Street Fighter 6 Director Takayuki Nakayama recently made an interesting Tweet. Thanks to translations provided by Nicholas MajinTenshinhan Taylor, we know that Nakayama has previously envisioned a moveset for the X-Men’s Bishop in a fighting game.
It turns out that Nakayama is quite the fan of X-Men: The Animated Series, similar to how he used to watch Batman: The Animated Series. Nakayama has also apparently spent a bunch of time at the arcades playing X-Men games.
“Every evening with my Capcom co-workers, we would watch the Japanese version of the X-Men cartoon,” said Nakayama. “I loved the wonderful directing work as well as the hyped up opening by AMBIENCE. I played lots of X-Men at the arcades too. My heart was set aflutter by the incredible animations of Spiral, Wolverine and Psylocke as I spun my stick while playing Big Bro Piotr [Colossus?].”
To this day, Bishop has never been playable in a Capcom fighting game even though they’ve developed games like X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom. As such, the idea of conceptualizing a brand new moveset for Bishop would indeed present the Street Fighter 6 Director with a new experience.
“From the X-Men, I love Bishop (who isn’t in the games),” continued Nakayama. “Having projectiles that are only beams and counters using various gadgets in a game would be so cool! That was what I used to imagine back then.”
Of course, it should be mentioned that Bishop has appeared in X-Men: Next Dimension, a fighting game released for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox back in 2002. Of course, Nakayama’s ideas for Bishop would likely differ greatly from that game.
Within the lore, Bishop has the ability to absorb and then redirect energy that makes contact with his body. Despite being a mutant, he actually utilizes an energy rifle in combat that he took with him from the future.
Overall, Bishop would probably function similar to Cable from Marvel vs. Capcom 2, but Bishop would probably bring his own take on a few things. He’d likely be particularly effective as an anti-zoning character since a lot of characters in Capcom games tend to use energy-based projectiles.
The idea of Takayuki Nakayama getting the opportunity to create his fantasized moveset for Bishop could actually someday happen with the way things have transpired in recent years. Considering the recently released Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, the possibility for another collaboration between Marvel and Capcom feels stronger than ever since the release of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, which ultimately flopped.
Shortly after the announcement that Terry Bogard and Mai Shiranui would be appearing in Street Fighter 6 as guest characters, Street Fighter 6 Producer Shuhei Matsumoto indicated that Capcom was open to the possibility of a Marvel character guest-starring in Street Fighter 6 or some other game.
However, it’s certainly worth noting that Nakayama was specifically asked which Marvel character he thought would fit in the best with the Street Fighter 6 cast back in November 2022, and Nakayama responded with “Killmonger.”
悪役好き #マヴカプ #ファイコレ #MVCFC #MVCFC自己紹介 pic.twitter.com/cVBXtmwzUB
— TAKA-nakayama (@takaNakayama) November 5, 2024
X-MENではビショップ（ゲームには未登場）も好きです。ビーム系限定の飛び道具あて身技とか再現出来たらアツそう！と当時妄想していました。
— TAKA-nakayama (@takaNakayama) November 5, 2024