When it comes to arcade fighting games, Capcom is the cream of the crop. From the spectacular Street Fighter 2 and its many variations to fan-favorite franchises like Marvel Vs. Capcom and Darkstalkers, few have laid claim to the genre as Capcom has. The publisher also has a fairly extensive history of preserving and re-releasing its titles on modern hardware, and the recently-announced Capcom Fighting Collection will return some of the company’s more niche titles to the forefront of the fighting scene.Now slated for release on June 24, Capcom Fighting Collection will include a total of ten titles with a selection of small bonuses available for those who pre-order. The collection will include Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors, Night Warriors: Darkstalkers’ Revenge, Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire, Vampire Hunter 2: Darkstalkers’ Revenge, Vampire Savior 2: The Lord of Vampire, Hyper Street Fighter 2: The Anniversary Edition, Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo, Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness, and Red Planet. It’s shaping up to be quite the compilation, and some are surmising that Capcom Fighting Collection could overshadow the forthcoming Street Fighter 6.Given the publisher’s massive catalog of genre-leading titles, there’s no shortage of potential titles to include here. That said, the games that made the cut do come across as somewhat eclectic, though that’s likely what most fans of Capcom had been hoping for. For instance, it has been roughly a decade since any of the games in the Darkstalkers lineage saw rerelease, and the arcade title Red Earth has never received a home console port of any kind until now. Capcom has a host of fighting game series that were thought to be dead, and the resurrection of these titles could give players hope for the future.
Capcom has also announced that Capcom Fighting Collection will implement rollback netcode, a process that’s more or less exclusive to fighting games that utilizes predictive algorithms to anticipate a player’s next move before it is made, thereby compensating for lag in online matches. The tech has been around in some form for well over a decade, and it’s proven to be pretty popular, with older titles in the Guilty Gear series actually gaining players after it was retroactively introduced.
This new collection comes alongside the confirmation of a new Capcom Arcade Stadium title. The original appeared on PC and consoles in 2021 but was mired in controversy when games were sequestered in pricey packs instead of being available individually and bonuses like temporary invincibility were also locked behind paywalls. This gripe was eventually rectified, and its sequel is set to debut with 32 purchasable arcade conversions from the get-go.
Capcom Fighting Collection will be available on June 24 for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.