Well, what do you know. A gritty Mega Man FPS is something people tend to joke about a whole lot, but guess what—it was actually being developed at one point.
Polygon reports that the game was in development at Armature Studio, the developer founded by a team of leads that worked on the Metroid Prime games. Story-wise, it was based on the Mega Man X series and was codenamed “Maverick Hunter”. It was intended to be a more mature take on Mega Man and had the blessing of series creator, Keiji Inafune.
Then, Inafune left Capcom and the project got cancelled. While it was in development, however, Maverick Hunter was playable and aimed to replicate all that’s recognizable about Mega Man’s gameplay—including the slide, wall jump and ability to absorb his enemies’ powers—in first-person. That sounds awfully reminiscent of what Metroid Prime did for the Metroid series.
Capcom and Armature had planned Maverick Hunter as a trilogy of games that would culminate in the third and final game, with the player taking control of Zero. His job would be to destroy a Mega Man who had grown powerful and intelligent over the course of the previous two games.
"If you look at Zero’s backstory, even back in the day, he’s considered to be like a virus," a source familiar with the proposed story explained to Polygon. "The only reason he exists is that he has some trait that allows him to defeat Mega Man. So he’s like the virus that can stop Mega Man’s power ultimately."
