During Gamescom Asia x Thailand Game Show 2026, we had a chance to sit down and chat with Mega Man Dual Override’s developers, Shinya Ikuta (Director) and Hiroyuki Minamitani (Producer). As a life-long Mega Man fan, it was my distinct pleasure to draft up some questions for the developers. This was handled via a translator, and while we didn’t get a chance to get all of my questions asked, we still learned a lot about the upcoming return to the classic Capcom franchise.
While speaking with the Mega Man Dual Override developers, we asked about the rarity of female Robot Masters, information on the Chip System, the two-character system, and much more.
Capcom devs Shinya Ikuta and Hiroyuki Minamitani on Mega Man Dual Override’s gameplay
Q. In previous games, Proto Man took extra damage, because, unlike Mega Man, he’s got a defective core. Is that still going to be the case in Mega Man Dual Override, offering a very high-risk, high-reward playstyle?
Shinya Ikuta: In comparison to other games in the past, for Mega Man Dual Override, the focus is to ensure that the players get a bit of a fresh experience, being able to play Mega Man and Proto Man, because they have very different combat styles. So I hope players can enjoy the different combat styles between these two characters.
In line with that, I think in the past, what they’ve done is, Proto Man could use similar special weapons to Mega Man, but at a greater risk to himself, right? But for this particular game, because the focus is on differentiating their playstyle and still making it very exciting, they’ve developed it in such a direction where it’s not to say it’s not high risk per se, but the concept of having a more ‘defective core’ and therefore being more high risk, high reward is no longer really a highlighted aspect of the gameplay.
So, you can feel that there’s a very different sense of reward from playing these two characters, but they are essentially the same in that sense. It’s not going to take extra damage.
Q. One of the great parts about Mega Man Dual Override is the Chip System, where players can customize their gameplay in a variety of ways. How flexible is this system going to be? Is it just to make gameplay easier, or will it also be able to increase the game’s challenge?
Shinya Ikuta: So, they think, as you say, one of the key characteristics about Dual Override is the ability to collect all these different chips, and these chips have a function of either improving Mega Man’s performance or supporting the character stats and stuff like that.
They think one of the things to highlight is, especially for people who might be new to the Mega Man franchise or may not have a lot of experience playing Mega Man, in order to make the experience a little bit more accessible to these players, they introduced this chip system pretty early on as well. So, if you look at the general gameplay, it’s roughly broken into three parts. If you play the earlier parts, you can collect all these different chips, which players can therefore use to customize their own character playstyle.
Especially if you’re a beginner and you find it a little bit challenging to play Mega Man in the beginning, then you can collect these chips and maybe either improve the overall performance or use them to increase your support systems in order to make the experience better for the player. So, that’s actually one of the functions at the moment.
Also, you don’t have to collect these chips. So, it’s an added feature or a new feature in the game, but it’s not compulsory. So, if you’re new to the franchise and you want to use the chips to make the games more playable for you, that’s great.
But if you’re a veteran player and you want to enjoy the sense of challenge, as you go up the different stages, the difficulty will increase. If you don’t collect the chips or you don’t use the chips, the gameplay itself will become more challenging. That’s how they balance the gameplay to benefit both new players as well as more veteran players.
Q. One thing that I really love about Dual Override is that it gives players the option to choose either Mega Man (Rock Man) or his brother Proto Man (Blues). Has there been any discussion to perhaps add other playable characters, like Bass or Roll?
Hiroyuki Minamitani: The title says Dual Override, so two characters and focus on the Override system. Right now the focus is on Mega Man and Proto Man. There are currently no plans to introduce further characters.
Q. Mega Man Dual Override is one of the rare games in the franchise, where there is a female Robot Master. Splash Woman is the only canonical female Robot Master other than Dual Override’s Twinkle Girl. Is this a sign that future Mega Man games could also break that mold and include more female antagonists or even protagonists?
Hiroyuki Minamitani: He said he can’t necessarily say what’s gonna happen in the future, but I think one of the main factors about deciding what characters to put in is also to include characters that would be well-received, characters that fans and players want to see in the franchise.
Q. The Mega Man X games were more about re-visiting previous stages to unlock secret power-ups (Health, Armor Upgrades, the Hadouken). Is that going to remain the case in Dual Override or is it more straightforward?
Shinya Ikuta: As you said, Mega Man X has those characteristics, and there’s a lot of fun from revisiting previous stages because then you can use these power-ups to further improve and develop your character.
That seems to be one of the main things that happen with Mega Man X. With Dual Override, in that sense, it’s not exactly 100% the same. But there is a merit to revisiting previous stages. In order to get the custom chips, for example, you need to exchange the screws.
In each stage, there will be places where these screws will be placed and sometimes when you revisit the stages over and over again, you might find new places where such resources are placed. There is quite a high replay value for each of the stages where players can revisit, gather more of these resources and then use them to further exchange more custom chips. So, in that sense of replayability of the stages, it’s similar.
It’s fantastic to see the Mega Man series come back after such a long hiatus. This was a fascinating chat, and I appreciate the developers taking the time to answer my questions.
Perhaps most interestingly of all, it sounds like if fans want to see more female Robot Masters in the future, they need to make their voices heard. Mega Man Dual Override launches in Spring 2027 on the Nintendo Switch 1 & 2, PlayStation 4 & 5, Xbox One & X|S, as well as PC.
Edited by Jason Parker
