Capcom is ready to go in-depth on its hotly-anticipated Mega Man game.
Should Mega Man: Dual Override meet its promised 2027 launch window, the hotly-anticipated sequel will arrive a long nine years after the release of 2018’s Mega Man 11. While this signals a return to one of Capcom’s most iconic franchises, it’s not coming without its fair share of changes and additions.
Mega Man: Dual Override sees the Blue Bomber embark on a new mission: to captivate an all-new generation of players without losing sight of what made him such an icon in the first place. At Tokyo Game Show 2026, we played an early demo of the game and interviewed four members of its development team:
- Hiroyuki Minamitani–Producer
- Shinya Ikuta–Director
- Shinsuke Komaki–Art Director
- Yuji Ishihara–Art Director
Here’s what they had to say about the game’s new Robot Master Twinkle Girl, and its chip mechanics.
Mega Man: Dual Override
Release date: Spring 2027
Platforms: PC (Via Steam, Epic Games), PlayStation 4 &5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2
Developer: Capcom
Who is Twinkle Girl in Mega Man Dual Override?
Mega Man: Dual Override’s all-new Robot Master and eventual boss fight Twinkle Girl has caused lots of buzz since her debut, owing to the fact that she’s one of the few newer female Robot Masters in the franchise, and that her design looks snazzy and personable. When we asked Capcom how they dreamed up Twinkle Girl, the developers said:
“Twinkle Girl has kind of like a fireworks motif. That's like her theme and her background. She was built to be an entertainer robot. If you pay attention to the stage, she is in a kind of robot exhibition area, and she was meant to be an entertainer for that. The design direction was to make her cute and lovable, and someone that maybe non-Mega Man fans can also appreciate. However, while maintaining the Mega Man-esque likeness of the Robot Masters.”
Why did Capcom bring Proto Man back in Mega Man: Dual Override?
Proto Man hasn’t been playable in a mainstream Mega Man game since Mega Man 11, much to the chagrin of the latter game’s players. Proto Man has rapidly become a fan favourite of the franchise, and thankfully, he’s finally returning in Dual Override as a playable character.
When we asked Capcom why now felt the right time to bring him back, the developers told us:
“Proto Man is a very popular character amongst fans, and they felt that it was very important to deliver that for this particular game. Also, they felt that it's important to have different play styles and different experiences, depending on who you select, and even if you're playing the same stage, they wanted different strategies to be required in order to overcome those challenges.”
While the actual playtime of the game won’t increase with the inclusion of Proto Man, the gameplay will be quite different between the two, according to Capcom. The developers explained that it “may take some time to get used to one character over the other, so considering that and the custom chips that you can get and customise your character with, that will give variety and play feel variation.”
What is Capcom doing to make Mega Man: Dual Override easier for newcomers to enjoy?
In late 2025, Capcom noted that it had plans to bring Mega Man back into the fold by turning it into one of its “core IPs” once again. Soon after, the publisher announced Mega Man: Dual Override at The Game Awards 2025. After playing the Tokyo Game Show demo, it’s clear that the company is making a concentrated effort to reach more people with this sequel.
Capcom noted that it was opening up Dual Override’s accessibility with things like customised chips, and even having separate areas per level. The developer was careful to note that “things like custom chips, and even having many areas within a singular demo” are not meant to take away from the challenge this platforming franchise is known for. Additionally, while the demo version didn’t have multiple lives, this feature is still being considered for an inclusion in the full game at launch.
As for the new custom chips, these are functionally abilities that can be swapped in and out of Mega Man’s kit on the fly, and equipped as fixed sets before the start of a level. According to Capcom, the system was “heavily influenced” by Mega Man 11’s gear system. The developer explained that “they wanted to think about an evolution of what they can do.”
“Beyond that, to give players and options to help them get through some challenges that they might face the improve Override and they had lots and lots of ideas, and last thing they know that they had over fifty different Chips that they thought of, so they had a lot of things that they wanted to try out in the game."
Mega Man: Dual Override also does away with lengthy stages, splitting the stage into multiple individual areas instead. Players can progress through one part of a stage and continue the next part without having to repeat the whole run upon failure. The areas will still be thematically connected, however, and players will find that they get increasingly difficult until the final boss pops up.
When asked why the stages had been chopped up into individual levels, Capcom told us that this was “so that it could make it more approachable from a newcomer's perspective, since the areas they get gradually more and more difficult, so we wanted players to kind of feel that difficulty ramp up by playing each of the visual areas. Seeing people play here at Tokyo Game Show, we're able to notice that a lot of people were able to complete the first area, so we feel that we were successful in this."
Mega Man Dual Override launches in Spring 2027. Check out our interviews with the developers of Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance here, and the developers of Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen here.
