of course bean [Music] van Gogh damn Chi and Arc System Works literally announcing another fighting franchise that had a dynamic art style 3vs3 tag matches and featured legendary characters known the world over you can't do nothing about that while competition is a good thing and it should strive to push to products to be better it didn't really pan out that way it's more on that later oh wait more on that now simply put Marvel's chances at making some type of impact were dunked into a coffin from outer space by android 16 and then knew everything infinite lacked fighters had and more not to mention Namco scheduled the first public beta for DBZ the exact same weekend as Marvel's launched convenient intentional or not in the FCC at least this was seen as the darkest of shades the memes and shitposting kings sliding in hot and wet across social media so the public opinion again was it bit skewed then fortunately actually things got even worse speculation over the lack of x-men or Fantastic Four characters was no longer unfounded but was in fact very much found near the end of 2017 Marvel put all x-men books on hiatus as they were embroiled with the disputes from 20th Century Fox / the characters then they relaunched x-men later that year but the Fantastic Four they had been in the crap Shack since 2014 as Marvel had been devaluing the brand so Fox would just give up and relinquish the rights and we could you know get good fantastic four movies for once this was ruthless by the way Marvel was scrubbing them off any media they could hell the Fantastic Four logo was even taken off bombastic bag man's bag in spider-man unlimited took the ice cube trays out of the freezer what kind of a sick [ __ ] takes the ice cube trays out of the freeze pettiness like that goes all the way back to Marvel 3 is the producer of that title 1 Ryota net Zuma emitted they weren't the easiest company to work with and cited a specific example where they would stall development agonizing over the details of dr. Strange's and movements other anonymous Capcom staff also stated whenever they would request the use of certain characters they would often get rebuffed from Marvel if they had no plans to use them within the MCU when such instance was with the goddamn juggernaut and his very very tight suit can't calm wanted the big jugs to return but Marvel had no interest in pushing a minion in fact Capcom were the ones who fought for characters like x-23 and Deadpool to be included in fate of two worlds and only out to sustain campaigning for them would Marvel relent Capcom tried their best to gather the most interesting heroes and villains they could but if you have a partner who's difficult or unwilling to play ball there's not much you can do there for infinite would have no Sentinel Magneto Doctor Doom or etc and despite them usually being at odds with each other both the FTC and casual audience came together to hate this as a united people Capcom obviously couldn't go with the whole it's Marvel's fault route so instead they went with the whole characters are just functions approach then producer of Capcom's fighting games Peter Combofiend roses famously said in an interview if you were to actually think about it these characters are just functions they're just doing things Magneto case in point is a favorite because he has eight-way air - and he's really fast right well guess what Nova can do the same thing Captain Marvel can do the same thing it's just a function that people are associating with the character and there's no shortage of that we wanted to make sure that if a legacy of characters doesn't happen to make the roster this time that playstyle would still be represented the quote did certainly rub a lot of people the wrong way but Combofiend couldn't exactly throw Marvel under the bus over this so he had to take some tact when these issues came up and present to you some tact looking back on it this is literally the only thing he could have said so as to keep the heat off any one group and I'd imagine if he had been even 1% more provocative in his answer Disney would make sure there would be a severed beta ray bill head under his sheets that night infinite launch on September 19 2017 less than a year since his reveal and a few months shy of releasing alongside when in the biggest movie events Time Avengers infinity war not the most synergistic timeframe from a marketing perspective one of the biggest advantages of a crossover title like this a colorful cast of characters and a fantastical storyline wasn't really being used to its full potential why they didn't wait a few more months to be closer to the hype of infinity war is a journey into mystery itself and considering the state of the game one time and development wouldn't have heard it so with this negative perceptions circulating around the game with what with its lack of an exciting roster and more enticing alternatives on the horizon it's no surprise that all these foibles masked infinite's best-quality its gameplay very quickly people realize the Infinity stone system didn't hurt Marvel but only strengthened it it functioned more like the grooves in earlier capcom titles and led to lots of creativity and combo potential characters from Marvel 3 aside from their looks got some fun changes and the new cast received similar praise as well most reviews took these positives into account claiming that the core game was really enjoyable however the ho-hum graphics the lifeless stages the stunted roster drab menus and