Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite's first gameplay trailer shakes up the fighting formula

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Ryu and Captain Marvel get new moves and powers after harnessing an Infinity Stone.

Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite was announced with an awesome CG trailer yesterday, and now we have our first look at actual gameplay, which debuted at last night's Capcom Cup. The series' over-the-top fighting is present, but there seem to be quite a few changes to the well-known formula.

First off, the change from 3v3 battles to 2v2 is immediately present, and while the super moves are still as crazy and delightfully excessive, the gameplay looks closer to 2011's Tatsunoko vs Capcom, a popular fighting game released exclusively on the Wii, with a few twists.

The actual tagging, where you call your second fighter in, looks more like Street Fighter X Tekken. In MvC 3, players would tag a character in and that character would introduce themselves by attacking their opponent. However, Infinite looks like it'll ask players to time the tagged character's first attack in order to keep a combo going.

Other changes seem to have been made to the Marvel vs Capcom system as well. Wall bounces are still present, allowing you to send an enemy flying backwards, knowing full well that they'll come back to you with a nicely timed bounce. However, MvC 3's Assist attacks and launches are not present in the trailer. Assists are used in battle by having a resting character send out a single attack to help without actually tagging into the fight. 

Launches, on the other hand, were a big part of MvC 3's combo system. You'd hit a button to launch a character into the air, allowing you to jump up and punish them to your liking. This also allowed for tagging other characters in during the mid-air assault and giving everyone on your team a piece of that sweet, sweet combo pie.

The game's Infinity Stones are also demonstrated. We see Ryu trigger the Power Stone before bullying his opponent with an onslaught of attacks—there also seems to be a unique Stone-based attack in there, too. Captain Marvel also gets her turn, activating the Time Stone, which seems to make her go faster. At one point, she teleports through Ryu, kicking off a combo from behind the Street Fighter character.

Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite releases for PC next year. You can read up on more details about it here. In addition to the new fighting game, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 is making its way to PC in March 2017. It'll cost $25 and includes a new gallery mode and all previously released DLC.

Mat Paget