Mega Man Legacy Collection Coming This Summer

Capcom recently announced it would be shifting a lot of its focus towards HD remasters of its back catalogue, in an attempt to blend nostalgia with modern gaming.  This has seen highly successful remakes and remasters released such as Ducktails and Resident Evil, and next up is one of Capcom’s most loved franchises.  Welcome home Mega Man, as Capcom today revealed that the Blue Bomber would be getting the remaster treatment, in a collection that looks to celebrate the 8-bit history behind the iconic character.

Titled the Mega Man Legacy Collection, this release collects Mega Man’s entire 8-bit catalogue, featuring Mega Man one through six all with a HD finish that looks to retain the charm of the 8-bit style.  The games are also being re-developed in a brand new engine, and will offer leaderboards, a challenge mode, video replays and a museum with an assortment of art and information about Mega Man and the games.  Capcom has stated that the new Eclipse engine that is being used will rebuild the games directly from their source elements, and the team Capcom has assigned with the task of remastering these classics are Digital Eclipse Software, the team behind the SEGA Mega Drive Collection.

Digital Eclipse Software as with Capcom, also view the preservation of our gaming history as vitally important to the industry.  With their head of restoration Frank Cifaldi recently stating that “We’re living in the golden age of a brand new form of artistic expression, and we’re not doing a very good job of making sure our games will be available five years from now, let alone fifty. The more we can do right now to take video game preservation seriously, the safer our history will be.”  Let’s hope the games are given the re-release that they deserve and can successfully blend the old with the new as Capcom aims to.

The Mega Man titles are currently available in their original form on the Nintendo Virtual Console, but this collection is looking to offer something extra to those with fond memories of the games, whilst also hopefully introducing these to entirely new audience.  The PS4, Xbox One and PC versions will be released digitally in the summer for $14.99, with the 3DS release following later in the year.  It may not be the new entry that many still want, but who can complain at a remaster of six of classic retro platformers?  Let’s just hope summer hurries up eh?