presentation and the mediocre story mode were not enough to balance everything out then like within days of launching Capcom announced that a lineup of DLC characters were coming soon suspiciously soon the six fighters would include Black Panther venom Monster Hunter and the rest and while not known at the time it has since been revealed that all six were originally scheduled to be in the starting lineup producers on the project felt it would be better to cut them from launch and make them DLC as they didn't even have a long term roadmap for future content yeah it always works out great or if they did had scrapped it this is partially evidenced by both Monster Hunter and black panther appearing within the story mode with the latter also getting their own what Condon theme stage the first three were added 30 days after the game launch and all six were made available in less than three months which also marked the last bit of content the game would ever receive also Filipino chant let the world know that there was originally gonna be like maybe 61 characters and 18 stages but aside from that I think we've covered the cavalcade of bad decisions and worse timing that plagued marvel infinite one of the biggest fighting game disasters right okay now it's time to talk about this not only did infinite September release put it far away from Avengers hype it also missed out on evo 2017 as well Marvel would have to survive a good six months to hopefully get picked for next year's championship series during said announcement stream of a lineup mr. wizard listed the games that would make the main stage and infinite was not among them although two other tag focused games DBZ fighters and blazed Blue Cross tag battle Ruby thing did mr. wizard stated this was due to lack of participation from the community as well as low Stream numbers during other tournaments many people felt this was unfair as Marvel's numbers in those areas were not bad by any stretch and rivaled or surpassed other games especially cross tag battle whose numbers were zero since it wasn't even released when the evo announcement was made what's more is that this was the first time in 16 years that a marvel vs. fighting game would have no main stage presence after the live stream mark man another evil representative and stick God made comments that inferred infinite's exclusion was not due to Capcom or even Evo themselves saying I go to many fgc events probably the most outside of sponsored players I know that NPC AI is being played but it's hard to include a game that doesn't have support I'm not talking about Capcom because they've supported it the most we've had meetings with some pubs and those about including their title as a main game at Evo you know what we didn't get the blessing that we hope for sometimes we actively have to seek permission and/or content licenses to be able to include certain games why exactly did this happen well I'll not confirmed internally infinite was seen as a failure due to the online backlash the reaction to the roster the reviews take your pick but we were exposed so since the perception of Marvel was so poor trying to improve it with more DLC graphical adjustments or even an ultimate version was felt as a waste of money which no company wants to do instead it would simply be better to wash their hands of the whole thing in and just move on Howell Marvel was already doing that with Fantastic Four but just ignoring their existence so why not do the same here the last patch that the game received that fixed a few bugs was in January of 2018 so that was one to five months of official support and then just nothing like cross [ __ ] Tekken had a better shelf life than that for shocks sake it was that Evo fortunately though infinite did make up for all this failure by at least selling what Capcom projected which was about two million copies in the first fist time stone failed to sell two million copies and instead barely sold half of Capcom's projections this was less than Marvel 3 had managed to move six years earlier by the way and since the MCU brand was more popular than Jesus well uh that ain't good we are now almost two years away from infinite Slon chand things are different Disney now owns 20th Century Fox or the x-men and the Fantastic Four back in the fold all the comics again relaunched and just look at the cover of Ultimate Alliance 3 involves Thanos and the gems and goddamn Wolverine his front and center slapping you with his hairy adamantium thong there's even gonna be a DLC pack for the Fantastic listen it's pretty clear that Marvel vs. Capcom infinite got dealt a bad hand the timing the competition the budget everything was working against it and many of those elements were simply out of Capcom's hands every so often though rumors pop up of the game returning in some form or a full-fledged sequel might even be in the works but unfortunately there's no concrete evidence to support that but still and makes you think what if [Music] my spider-sense I'm picking up nothing thanks so much to my marvelous tag partner max for the team up hey no problem man my name is max and I'll see you next time and thanks to all you flop house VIP peers for voting strong and proud and saying when's marvel and if you out there true believers know if any other games fighting or otherwise you'd like to see on what happened punch up your comments below or webster on your way to the flop house VIP patreon to officially cast your vote on our next video and that is enough said [Music]

