Mega Man was almost reinvented this generation with a first-person shooter from Armature Studio. However, the project, codenamed Maverick Hunter, was cancelled by Capcom back in 2010.
The shooter, outed by Polygon today, had some impressive talent behind it. The developer was Armature Studio, a company founded by members of the Metroid Prime team. Mega Man's new look was designed by the same concept artist who created the Iron Man armor for his recent films.
Maverick was based on the Mega Man X storyline. It incorporated many of the core gameplay features from old games, including Mega Man's dash and wall jump abilities. Mega Man vanquished enemies with an arm cannon and acquired new abilities from fallen enemies. In other words, the basic Mega Man experience was there but with 3D, current-gen visuals.
Armature developed the game in the first half of 2010. In that time, they managed to make a playable prototype of the game. However, Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune left Capcom in late 2010 and the project was killed. It's one of many MM games that ended up on the scrap heap after Inafune's departure, including Mega Man Universe and Mega Man Online.
There's no telling whether or not Maverick Hunter was actually a good game. It could've been as crappy as that reboot of Bionic Commando. However, after a console generation's worth of cancelled projects, I'd settle for any new Mega Man game even if it sucked.
