The Hunt for "Rockman X Interactive" - Initial Findings and First Translations

"Rockman X Interactive" was the project name for a cancelled Rockman X spin-off in development during the mid-1990s. Its existence came to light when design documents surfaced on Yahoo! Auctions Japan in September 2018. While the search for the original physical materials is still ongoing, I’m pleased to share our initial findings today, along with a complete English translation of the pages that appeared in the ill-fated listing.

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What is "Rockman X Interactive"? 

On September 19th, 2018, I discovered an auction for two Rockman-related design documents. One was for Super Adventure Rockman, the interactive movie game released in 1998 for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. The other was for an unreleased title called Rockman X Interactive. The seller, using the username “deflotte,” primarily dealt in antiques and assorted knick-knacks.

As the project name suggested, and what would be described in the document itself, Rockman X Interactive was intended to be an interactive movie game set in the Rockman X universe. Much like Super Adventure Rockman, the events of the game would flow and change based on the player's choices.

Interestingly, Rockman X Interactive was in development — or at least pre-production — several years before Super Adventure Rockman was released. According to notes printed on the pages shown above, these documents were created between December 1995 and 1996. The top image uses the imperial era format, written as 平成7 (Heisei 7), which corresponds to 1995. The bottom image, page 009 of 011, is dated 96-02-16, or February 16, 1996.

As the absence of this title on your shelf in 2019 likely suggests, Rockman X Interactive never came to fruition. These documents are the only known testament that it ever existed.

The Plot of Rockman X Interactive

Portions of the game’s story — including new characters, events, and terminology — are described in enticing detail throughout the documents. For now, however, only one page of the story summary is clearly legible. Here’s a scene from Chapter 01:

"Rockman X・Interactive Story [...]
  Plot ・ Chapter01


 -"Doctor Neutral, can you hear me?... Father, please respond!" The voice that resounded impatiently in the dark faded out in the distance.

□Main Title □Year 20XX

In a distant part of the countryside, Dr. Alex Neutral (55~60 years old) is using his Supercomputer to create a virtual space of a possible future. He uses those virtualizations in his research to predict different outcomes for the future of mankind.

His Supercomputer, 'NEUT-3000-EVE', can get hold of information about different disasters that will happen to this Earth, and then adjust the outcome in a new virtualization. It's like the Supercomputer itself was a time machine that kept flooding information about the future into Dr. Neutral's research. The computer (Eve) virtualized then a new future. Someday in the 26th century, a girl around 17 or 18 years old stood by herself, opening a comm line with Dr. Neutral.

- "Dr. Neutral, here in the 26th century the world is just wonderful! In this era, there is a boom in weddings between humans and Reploids! Aww, I wish I too could find a boyfriend soon!"

 Neutral spoke to her as well.

- "Well, you're at that age after all! It was a matter of time for you to get bored of talking to someone around your father's age..."

- "Don't say that, Doctor Neutral! You are wonderful as well!"

 Neutral just laughed it off

- "Now that I think about it, isn't today your birthday?[...]"

Had Rockman X Interactive released, it would have been the first game to establish that humans and Reploids could engage in romantic partnerships. This concept wouldn't be referenced again until Mega Man Zero 1 (2002) wherein the Reploid Andrew recounts to Zero how he once fell in love with a human.

There's a little more to the Rockman X Interactive story. We'll get to that soon. For now, let's break down what we know:

• Dr. Alex Neutral (age 55~60 years old). An original character who has not appeared in any media in the 24 years since this design document was written. He’s a scientist living somewhere in the countryside, exact region unknown, who uses his supercomputer, NEUT-3000-EVE, to generate visualizations of possible futures. The document notes he can “adjust the outcome in a new virtualization.”

  It also describes the machine as “like a time machine.” “Like” is the key word — it isn’t a literal device for time travel. Instead, it processes data from an unknown source and produces simulated future scenarios. Dr. Neutral can alter the outcomes within these simulations, but his actions have no effect on the real future. It’s strictly virtual.

• NEUT-3000-EVE or simply Eve is the designation of Dr. Neutral's Supercomputer. Somehow, Eve can create virtualizations of possible disasters that will befall Earth. The 26th century scene that's described doesn't sound all too bad; however, because we don't have access to the rest of Chapter 01, we can only assume this scene could be the precursor to some sort of disaster. The calm before the storm, perhaps?

• Teenage Girl (age 17 or 18). Her use of the phrase “here in the 26th century” implies she isn’t a stranger to alternate futures. The way she speaks suggests that, like Dr. Neutral, she’s an observer. Unlike him, though, the text hints that she is actually part of the virtualization itself. It’s possible she’s a personification of EVE. Both the supercomputer and the girl are framed as creations of Dr. Neutral — one his invention, the other described almost like a daughter. The question then becomes: are they actually one and the same?

