Street Fighter isn’t the only fighting game Capcom has made back then. The company is known for a good number of versus games, with one of them being Darkstalkers. Think Street Fighter but with Universal Monsters and horror icons like Frankenstein’s Monster, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Dracula.

The Darkstalkers (“Vampire” in Japan) series had three entries, with the third one being a gamechanger. The series is also known for introducing iconic elements in fighting game mechanics like EX moves. Fans have clamoured for a sequel but it never came to be.

Turns out that there was supposed to be a new entry that was in development back between 2010 to 2012. However, that project was scrapped assumingly in 2012. This was according to a Twitter post from Street Fighter 6 director Takayuki Nakayama who made a post talking about a major Capcom game he worked on back in the day: Otoranger. He worked on the mobile rhythm game in 2011 until 2014, but before that, he worked on an alleged Darkstalkers fighting game.

Here’s the original quote from Nakayama on 14th October:

“Yesterday (October 14th) was the 10-year anniversary of Otoranger ending its service.

You can listen to its music in Street Fighter 6 as well, so if you feel like it, please give it a listen.

I came back because I was able to work on fighting games (not SF *bat emoji*) but development was stopped and we were reformed to become the Otoranger team.

I worked with Golden Bomber at TGS and through collaborations and @junjunmjgirly told me ‘I love Street Fighter so please give me a job!’ A lot of things connected with each other and led to where we are now. Thank you very much.”

???10?14????????????????????10?????????????????????????????????6??????????????????????????????? pic.twitter.com/rwf2IxRMOw

— TAKA-nakayama (@takaNakayama) October 15, 2024

The bat emoji alludes to a Darkstalkers fighting game, since a bat symbol would be a reference to vampire character Demitri in the fighting game series. The bat is an iconic symbol for horror shows and games featuring vampires, Dracula, and anything related to that supernatural being. So it’s safe to assume that he’s talking about a then-upcoming Darkstalkers game before it was cancelled.

As to whether he can comment on Darkstalkers being cancelled? “That’s a bit of a different story. Maybe someday I’ll be able to talk about it”, he said (via Eventhubs).

A History Of The Darkstalkers Revival Project

2010: A new Darkstalkers game was allegedly being worked on.

2011: Udon Entertainment approached Capcom for a Darkstalkers HD Remix proposal. It was turned down without much feedback.

2012: Capcom released a “Darkstalkers Are Not Dead” video during New York Comic Con 2012. The CGI teaser had renders of Lord Raptor and Demitri.

2012: Alleged Darkstalkers game was cancelled.

2013: Darkstalkers Resurrection collection was released. It was presumably a “Capcom Test” to see if people would buy copies of it so that they can justify making a sequel.

2016: Then-Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono said he was “striving hard to attain” the greenlight on a new Darkstalkers project back in 2016.

2020: Yoshinori Ono left Capcom, hoping to have his ex-subordinates revive the project.

And that’s pretty much the history of the cancelled Darkstalkers revival. At the very least, Darkstalkers mainstays Morrigan and Felicia are sticking around in the Marvel VS games and Street Fighter 6 has Darkstalkers colour palettes for its characters. Small comforts, but it’s better than nothing.