In what can only be described as a low blow to Mega Man fans across the globe, Capcom has officially announced that the Mega Man Legends 3 project has been cancelled.

In a public statement on the Capcom Unity webpage, the company has stated that the ambitious project did not “meet the required criteria” they were aiming for to continue production, and have thus discontinued any further development. What exactly the required criteria were is unknown, but the bottom line is that Mega Man Legends 3 is dead before it even saw a release date. While the project itself is no more, Capcom will be keeping the Developer Room on the NA forums open indefinitely, albeit in a more limited form, so those who did take part in the discussions can still have a place to chat.

This is actually the second Mega Man related game to be thrown onto the metaphorical spike bed this year. The first was Mega Man Universe, a game where players could make their own Mega Man themed stages and go through them using famous Capcom characters in an 8-bit format, or even characters of their own creation. And while they did not say that the departure of Keiji Inafune, the man who fathered the Blue Bomber, has any connection to the cancellation of Legends 3, it’s hard to deny the fact that him not being present at Capcom headquarters has some effect on the franchise as a whole.

While the Legends series weren't as successful as the main line of games, they still have their own strong, dedicated fanbase. Seeing the cancellation of the second Mega Man game in a row has to have fans of all the related games concerned about what will happen to the little blue robot, and each of his iterations.  At this point, however, the future of the franchise is uncertain. Don’t worry though; at least we still have Yun Fighter 4 and Phoenix vs. Phoenix 3: Fate of Two Sentinels.