Mega Man 11’s Long Wait Due To Inafune’s Departure

Mega Man 10 was released back in 2010 and only after 8 years, Mega Man 11, is due to be released around the world.

Explaining the long wait to Gamesbeat, Mega Man 11’s producer, Kazuhiro Tsuchiya, and director, Koji Oda, explained why fans around the world had to wait so long for a numbered sequel to Mega Man.

Kazuhiro Tsuchiya: “As I’m sure you’re well aware, Inafune-san departed a long while ago. Obviously a lot of other people were working on Mega Man at the time, and there were a lot of people within the company that had a strong desire to make a new Mega Man, but it was very difficult. The atmosphere just didn’t feel right for anybody to raise their hand and say, ‘I want to be the person that makes the next Mega Man.’ That was kind of the general atmosphere for a long while. It was a big reason why there was a long absence for a new Mega Man game.”

Koji Oda: “For me, it wasn’t so much about, why is this taking so long? It was more about, why aren’t we making a new Mega Man game? I’d been making a lot of other titles for a while, and the whole time there was this feeling of, all right, when is this going happen? Who’s going to pick it up? No one? Look at all this social media feedback. I guess I’ll do it if no one else is going to. That was how things came about.”

In the interview, the two also talked about how the Mega Man legacy collection sales helped spur the development of Mega Man 11. You can read the full interview here.