One of Capcom’s cult favourite series is destined never to see the light of day again, it seems.
Dino Crisis, the other survival horror franchise created by industry auteur Shinji Mikami before he parted ways with the company, continues to maintain a fanbase of loyal followers, despite the most recent release, Dino Crisis 3, being almost two decades old. Received with lukewarm reviews compared to its predecessors, the third game is often considered to have sealed the series’ current fate of fading ever further into obscurity, an unfortunate trajectory that hasn’t gone wholly unchallenged over the years.
As per their latest episode of Game History Secrets, in fact, YouTuber Liam Robertson, having secured some face time with former members of Capcom’s now-defunct Vancouver branch, reveals that the prospect of a Dino Crisis reboot had, at one point in time, been on the table.
Prior to Vancouver’s closure following the disappointing performance of Dead Rising 4, Robertson says various members of the studio had pitched that very same idea to higher-ups around five years ago. While it’s unclear what exactly Vancouver’s pitch contained, Capcom wasn’t interested – shooting down the idea not long after it was put forward.
“Developers believed that [Capcom Japan] was unwilling to make the significant investment in new technology that the project would have required,” says Robertson, who goes on to list several other potential ideas that ultimately never left the conceptual stage.
An “action-focused” Resident Evil title, an Onimusha revival and even a Mega Man sidescroller were some of the other ideas floated with Capcom back in Japan, says Robertson, all of which were rejected. Does this represent the final nail in the coffin for a potential Dino Crisis revival, then? Probably not, though it certainly seems as if the IP’s priorities lie elsewhere for now and, indeed, the immediate future, especially if the ongoing leaks concerning Resident Evil‘s future are any indication. For everything we currently know about the rumored eighth installment, see here.