The June Nintendo Direct was a banger of a show. They showed off a lot of games I know Nintendo Switch users will be eating up. We’re getting a new Mario game in Mario and Luigi: Brothership, a new Legend of Zelda game in Echoes of Wisdom and even a long-awaited update for Metroid Prime 4.

But for me, and for the entire fighting game community, the biggest and the most shocking reveal during the Nintendo Direct was for Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics. It’s a compilation of Capcom‘s old-school arcade fighting games featuring Marvel‘s most popular characters, from the X-Men to members of the Avengers and their respective villains. Oh, it was nice of Capcom to also include The Punisher arcade game in the bunch. However, the instant we heard that something was about to “take us for a ride”, we just about lost our minds as we couldn’t believe it!

Maybe some people don’t know why this is a huge deal. After all, game compilations aren’t all that special nowadays as a lot of video game companies are doing it now to cash in on nostalgia. However, the mere idea of actually getting this specific compilation was thought to be impossible just a couple of years ago. No one ever thought Capcom would ever be able to release Marvel vs. Capcom 2, let alone all these other games, as we all thought they were all in re-release jail. This is precisely why the movement “Free Marvel vs. Capcom 2” or “#FreeMvC2” was made.

It all started with a guy called Maximilian Dood. He’s the guy in the video who everyone was congratulating and who was screeching his lungs out. While he may not be one of the biggest mainstream streamers in the world, he is one of the main fixtures of the fighting game community. He’s been there putting out tutorial videos on how to do combos and whatnot.

Well, a couple of years ago, he put out a video talking about how one of his favorite fighting games of all time, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, hasn’t been released on modern hardware. While Capcom did re-release the game on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2009, they never released a physical copy and, in 2013, removed it from all digital store outlets as they lost the Marvel license then.

Maximilian Dood essentially decried how the game, which is a major fan favorite of the fighting game community, cannot be purchased legally when he made it available. He just wanted Capcom to re-release the game on modern systems so more people would have easy and a legal way to play this one game. This started the #FreeMvC2 hashtag to try to raise awareness of this issue.

The hashtag #FreeMvC2 immediately started getting traction in the fighting game community soon after. Max was right. People did want to play Marvel vs. Capcom 2 but they just couldn’t. Thankfully, he got the ball rolling and people started to take notice and even showed it was possible to put it out. The seed was planted and all it needed was to grow. Geeky websites like Comic Book Resources, Sportskeeda and many more started picking up on the #FreeMvC2 call and wrote up posts detailing the movement.

Arcade1Up managed to score a major deal as they did release a Marvel vs. Capcom 2 arcade cabinet as well as a compilation cabinet featuring X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom. These were fine but definitely not what we were looking for as they were super expensive.

Even with this campaign in full swing, most in the fighting game community, thought this was all a pipe dream. Getting the license for the Marvel characters for a more mainstream release seemed to be the biggest stumbling block for some reason. Still, somehow, Arcade1UP did manage to secure the rights from both Marvel and Capcom so there was hope. But that hope was slowly fading away.

As the years passed since Maximilian Dood made his plea to #FreeMvC2, some headway was made but not a lot. A website was made to commemorate the call to action as kind of a grassroots campaign to still keep the dream alive but it seemed like people were slowly waking up to the reality that Capcom would not be able to re-release Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and their other fighting games featuring Marvel licensed characters would not come true. Well, it turns out dreams can come true and the trailer to Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics is a testament to that.

It is impossible to really know if Maximilian Dood and his #FreeMvC2 movement was the catalyst for Capcom and Marvel to start working together again and come to an agreement to re-release these classic fighting games. Right now, Capcom hasn’t put out a press release as to why they decided to do this now and, in all honestly, a part of me doesn’t want to know. The bottom line is that both Capcom and Marvel is doing all of this to make a ton of money. They know this because because, even without the clamor for a re-release of Marvel vs. Capcom 2, they know people will buy it.

I would rather live in a world where Maximilian Dood made a video expressing his love for one of his favorite games and that got the attention of the folks of Capcom and Marvel. I would like to believe both companies listened to the fans who would love to play these games and, out of the goodness of their hearts, clasped their hands together like Ryu and Cyclops did in the eyecatch screen for X-Men vs. Street Fighter, chose to work together for the good of the world.

I know that’s probably not the case, but I do want it to be true.

Do you think the #FreeeMvC2 hashtag actually played a part for Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection to be put together? Let me know in the comments section below!