When it comes to the ultimate showdown of all-time great fighting games, Marvel vs Capcom 2 might well take my personal bet for being the best of the best. I spent countless hours throwing down with housemates, friends and random passers-by who looked like they were up for a brawl during my teenage years. Yet the arcade classic has – as far as I can tell – never been given a proper PC release before the recent announcement of a new bundle of the comic-book crossover series headed to Steam this year.
Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, as said bundle is officially dubbed, will bring together both Marvel vs Capcom 2 and its predecessor Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes – which again, I don’t think has ever had an official PC version – with five other games starring Marvel’s roster of superheroes with or without Capcom’s brawlers.
The list includes Capcom’s first Marvel-based fighting game, X-Men: Children of the Atom, which effectively applied Street Fighter II’s gameplay to the Marvel heroes. That, at least, did make it to PC, albeit back in 1997. Capcom and Marvel’s second game, Marvel Super Heroes, swapped X-Men for more of a mix, including the likes of Avengers members Captain America, Spider-Man and Hulk alongside Wolverine, Juggernaut, Magneto and Psylocke. That will see its first PC release in this new collection.
Pre-Marvel vs Capcom crossovers X-Men vs Street Fighter and Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter will be in here, too. As a fun historical tidbit, the games are particularly notable for introducing Variable Assist, a precursor to the assist mechanic that would go on to be a key part of MvC, though they also never made it to PC.
Rounding out the package is The Punisher, which is a beat ‘em up rather than a competitive fighting game. The 1993 Final Fight-like was only ever released on Sega Genesis outside of arcades, but was the first game to emerge from Capcom and Marvel’s partnership, making it a progenitor of sorts to the MvC series. Fortunately for us, the PC version in the collection will be based on the beloved arcade original, rather than its widely-derided console port.
Alongside the games themselves, the Fighting Collection will pack in some neat historical treats such as a museum and choice of display filters, plus some modern trimmings – including online multiplayer across ranked, casual and lobby matches with rollback netcode (including co-op for The Punisher), a spectator mode and leaderboards. All of the games will also have a training mode if you’re a bit rusty.
The Fighting Collection will hit Steam sometime later this year, also meaning all these games will find themselves on the Steam Deck through official means. A very welcome return.
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