The zombie-bashing photojournalistic was primed and ready to appear, but Capcom cut him at the last minute due to technical problems.
Marvel vs. Capcom 3 producer Ryota Niitsuma has explained why Dead Rising star Frank West will not be making an appearance in the crossover fighter. West was going to appear, he said, but Capcom felt that it would have taken too much work to include him.
Ever since Capcom announced the game, fans have been speculating about who might appear in Marvel vs. Capcom 3. West’s was a name that appeared on a lot of peoples’ lists, especially after his inclusion in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom on the Wii. What’s more, fans took a distinctly Frank West-shaped silhouette of an unannounced character in early promotional material as proof that he’d be duking it out with Ryu, Wolverine, and the rest of the roster. That is until Capcom’s Chris Svensson poured cold water on the idea, saying that fans shouldn’t assume that the silhouette belonged to West.
But it now appears that this was really just a cover story, as West was in the game up until fairly recently. Not only did West appear in promotional material – he was even going to be in one of the cinematic trailers – but he was practically finished when the decision was made to drop him. Niitsuma said that West’s moves had proven to be a sticking point, and the development team had found it harder than expected to get them working. The team felt that the resources needed to iron out the kinks would have been better spent elsewhere, and so West got axed.
Interestingly, the idea that West’s moves had proven problematic for Capcom is an idea that was also put forward in the Twitter leak about the game last year. The poster suggested that one of West’s super combos, which attacked his opponent with a horde of zombies, was causing slowdown in online matches, and that Capcom yanked the character because it didn’t have time to fix the problem.
Niitsuma also said that another character that fans speculated about – Ace Attorney star Phoenix Wright – could possibly make an appearance as a downloadable character, provided that the game proved to be popular. Niitsuma didn’t say he was a definite, however, just that he was on the list. He also pointed out that Wright lacked the variety of moves that you’d normally expect from a fighting game character.
Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds comes out for PS3 and Xbox 360 on February 15th.
Source: Videogamer
