Maverick Hunter: The Mega Man X FPS that Almost Was

Well here’s a crazy surprise. You’re looking at a concept for a Mega Man first person shooter, called “Maverick Hunter,” that was in development by Armature Studio back in 2010. Gaming site Polygon has the scoop on the game, with quite a large amount of details and videos.

In 2010, Capcom tapped the talent behind Metroid Prime to bring Mega Man into the modern age — only to have the game suffer the fate of similar recent attempts to find a new audience for the 8-bit hero.

Codenamed Maverick Hunter, the first-person shooter had the blessing of Mega Man‘s creator and a talented team tasked with attracting a new generation of fans. But the departure of Keiji Inafune likely killed the most interesting take on the 25-year-old character to date.

Mega Man’s foray into the first-person shooter genre looked, at least on paper, like a formula for success. One of a handful of collaborations with Western developers kicked off by Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune, the Mega Man first-person shooter was in development at Austin-based Armature Studio, the promising developer founded by Metroid Prime‘s creators. The new Mega Man would have been redesigned by the concept artist responsible for adapting Iron Man’s armor for Marvel’s successful film franchise. Thematically, the game would have built upon the mythology of Mega Man X, a series that was a darker, more mature spin-off of the cuter, classic Mega Man franchise.

In fact, not just one game was planned, but a whole trilogy, leading to Zero becoming a playable character who needs to stop a power-mad X. It also featured character designs by Adi Granov, who does mechanical design for the Iron Man movies. What do you think? Is this a Mega Man game you would have wanted to see?

News Credit: Kris Knigge and Brayden

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