At the time of this writing, it remains to be seen why Dr. Neutral built a supercomputer to peer into the future, or what he plans to do with that information. Although we’re missing the rest of Chapter 01 and the remainder of the game’s plot, an outline from Chapter 02 sheds a bit more light on the story.

"Chapter 02" Data & Game Loop

This page lays out an entire gameplay sequence from the game's second chapter. This is where the "interactive" part of Rockman X Interactive comes into play. At various points in Chapter 02, the player, controlling X, must respond correctly to enemies and obstacles to clear quick-time events (QTEs). Below is an English translation of the data flow for Chapter 02. “(----)” indicates a word or phrase that couldn’t be interpreted due to the quality of the original image.

There's a lot to process here. Let's break it down.

• Chapter 02 takes place in a jungle (described in brief in the top left of the page).

• A Planty appears before the player. If no button is pressed, they player is attacked by a Mad Pecker. If a button is pressed, the player chases the Planty to an unknown location. Both outcomes lead the player to an "exit" that connects to a lake. The player acquires an unknown item, "(----) of water", which only appears in the Mad Pecker route (i.e no button press).

• Chasing the Planty leads the player down a path where they can encounter "Chameleao", which likely refers to Sting Chameleon. The appearance of Sting Chameleon and various enemies from his stage creates a couple theories:  

• Assuming Rockman X Interactive fits within canon and takes place after X1 or X2, X (and by extension, the player) could be inside a simulation of Sting Chameleon's stage. These events may not be happening in real time, but take place within NEUT-3000-EVE. If this is that case, Rockman X: Cyber Mission/Mega Man Xtreme may have borrowed similar ideas from Rockman X Interactive.

• The story of Rockman X Interactive is entirely self-contained and borrows some characters from X1.

• Sting Chameleon and his lackeys are placeholders for new, then yet-to-be-designed enemies.

• As X exits the jungle and nears the lake, he’s shot from behind, triggering a QTE. If the player fails, “Failed Input Demo 1” plays — likely a cutscene reserved for unsuccessful QTE outcomes. If the player succeeds, they encounter a new character, Adam, and a different scene plays, noted in the document as “Adam (----) in the shade of a tree.”

• Adam approaches X and asks to "tag along" to go to wherever X is headed (he shot X in the back to gain his attention, maybe?). The earth shakes, X leaps up a tree to get a better look, and sees the Death Rogumer engaged in combat.

• Originally, The Death Rogumer was the de-facto mothership from the Hunters' 7th Airborn Unit. However, much like its role in the events of X1, it appears to be under Irregular/Maverick control. In this scene, it's shown to be attacking a wholly different Hunter mothership.

• Adam's sole line of dialog here is deliberately strange. "For something like a Reploid to be able to convert energy indexes into human-like emotions..." In simple terms, he’s reading X’s “energy indexes” and seems impressed — or at least intrigued — that X translates them into human-style emotions. His use of the phrase “energy indexes” points to someone fluent in technical jargon. 

• Adam is very likely connected to Eve in some way — the Adam and Eve parallel feels deliberate, and his dialogue is described as distinctly “computer-like.” Like the teenage girl, he may represent another virtualization of the supercomputer, separate from but still tied to NEUT-3000-EVE.

And that is really all we know about Rockman X Interactive's plot for now. An image of Zero was included with documents, too, so it's very likely he appeared somewhere as well.  There are no known images for any of the new characters, Dr. Neutral, Eve or Adam. I guess you'll just have to whip some fan-art up for yourselves!


The Legitimacy of Rockman X Interactive

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source familiar with one of Capcom Japan’s frequent outsourcing partners from the ’90s confirmed to me that these documents are legitimate. While they couldn’t recall many specifics, they did state that the game entered pre-production before Super Adventure Rockman was even on the table. They were unsure why the project never came to fruition, but said it significantly influenced the direction Super Adventure ultimately took.

The Whereabouts of the Document Itself

On the evening of September 19th, 2018, I publicly asked the community to help donate funds to win the auction and safely acquire these documents. My intention was, and still is, to preserve these pages: scan them, translate them, and donate them to The Video Game History Foundation.

As the night went on, we managed to pool together a solid four-figure sum. I won’t share the exact amount, but it was definitely enough to take the auction. Feeling confident in what we had, I went in with a sniper bid.

The following day, the auction vanished. What happened?

To make a long story short, a small group of fans in Japan reported the auction because they believed the materials had been stolen from Capcom. Yahoo removed the listing. After speaking with a key member of the Japanese Rockman community, I learned that while there was no proof the materials were stolen, they felt strongly that no one other than the copyright holder, Capcom, should possess them.

To date, these documents have not resurfaced anywhere else. I’ve spent the past several months trying to contact the seller, deflotte, to negotiate a direct sale, but unfortunately there has been no progress.

But the search for these documents is far from over. I have a few leads and a few contacts that may provide even more details about Rockman X Interactive in the future. For now, I ask that you enjoy what I and my partners have managed to put together.

Many, MANY thanks to Seita and GirlGamerGab for their translation work!