Darkwing Duck is a beloved Disney character that doesn’t get a whole lot of action. In recent years, he got a new comic series from Joe Books that was cancelled shortly after its initial run due to poor sales. Before that came the original comic series, the classic Mega Man-like NES game, and of course The Disney Afternoon show that kicked things off. Recently, an attempt was made by some passionate fans of the masked duck to bring back the character in the form of a new video game, but unfortunately, the game was shot down by Capcom.
Aaron Sparrow (writer of the Darkwing Duck Joe Books comic series) and James Silvani (Disney comics artist) were working together with a small team to create a new Darkwing Duck video game in the same vein as the ’90s Capcom classic for NES.
Last year, @SilvaniArt & I were involved with brainstorming a Darkwing Duck Video Game with @HCStealth. It would have had animated art by James, and v/o by as many of the original cast as possible. Sadly, @Capcom passed on it, but you can see a bit here: https://t.co/osA2otl5z8
— Aaron Sparrow 🇺🇸 (@Aaron_Sparrow) January 7, 2019
Sparrow described the game himself as a “spiritual successor” to the original game, which is evident by the footage shown below:
Simon Thomley, who worked on the game, took a demo to Capcom in hopes of getting the funds to make this dream a reality. Unfortunately, Capcom showed no interest in picking the game up, and therefore left the team’s dreams of seeing a new Darkwing game dashed.
The project seemed to have the right talent and the right vision for paying homage to the classic Capcom game, but without securing funding and a license to create the game, there’s nothing left for the team to do at the moment. Fortunately, we have this awesome gameplay demo to admire and share in the meantime. You never know, maybe enough positive outcry on the Internet could change Capcom’s mind. Either way, that’s never stopped the collective Internet from vehemently voicing their opinions.
If you’re just dying to get your hands on some Darkwing Duck gaming, remember Capcom released the Disney Afternoon Collection for PS4, Xbox One, and PC in early 2017, which includes a remastered version of the NES Darkwing Duck game, along with DuckTales and some other classics.
Source: DuckTalks
Darkwing is my absolute favorite Disney character. So disappointed to see that they killed it, but I’m sure it was all about the bottom line. At least we’re getting some shirts and mugs and whatnot, not to mention the awesome comic series!
That really sucks I remember dark wing duck as a kid that was the best cartoon in the afternoon to see a new game would of been Awsome
Actually the comic wasn’t canceled because of low sales. We were only contracted to do 8 issues.