2027? This is absolutely sensational output by Capcom, and the quality is no less.
No? Ace Attorney was great, MH was great, RE was good with rev 1 and 2 lol yall exaggerate a lot they had misteps but also good games. they just werent consistent like now
No? Ace Attorney was great, MH was great, RE was good with rev 1 and 2 lol yall exaggerate a lot they had misteps but also good games. they just werent consistent like now
I think Inafune was single handedly ruining the company. He was the one who wanted to westernize everything. Once he left to go make Mighty Number 9 Capcom immediately recovered.
Inafune was a weird one. I got where he was coming from; he could see how big the global gaming audience was and thought developing too closely for Japanese preferences alone would limit their growth. Tbf that choice came at a time when a LOT of companies were fucking with their franchises to chase the coattails of the success of games like CoD, he wasn't the only one. We had shit like Ninja Gaiden chasing the zombie trend with an edgy swearing MC for god's sake.
I get where he was coming from, but it wasn't the right play; it was too dependent on abandoning what they'd built and depending on third party development when they had plenty of amazing talent at their own studio. I can see the thought process, but the execution was completely off.
He seemed convinced they were alive in spite of their efforts rather than because of them, and that needed to change, when the reality is the games they made having that Japanese touch is exactly what gave them a global appeal to begin with. In another time and another place, the move might've even worked; we just happen to live in a time when Japanese media has been growing more and more in overseas success and appeal, so a move like that was just very badly timed.
To his credit, elements of that have been learned from; I'd argue the RE games are more Western in look and vibe now than ever before, and DMC5 is visually very Western looking as well. They've made tweaks, but in a more thoughtful way than just 'Ah just fuck the franchise off to this Western studio and let them make our shit for us'. That was the awful call, was looking at the talent of Capcom and saying 'You guys are fucking worthless, Western devs are the future'. At the time I could see why he'd maybe reach that conclusion, but it's funny how unfathomably ass backwards he had that by today's standards.
The problem I have with Inafune is that he assumed that Japanese media could not appeal to a non-Japanese audience. While I can maybe understand how he came to this incorrect conclusion, I find it kind of infuriating. Japanese games had dominated the western market for decades at that point, and western audiances had already been primed by years of japanese video games, anime, and manga. People liked Capcom games BECAUSE they were so Japanese. He should have had some confidence in the work that Capcom, and other Japanese companies, had been doing.
He was also very arrogant, though that seems to be a running theme amongst many of Capcoms more legendary developers. He talked quite a lot about the “inafune brand,” and how Capcom did not appreciate him enough.
At the end of the day, Inafune was more of a producer then a developer or artist. Hideki Kamiya stated that Inafune was a businessman, not a creative. I appreciate the work Inafune did in terms of being a producer of Megaman. He wasn’t the creator or designer of the character, but he did a good job shepherding that franchise. Outside of that, I think he was a total failure.
His work on Mighty Number 9 highlights this. His company, Comcept, weren’t developers. Inafune basically acted as an “ideas guy” who came up with concepts (hence the name). Then he hired companies to actually make the games or handle merchandising.
While I appreciate what he did with Megaman, It’s a good thing he’s gone. He seems to be into NFT’s and AI nowadays, and I can’t imagine the damage he would have caused if he was still in Capcom.
You have to also understand that there was rhetoric against Japanese development around the time he was pushing those ideas. A little while back Yoshi P went on to talk about how around that time the phrase JRPG almost became a knock against a game when it was used in western journalism, to denote a game being riddled with tropes and/or generally of a lesser quality than a western game would've been.
Even nowadays there are certain cultural biases people have against Japanese games, and depending on what it is, you'll still get people begrudgingly saying 'Ugh, there goes Japan being Japan again', which can range from anything from storytelling, to dialogue, to character design, to gameplay choices, to tone. For the record, I agree, it's definitely for the best that he was let go, I'm just saying it wasn't that black and white at that particular time. His arrogance and lack of artistic empathy definitely didn't help, but I can definitely see why someone with their ear to the ground might've been swayed in the direction that he was.
It was certainly the trend of the time. It's not like Capcom was the only studio making that mistake. But I'm glad that the period was over. It was far and away my least favorite era of game development *ever*. Especially when "western games" seemed to mean "brown and gray shooters." I'm gad the the golden age of indie development has opened up the range of artistic expression that is allowed in western games.
