'This is looking so good I can't NOT pay you': Fighting game YouTuber commissions modding 'god' to overhaul Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite's artstyle

Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite (MVCI) is getting a remaster—but not from Capcom. As announced onTwitter, popular fighting game community YouTuber and streamer Maximillian Miles Christensen (Maximilian Dood) is commissioning a modder to create a complete top-to-bottom overhaul of the 2017 fighter's visual style, and hot damn is it an improvement.

«We’re in the early stages, with only a couple days of tinkering, but already the results are absolutely incredible,» Christensen writes, linking to a quote tweet of some of Ryn's current WIPs. One screenshot in particular took off among the MVCI community, showing a cel-shaded, gorgeous-looking Ryu giving Spider-Man a Shoryuken what-for. 

«Did you change the direction of the lighting? You can do that?» writes one astounded commenter, to which Ryn answers: «Yeah, I can change a f*ckton of things»—presumably while wearing a pair of sunglasses. 

It really is an astounding difference, especially when compared side-by-side. Here's a direct comparison shot courtesy of MarrowOchi on Twitter. Gone are the strange Xbox 360-era textures and playdough overcast lighting, making way for cel shading, Ben Day-style dots, and vivid colour contrasts.

took a screencap of vanilla mahvel infinite just to see the side by side difference of @WistfulHopes' glorious new shaders pic.twitter.com/keXmDuiAo4May 2, 2024

Christensen would later upload a rundown of the project to his YouTube channel, which tells us more about how the mod snowballed into the ambitious remaster it's quickly becoming. Initially the two were just trying stuff out, but very rapidly realised that «it got to a point where [I said] this is looking so good I can't not pay you … she's done so much work on the engine that it's flabbergasting.» 

As for why he's paying out of pocket, «spending thousands of my own dollars to effectively mod games that will never net met a return? I simply do it, number one, because I care, and I think the effort of a lot of people needs to be compensated