Capcom announces new game Remember Me at Gamescom

Capcom takes a risk in Cologne and announces a brand new IP for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Remember Me will be out in 2013.

There are nowhere near enough spy ladies that can do flips in the rain. Look around your video games and JJ Abrams/Joss Whedon-made television programs, and you’ll agree: If there is one pop-culture figure who doesn’t get enough air time, it’s the spy lady that does flip kicks. Good thing Capcom is publishing Dontnod’s Remember Me, a science fiction spy game for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC due out next spring. How we will survive until then on our current meager diet of flip-kicking espionage chicks, I’m not sure, but we’ll make do.

Yes, I know, Capcom’s own library of games is chock full of spy ladies with impressive kicking skills. Ada Wong, Jill Valentine, Claire Redfield, and Sheva Alomar are just a few, and they’re just from the Resident Evil series.

Remember Me star Nilin recalls one of Capcom’s deeper cuts though, namely P.N. 03 lead Vanessa Z. Schneider. Based on footage Capcom showed of the game in action, Nilin is just as acrobatic Vanessa, but she prefers brawling in futuristic Paris rather than shooting. They do, however, have the same taste in clothing.

Remember Me is more an acquisition than a new Capcom game. The Japanese publisher behind Street Fighter and DmC: Devil May Cry announced it would publish the game next year during the opening day of the Gamescom Conference. That show actually played host to Dontnod’s game in 2011 though. Then it was called Adrift, but no publisher had signed on to distribute the game.

Dontnod’s got an intriguing staff. Art director Aleksi Briclot’s background is mostly in drawing comic books adaptations of video games, like the comics of Hellgate: London and Alone in the Dark 4. Creative director Jean-Maxime Moris formerly worked as business associate at Ubisoft, working on the Prince of Persia series amongst others. Narrative director Alain Damasio meanwhile has a background in science fiction novels most popular in France.

Familiar trappings or no, it’s encouraging to see Capcom take an interest in an original property so close to the end of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3’s lifespan. Hopefully the publisher will help in the next year of production though. Capcom’s picked up a number of original properties developed by western developers in the past half decade—Airtight Games’ Dark Void, Bionic Games’ Spyborgs—and each time these games have felt rushed to market and lacking in essential polish. Don’t let the same happen to Remember Me, Capcom.