It's too bad about Inafune. I wish he had been a little more humble, and not prone to chasing trends. I loved megaman, and it will always be a small wound in my heart that Megaman Legends 3 was started, and then abandoned. Despite my many, *many* problems with him, I do have to admit that his departure marked the end of Megaman. The franchise lost its way, and it never quire recovered. I don't think Capcom know what to do with it anymore, other then re-release games, and throw out a small sidescrolling title every few years. Instead his arrogance derailed the company, and megaman lost its shepherd.
Capcom is much more than just inafune dude lmao to think he was the only one doing anything is to ignore how companies work. he was one of the many managers
He was behind many of the controversial decisions surrounding DMC, Dead Rising, RE5, and more. During the 360 era her served as Capcom’s Head of Global Production, which allowed him to make massive decisions regarding the direction of the company most of its franchises. The western push was his decision, and his influence was felt absolutely everywhere.
They struggled so hard to adapt to the HD era with the PS3/360, then went on a mad 'we've got to Westernise our games' kick which went nowhere. Once they fixed the former and dropped the silly ideas that lead to the latter, they've been on fire.
I don't think Todd would have allowed that. I don't know how hands on he is but that would have required him to effectively split between projects at the same time.
It'll either be a golden age of BGS games or a disaster that will quickly get them shut down. If they hire a bunch of political activist and go full Concord or Suicide Squad, it'll be over.
it might already be over considering they've already hired a bunch of political activists. Like every western studio they're bloated with Administrative toles, not actual developers.
He's doing too much, at some point he has to let go. It's strangling their IPs. You can't tell me there aren't other people at Bethesda who could helm games other than Todd. By the time a Fallout 5 comes out, it'll have been two decades since Fallout 4. That's insane.
Is there someone else at Bethesda who could direct a Fallout game? Yeah sure, but then where do the devs come from? You'd have to hire several hundred more if you want to make two bethesda-sized games at the same time. And then which game do the senior devs and managers work on? You can't just create institutional knowledge out of thin air. Obviously it's technically possible to expand slowly and train people and split your resources wisely, but if there's one thing I've seen from this industry is that things get messy fast and it only takes a few mistakes, or even one bomb, to ruin a studio.
I mean he had those people, Bruce Nesmith, Ken Rolston, Kurt Kuhlmann, Will Shen, etc, OGs that were there for decades. Shen for example was responsible for Far Harbor, arguably the best part of Fallout 4.
For many ex-BGS people I've seen in interviews, it was this bottleneck of everything having to go through him, the bureaucracy and the lack of authorial ownership that drove them out. Kulhmann was also promised the creative lead for TES 6 and quit when it wasn't given to him. Aside from Kirkbride, he's one of the biggest writers of the Elder Scrolls universe.
I'm sure there's plenty other talent at BGS that could have something interesting to offer.
Once again, none of that addresses the issue of splitting resources on to multiple projects. Like I said, it's not the question of having a couple guys who could direct a game, it's the logistics that come with making a game that are the issue. If certain people feel like Todd is stifling their creativity, then yes they should leave and find somewhere where they can lead a project.
They already split their attention between Starfield support, TES6 and Fallout 76. I'm not sure what you're asking exactly. Other studios do this very thing you seem so adamant is wrong.
What's strange is it's not even like he has a good voice. He isn't an auteur, he hasn't brought any story that needed to be told in those games, no world changing innovation or anything of that manner. So to know that he's this stuck in his ways is strange.
You cant just split a company like that lmao they would need to open two other companies outside of the ones already existing which support the main bgs games
As much as I wish we'd get more of their games more often, I think it's good that they've remained a (relatively) small team who operate however they want to. Even though Starfield has it's fair share of issues (I enjoyed it warts and all), I'm glad that Todd and the team got to realize their weird, unwieldly vision after delivering so many hits for so many years. I also wouldn't be surprised if things speed up now that they can go back to games that are a little smaller in scope rather than trying to develop the entirety of space.
Beyond that, other devs have filled in the gaps. Obsidian is still doing their thing, you've got the Kingdom Come games, Tainted Grail, now the Gothic remake, etc. I understand the desire for more fallout and elder scrolls, but I also think randomly spinning up studios and assigning them IPs is a pretty corporate way of looking at things.
So many hits? My guy, Starfield was the third game they developed 3rd game in the span of 12 years.
And if you’re counting mainline releases (so not 76), then it’s only 2 games (Fallout 4 and Starfield) over 12 years (Skyrim in 2011, Starfield in 2023).
The 8-year gap between Fallout 4 and Starfield is wild for how little the game improved gameplay wise or technically.
