The long-awaited "Marvel vs. Capcom 4" could be announced this weekend and released next year. Multiple sources have confirmed that the next main installment in the long-running crossover fighting game series is currently in development and that it could be announced at the PlayStation Experience 2016 in Anaheim, California.
The second day of the Capcom Cup 2016, an upcoming "Street Fighter V" tournament, will be held on the first day of this year's PlayStation Experience. Sources expect that Capcom will debut "Marvel vs. Capcom 4" to coincide with the tournament.
While no one yet knows which characters will be included in "Marvel vs. Capcom 4," Polygon suggests that fans can expect the heroes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to appear alongside the game's usual lineup of Marvel characters. This should be a welcome treat for fans of Scarlet Witch, Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, and Peter Quill, who were introduced in the more recent MCU films and were thus not in the previous installment, "Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds." That arcade game, released four years ago, featured MCU fighters Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and Hulk going up against the Capcom characters Mike Haggar, Ryu, Morrigan Aensland, Chun-Li, and Akuma.
Because the Marvel lineup of the upcoming "Marvel vs. Capcom 4" will likely be populated with recent additions to the MCU, some fans have been wondering if this means that the other Marvel characters, such as the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, will be pushed out. Paste notes that the next installment in the "Marvel vs. Capcom" series could do away with all the mutants, including the X-Men. The outlet points out that Marvel has been slowly phasing out the X-Men and associated characters from the series, with only six out of 19 characters in "Marvel vs. Capcom 3" being mutants and related characters. This is supposedly because Marvel no longer wants to promote characters whose film rights they don't hold.
Capcom has yet to announce the official launch and release dates for "Marvel vs. Capcom 4." The arcade game is nonetheless reportedly slated for a 2017 release.
