Capcom files new trademarks for Darkstalkers, Power Stone, Dino Crisis, Cyberbots and many other titles though there are some glaring exclusions
Are there more classic collections on the way?
It's hard to argue that Capcom has perhaps one of the greatest libraries of franchises under its umbrella from Mega Man to Resident Evil. Many of the company's classic series, however, have been dormant for a decade or more — a fact that fighting game fans are all too aware of.
The makers of Street Fighter and Resident Evil recently filed the most trademarks they apparently have all year in Japan including a number of those fan-favorite older titles like Dino Crisis, Vampire (Darkstalkers), Bionic Commando and many more.
In fact, there's 50 of them in total with the seeming majority being tied to games that haven't had new releases since the late 90's on the original PlayStation or the arcades.
Entries like Vampire Savior (Darkstalkers 3), Power Stone, Cyberbots, Puzzle Fighter, Pocket Fighter, Capcom Fighting Jam, War-Zard (Red Earth) and Super Gem Fighter Minimix are those included surrounding the fighting game genre.
A large quantity of these games, however, are for even older and more obscure titles like Samurai Sword, Powered Gear, Progear, Last Duel and over a dozen others I've never personally heard of.
All of these new trademark applications were filed under game program and game software except for like three, but what does that mean for the games themselves?
Well, taking a closer look at the list of titles suggests a few potential options.
Many of these older fighting games and titles like Puzzle Fighter were featured on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Marketplace, so those may once again see the light of day if the PlayStation 5 and new Xbox offer full backwards compatibility — or potential re-releases.
Zero Akuma as he appeared as one of the selectable mecha in Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness
At least two dozen of these belong to Capcom games of old that have been stuck on arcade systems until this point, so the company may also be looking into releasing other fighting game and arcade collections after the apparent successes of Street Fighter: 30th Anniversary Collection and Capcom Beat 'em Up Bundle.
The most boring answer of course is though that Capcom is renewing their digital rights over their old IP in case they ever wanted to go back to them at some point in the future where re-filing to keep them doesn't cost a company that size relatively much.
Darkstalkers hasn't seen a new release since the compilation remaster of Resurrection. Meanwhile, something like Dino Crisis has only ever been re-released on PSN as a PlayStation Classic title.
Street Fighter Executive Producer Yoshinori Ono has expressed interest in bringing Darkstalkers back to the limelight on multiple occasions though he and Capcom themselves have been very open about the series not being a priority for their developers.
Though they haven't had a new game of their own, Morrigan and Jedah made their way over to Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, and the full DS cast have also been featured in the Teppen card game.
Speaking of Marvel, It's interesting to note Capcom did not submit or renew any trademarks for titles like Marvel vs. Capcom, X-Men vs. Street Fighter, X-Men: Children of the Atom nor even the Capcom vs. SNK titles.
Characters from Breath of Fire, Captain Commando, Cyberbots, Red Earth and Darkstalkers have also been included as part of Street Fighter 5's crossover costumes, so perhaps we'll see some more of these older titles pop up there too.
These trademarks were applied for on November 29, 2019 and made public record in Japan on December 17, 2019 according to Chizai-Watch — a company that tracks new trademarks and patents.
It'll probably be some time before we see any fruits from these filings if anything ever comes of them at all, but it's interesting to see that Capcom is trying to stay up to date with their old library — especially now after the success of Resident Evil 2's remake.
Plus, it would also be nice to have an easy way to play some of these older games again.
