Darkstalkers being in the works over a decade ago changes perspectives on a lot of things
Update: Street Fighter 6 Director Takayuki Nakayama has responded to our original story, which can be found below.
Besides Street Fighter, Capcom has a multitude of original fighting game properties that have lied dormant for years outside of collections, and the biggest of those would be Darkstalkers.
Fans have been clamoring for a full sequel featuring the Night Warriors for well over a decade, and it now seems that a new Darkstalkers title was actually once in development at Capcom.
Street Fighter 6 Director Takayuki Nakayama recently shared a few very interesting posts on his X / Twitter account that may shake up what we thought we knew about the development timeline of Capcom’s fighting games.
Nakayama reminisces about working on Otoranger, a mobile rhythm game released in Japan, which closed down 10 years ago in October 2014.
But what he had to say afterwards was much more surprising.
“Yesterday (October 14th) was the 10-year anniversary of Otoranger ending its service,” wrote Nakayama as translated by our own Nicholas ‘MajinTenshinhan’ Taylor. “It was a game and a development team I had a lot of love for.
“You can listen to its music in Street Fighter 6 as well, so if you feel like it, please give it a listen.
“I came back because I was able to work on fighting games (not SF *bat emoji*) but development was stopped and we were reformed to become the Otoranger team.
“I worked with Golden Bomber at TGS and through collaborations and @junjunmjgirly told me ‘I love Street Fighter so please give me a job!’ A lot of things connected with each other and led to where we are now. Thank you very much.”
格ゲー作れるから（SFじゃない）と出戻りしたけど開発ストップになり合流したのがオトレンチームでした。TGSやコラボでゴールデンボンバーさんとご一緒したり歌広場さん@junjunmjgirly に「SF大好きなんで仕事下さい！」と言われていたり色々今に繋がってるなと思いますありがとうございます
— TAKA-nakayama (@takaNakayama) October 15, 2024
He doesn’t outright say the game was Darkstalkers, but it certainly is heavily implied since bats are iconic to the horror fighting game known as Vampire in Japan.
This is seemingly the first time anyone at Capcom has given real indication that a new Darkstalkers was being worked on at some point in the modern era.
In response to our original story, Nakayama had this to say:
“That’s a bit of a different story. Maybe someday I’ll be able to talk about it.”
So it sounds like he’s not outright denying that he worked on Darkstalkers in some regard, but there’s obviously a lot more context missing that he can’t discuss.
ちょっと話が違うんだよな。いつか話せる時が来るでしょう。
— TAKA-nakayama (@takaNakayama) October 16, 2024
Former Street Fighter Producer Yoshinori Ono was famously a big proponent for the franchise featuring Morrigan, Felicia, Demitri, Jedah and other memorable characters, stating he was still “striving hard to attain” the greenlight on a new project back in 2016.
After leaving Capcom in 2020, Ono lamented that he could never resurrect Darkstalkers himself, but was looking forward to the day where his former subordinates could make it happen.
Now knowing that a Darkstalkers game potentially was being worked on before being canned puts all of that talk in a very different perspective now.
Nakayama did work at Capcom in the early 2000’s on Devil May Cry 2 and the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5 game but left to design other titles like Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia and Kirby: Mass Attack.
Considering Otoranger released in 2013, that would point to this apparent Darkstalkers project likely getting canceled by at most 2012.
This lines up pretty well with Nakayama’s work history and timeline of when he rejoined Capcom.
And it could indicate Darkstalkers entered development around 2010 if the future Street Fighter Director was there from the beginning of the project though it’s impossible to know for sure at the moment.
It would have been around this same timeframe in 2011 when UDON Entertainment approached Capcom for a Darkstalkers HD Remix proposal like they had done for Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, but were “turned down without much feedback.”
That timeline would also put Darkstalkers in the works around the same time as Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Street Fighter X Tekken, so the company was already very busy with fighting games at that time.
With that packed of a lineup and lowering sales from one new fighting game release to the next over a short period, it would make sense that Capcom would pull the reigns back on sending out another title to support at a time when the company was starting to face some financial troubles.
From around that point in 2013, Capcom would have also shifted their focus over to developing the first iterations of Street Fighter 5.
This revelation also changes up what the fighting game community believed about the future of Vampire because this all would have happened before the release of Darkstalkers Resurrection in 2013.
It was widely believed Resurrection was a “Capcom Test” to see if there was enough interest to support a new Darkstalkers should it meet the company’s expectations.
But if this altered timeline is correct, the new Darkstalkers would have already been worked on and canned by that time.
Ono and his team could have still potentially tried to use Resurrection’s performance as a means to revive the project with the whole “Darkstalkers are NOT Dead” teaser from New York Comic-Con 2012, but that collection did perform up to the company’s expectations for sales.
The Producer also asked fans at the panel to raise their hands holding up money if they wanted a new Darkstalkers.
Perhaps the most wild implication of them all, however, is that NYCC footage given this new context.
That teaser featured new 3D renders of Lord Raptor and Demitri in motion with an artstyle similar to that of Street Fighter X Tekken’s cinematics.
We always assumed it was made for just that, a teaser, but maybe the video was once indicative of something else.
While Darkstalkers characters have continued to feature prominently in Marvel vs. Capcom, Street Fighter 5 costumes, and the first Capcom Fighting Collection, the Night Warriors have not gotten a new chance to shine by themselves in a very long time.
Capcom did just recently bring them back again in Street Fighter 6 for the Halloween / Darkstalkers Fighting Pass as well as special costume colors that were only available for a limited time.
They also ran a poll asking SF6 players about their favorite Darkstalkers character, so maybe the results of that will come into play someday to determine a roster if Capcom does ever give Morrigan and crew their own game in the future.
Contributions to this story were made by Steven ‘DreamKing23’ Chavez and Nicholas ‘MajinTenshinhan’ Taylor.