But what motivated Capcom to choose Double Helix in the first place? When quizzed about the same by Siliconera, senior producer Andrew Szymanski stated that, “It really comes down to the passion for the IP. We needed somebody who can work very closely with our Osaka team. Our Osaka team is not only comprised of guys who did all of the artwork for Strider 2. They know the franchise in and out.

“We also have game design gurus in Osaka like the guys who did Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts and guys who worked on the original DuckTales games, basically guys who know hard core side-scrollers have been worked with Capcom since late 80s early 90s.

“We needed somebody who’s going to be able to take that and bring it into a multi-platform, 2.5D polygonal world. Double Helix had not only the engine tech and the expertise, but also the passion for the project. When they came to us and we said, ‘Hey, what would you do with the Strider?’

“They came with just an amazing amount of background research, amazing amount of love. Again, knowing what to pull from the old games, what things to sort of hint at and what homages to put in but also what to make new, and that was just incredibly compelling pitch to get from them.”

Killer Instinct, which is releasing for the Xbox One and marks the return of the series in almost two decades, was also a factor. “Couple that with the fact that they are really turning the studio around, I mean they made a big splash at E3 last month with Killer Instinct. And again, I don’t blame anybody for looking at the pedigree and say I’m a little dubious on these guys.

“They are making a huge effort over the past couple of years to change what their studio does, to change what their studio is known for. Microsoft saw it and saw fit to give them Killer Instinct. We saw it when we originally approached them with Strider. And I’d like to think that both games have shown how much the studio has improved in the past few years.”

“There’s a bunch of great digital side-scrollers titles out there right now that marry modern graphical techniques with more an old-school gameplay style. I’m looking at these and thought these are a good fit for a lot of our IPs, and I’m thinking ‘Where should we go with that?’

“That concept was marrying the fast-paced old-school gameplay, the jumping, the acrobatics, the Cypher, with a more of a non-linear map design. To me, that concept came together very easily and organically. That’s why, it’s not super easy, but it was relatively low impact in order to get the game off the ground.”

For those who only know the ninja from the recent Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, Szymanski stated that, “For fans that never played the old ones and only played MvC, we actually went through quite a bit of trouble to incorporate little touches from MvC as well. Some of the animations are directly inspired by the old side-scroller games and some of the animations are inspired by MvC.”

Szymanski also revealed that they won’t be doing something cliched like having Strider lose his powers in the beginning and then gaining them all back later. “We didn’t want to do that. We want to show that he was at his peak at the beginning and he gets even stronger through the course of this game. You got the climbsickle that allows you to climb on any surface. You got your standard jumping both straight up. You got you cartwheel jumping, sliding.

“All of these are his basic move set. His move set at the beginning of this is his classic move set. Every upgrade that you get actually adds on to that.”