Earlier this week, Capcom announced that Capcom Vancouver, formerly Blue Castle Games, was to be shut down. Some members will continue to work on some unfinished projects. This is a sad development for a studio that created some very good sports games and shaped the legacy of one of the most popular zombie video games of all time.
Before Capcom had acquired them, Blue Castle Games main focus was Major League Baseball. While other companies had built a recurring series of games, Blue Castle created a baseball game that was a lot less realistic, but a whole lot more fun. The Biggs was a baseball game the way NBA Jam was a basketball game. There was little focus on real play, but the fun and outrageous things you could do. Imagine having a home run contest in the middle of Times Square where points are calculated by how much damage you could do. The Biggs 2 continued this idea, turning a “real” slow game into one of the most fast paced games ever. This innovation also led to the creation of MLB Front Office Manager, where you tried to manage a team well enough to make it to the hall of fame. Blue Castle was not afraid to take risks, a skill that landed them the development of a sequel to the story of a zombie outbreak
Dead Rising 2 did not take the easy route and simply give Frank West a new area to play with. It created new characters and put the player into different situations. It took what worked from the first game while addressing some of it’sproblems. The game was so successful that it received a prequel, a DlC and a complete re imaging with West as the main character. In Dead Rising 3, the number of zombies increased, load times were eliminated and weapons could be created anywhere. Dead Rising 4 concluded the story of West while also changing a core game mechanic of the series. Puzzle Fighter was a sequel to a cult game that put characters from Capcom into a Tetris like game.
Capcom Vancouver was a studio that was not afraid to take risks and change how certain games were played. While the studio might be gone, the legacy it left with West and his battle with the never ending zombie hoard will continue to live on. Any other game studio would be lucky to get some of the talented people who worked there. The eight games that came out of this studio were different and hopefully, these series are not gone for good.