Channel: Matt McMuscles

Views: 1,435,693

Keywords: Marvel vs Capcom Infinite, Marvel vs Capcom 3, Marvel Video Games, Capcom Fighting Games, What Happened?, Wha Happun?, Video Game Disasters, Video Game Documentaries, Matt McMuscles, Capcom, Maximillian Dood, When's Marvel?, EVO, fgc, Fighting Games

Id: Jk2WiXMNALk

Length: 24min 20sec (1460 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 24 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/BLACKOUT-MK2]

Capcom's fighting game division is one of the biggest mysteries to me right now, because it's so up in the air which way their next game is going to go. I'm in the boat that really hopes they can take what they've learned from the treatment DMC5 and RE2 received and make a fighting game that reflects that sort of care.

I don't know if we'll see a Marvel Vs game so soon after Infinite's failure, but I really hope it doesn't mark the end of the series forever. If nothing else, Capcom has one of the most valuable things there is; a lot of people are willing to forgive them at the drop of a hat if they just make a solid game.

For all their blunders and stumbles they've had such a rich history of fantastic fighting games that people desperately want them to succeed because they know they have the resources and talent to do better. I hope they acknowledge that and use it to give those people something truly great with their next game rather than to coast off their desperation and good will with a game mired with problems at launch.

It's precisely because they've made such great games that it hurts so many people; less than them not being able to make a good game it seems more like mismanagement and wasted potential is at play. Say what you will about SFV, MVCI, or SFxT, if Street Fighter 6 or a new VS game was announced today and genuinely looked really good people would go crazy because their properties are so beloved that the connection goes beyond the shakey execution of one or two games.

I really hope Capcom's FG division sees a return to form because from the stuff they do well I can tell they have the talent, they just need to show a willing to adapt a mindset and a marketing strategy that doesn't leave their audience feeling like they're being taken for a ride, pardon the pun. It's not a question of 'Can they?' it's a question of 'Will they?' and the disparity between their fighting games and their other properties is so at odds that, even if they have complete control over their next fighting game, I genuinely don't know which of the two sides they'll follow.

[u/danwin]

This honestly is one of my favorite game-related series. Really like seeing the people and real-world factors that led to a game being a disaster, not just the usual "the game just sucked".

[u/Detective_Robot]

MvCI was ugly as sin but I actually had more fun playing the game then DBFZ, which I still really like by the way.

[u/Aggrokid]

One of the common misconceptions about MVCI is that the team-size reduction from 3 to 2 was a dumbing down from UMVC. That couldn't be further from the truth. The freeform tag-in (active switch) system that allows tagging during hitstun, plus big variance between gem choices drastically increases the permutations and complexity. This system gives it a higher skill ceiling than UMVC, which is a shame because the competitive scene wasn't around long enough to explore that.

As for auto-combos, they are very inefficient compared to actual manual combos. Also unlike DBFZ, they are not a staple of BnB combos at the high level.

[u/TchitcherinesLEPDE]

So 1/3rd Marvel getting rid of characters, 1/3rd pointlessly bad release schedule/stiff competition and 1/3rd budgetary issues due to ...something (it feels like the whole thing about announcing it at a Sony event was building up to some financing deal and maybe that was the case as to why Capcom only allocated so much)

Marvel issues have been 'solved' by Marvel buying Fox, release schedule has been dealt with as Avengers Galactus ain't coming around for some time, stiff competition is still a possibility, budget financing is a complete mystery

Feels like this franchise is done though, Marvel has become a juggernaut and any deal with them is likely to be on the edge of profitability, not like they need cross-marketing anymore

[u/ruminaui]

It was Disney or rather Marvel is way too big and has way too much power. Pre MvsCI Capcom was free to make the game which way they wanted, if they wanted to use a cartoony or comic style, sure it was their call, if they wanted to do a crazy roster, sure. But now that Marvel is way too big they where locked on the MCU style which did not work, the characters they had to choose had to be from the MCU, so not many crazy choices, only two characters from the Marvel side where not part of the MCU. Also god damn no X Men, this franchise started with X-Men: Children of the Atom for god sake, and that was 100 % on Disney's side. If you actually look at the fighting mechanics of the game they were and still is solid, which is why It has a cult following but everything else due Marvel/Disney interference went trough the drain.

[u/BurningB1rd]

If somebody wants to try it for little money, it is in the xbox game pass, not the pc game pass, but the one for xbox, but you can still download it on pc.

Its fun, mostly though because of the character, wanted more characters though, was not fun enough that i would purchase the DLCs, but i will get it maybe one day in a sale.

[u/mennydrives]

tl;dw: Disney happened. That's literally it.

Capcom, unconstrained in their decision-making process, would have made a fine game. Take a look at MvC2, FFS.

Instead, they had to basically throw out most of the fan favorite characters and dump in Disney-friendly alternatives.

The notorious "Four Gods" of MvC2 were literally all fucking X-Men characters: Sentinel, Storm, Magneto, and Cable. You can't just swap X-Men out for other characters and expect a positive response.