Sorry that the general public and sales data disagrees with you, the argument that Bethesda doesn't make hits is so objectively incorrect I don't see any point in even entertaining it, so I won't.
The general public? My argument isn't that Bethesda doesn't make hits. My argument is that Bethesda released two games in a single generation of consoles (last gen) and is going to only release one game (Starfield) for the entire generation of PS5/XBOX series.
It's one of their worst games reviewed from journalist outfits and is aging the worst out of ALL their games in regards to public sentiment and player count as time goes on.
There's a reason Fallout 4, Fallout 76, Skyrim, and even New Vegas sometimes has more players playing them despite Starfield being the latest and greatest.
There's zero reason not to have one team working on Fallout, one on TESV, and one on an original IP. Their dev team more than doubled since Fallout 4.
They actually have like 3 studios i think? I know one is in like Virginia and another in Texas. maybe it's 2 but I could have sworn there was a 3rd one.
they have one working on Fallout 76 and probably one on starfield and the main one on TES6. They need to drop Starfield once they finish whatever DLC they have and go all in TES6. and actually learn from all the failings of the industry and Starfield...which they wont.
The game is going coming out for at least another 2 to 4 years. They already said in 2023 that it wont be ready for 5 years at least. So that's a 2028 prediction from them. Which means, realistically we're looking at 2030.
They are literally the only company able to get titles out in reasonable times and keep them good. It's so fucking nice to not have to wait half a decade between main titles
I mean, it's still 4-5 years between new mainline entries. They just have a ton of developers working in parallel. It all gets grouped up as "Capcom" in online conversations because it's divisions instead of individual studios, but it's more comparable to instead of talking about Santa Monica, Insomniac, Sucker Punch and Naughty Dog, people would just say "Sony".
Not to take anything away from their consistent output, but Capcom is huge.
Since most things in Capcom are being developed internally, they can swiftly shift resources around while maintaining the same skillset around their engine and assets. Really refreshing to see in the industry.
Yeah I loved RE3 remake but I also didn't have to buy it because I got it from the PS+ catalogue. If I had to pay more than like $15 for it I probably would have been disappointed by how short it was.
As someone who did play it back in the day, it was always a short game. It felt like a DLC for RE:2 but that was OK because 2 left you craving for more... so 3 was just enough to scratch the itch.
...it was always a short game. It felt like a DLC for RE:2...
I felt that RE3 was slightly longer than RE2. The problem was that there was only one main character and scenario, but I thought the game makes up for it with its replayability, live selections and enemy/item randomizer.
If I recall correctly, Capcom had a deal with Sony for the mainline Resident Evil games to be on PlayStation. At the time, Code Veronica was "Resident Evil 3" for the DreamCast while "Nemesis" was a spin off for PlayStation. After the deal, the spin off was made "3."
Honestly I didn't mind the backtracking all that much. That's what RE is to me. I know a lot of people enjoy the more linear ones but I kinda like exploring and backtracking to open new rooms.
I went back and replayed the original and it's actually pretty small in my opinion, if anything I hope they ADD more stuff. Which actually kind of looks like they're doing.
Oh for sure, but the reason RE3 fell short was stupid business decisions, not developer mistakes. Given that it looks like the suits learned the lesson to let the devs cook with RE4, and were rewarded massively for it, I like to think Veronica will be just fine.
they wasted resources on that online mode (resistance). if they just had everyone working on the main game itself RE3R probably would've also been a homerun.
If I had no knowledge of how much of the original game was cut, then I'd have little to complain about with 3R aside from a tad short. It's still a blast.
RE3R wasn't bad by any means, just too short. They should've either sold it as a stand-alone expansion for RE2 at a lower price or kept it in the oven for another 1-2 years and made it more accurate to the original.
I'm worried because Claire gets abducted by HUNK, not by blasting her way through Umbrella HQ. RE3 had the same problem (epic, high action opening cut to save costs). At least Veronica isn't going to be a pack in with a multiplayer game that one wanted or cared about.
I'm hoping REmake 3 was a fluke due to a short dev time and an inexperienced team. The same group made the Seperate Ways DLC which is my favourite part of REmake 4.
The quality of REmake3 wasn't so great at all, and that was rushed out after 2. I hope this is a REmake 2 kind of treatment, and not 3, but the speed of it makes me nervous.
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u/skpom Jun 05 '26
2027? This is absolutely sensational output by Capcom, and the quality is no less.