Look, back when I was a kid, my household had both Megaman and Megaman X lying around. In my innocent mind, since one had an X attached and both featured a blue protagonist, I just assumed the latter was a direct sequel. Later on, when I first fired up Megaman X3 and laid eyes on a character named Zero, I completely mistook him for Blues despite them looking vastly different. Honestly, I used to prefer the Megaman X series, but since that lineage has flat-out flatlined, I found myself quietly hoping for a brand new entry from either universe.

And lo, towards the end of 2025, a brand new entry in the Megaman series titled MEGAMAN DUAL OVERRIDE was finally announced. It marks a nine-year gap since the last installment, with a targeted launch window in 2027 to coincide with the franchise's 40th anniversary. Gamemeca managed to secure some hands-on time with Megaman: Dual Override at Gamescom 2026. Seeing that blue-helmeted kid again after all these years brought an instant wave of nostalgic thrill, right alongside the trademark, agonizing pain of getting completely wrecked.

As a fresh installment in the classic Megaman lineage, Megaman: Dual Override proudly flaunts a rulebook drastically different from the Megaman X series. Dual Override places paramount importance on the series' foundational pillars of moving and shooting, where enemies might look simple on paper, but punish the player in the most merciless ways imaginable.

In this particular demo build, we were allowed to brave all three stages leading up to the boss, Twinkle Girl. While the opening stage felt more like a gentle tutorial, the second stage wastes no time showing off the kind of unforgiving difficulty you would expect from the real deal. Fortunately, checkpoints pop up generously, and perhaps due to it being a convention demo, the penalty for dying was virtually non-existent, keeping the perceived difficulty relatively low.

The genuine Megaman experience kicks into full gear by the third stage. If the first couple of stages felt like a walk in the park, stage three throws high-difficulty platforming right into the mix. You are met with a continuous sequence of collapsing floor tiles that detonate and vanish after a brief countdown, forcing you to scramble forward at breakneck speed. To make matters delightfully worse, pesky flying foes drift down from the skies, and since the player lacks any sort of air dash, failing to clear these nuisances practically guarantees a swift, plummeting demise.

The adversaries do not bother with elaborate gimmicks or invisible speed-of-light techniques. They simply snipe from afar and barrel into you with basic body slams. Yet, it is precisely these minute, deceptively simple designs that routinely shove Megaman into bottomless pits or trap the player in inescapable corners, a cruel philosophy we could already feel right in the demo.

On the unique action front, the demo showcased three distinct chip sets alongside the brand-new override mechanic. Chips function as active skills swappable right before entering a stage, offering choices like a protective barrier, auto-firing, and the Rush set. I personally found myself frequently equipping the barrier to efficiently swat away incoming projectiles. Naturally, it is no panacea; crashing directly into an enemy shatters the barrier and inflicts damage, meaning it offers zero salvation against bottomless pits. Meanwhile, the Rush chip mysteriously bore the description 'no effect whatsoever', leaving us entirely in the dark about its true purpose.

The series' time-honored special weapons make a glorious return as well. This demo introduced the Jet Stinger, a move that wraps the arms in spikes for a forward lunge, proving exceptionally handy during boss skirmishes. Surprisingly for a classic Megaman outing, these special weapons can even be charged up, letting you pierce clean through adversaries while covering significantly more ground.

On top of all that, we got to play with the centerpiece system of this outing: the override mechanic. The override acts as an enhanced state fueled by taking and dealing hits. Once triggered, your standard buster fires in rapid three-shot bursts, while charged attacks pack an exponentially heavier punch. Unleashing a fully charged final shot completely drains the override gauge in exchange for devastating damage. Relying on special weapons consumes the override gauge rather than a dedicated special weapon meter.

The bosses in Megaman: Dual Override heavily channel the aesthetic designs and behavioral quirks of their classic forebears. The inaugural stage boss, Big Press Don, acts as an oversized, souped-up variant of a standard grunt, demanding precision headshots to deal meaningful damage. Even though my atrocious dash management meant I absorbed every single one of the ground-pounding stomps, clearing the encounter remained a breeze.

The second boss is Astro Man R, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Astro Man from Megaman 8. The signature gimmick involves launching assaults from revolving spherical drones hovering in mid-air, trotting out attack patterns that demand precise, rhythmic dodging rather than mindless button-mashing. Dropping the health bar down to the halfway mark triggers an additional sequence where energy orbs rain continuously from the heavens, which proved rather tricky to evade. Thankfully, the health pool is not particularly deep, keeping the overall challenge manageable.

The stage's grand finale boss, Twinkle Girl, sports an idol-inspired humanoid appearance accompanied by fittingly theatrical patterns. Her primary repertoire includes launching firework-like projectiles that detonate mid-air to spray in six directions, alongside aerial plunges and sudden dashes. Notably, baiting the dash attack correctly causes the boss to smack straight into the wall, leaving behind a brief window of sheer vulnerability to unload some damage.

Halving the health bar unlocks a signature special pattern. Twinkle Girl warps to the center of the arena, scatters fireworks across the firmament, and slams into the ground to shockwave the surrounding floor. While the pattern itself is transparently simple, dodging it cleanly is a headache, though it unfortunately melts away rapidly when confronted with the Jet Stinger special weapon. Committing fully to utilizing the override and Jet Stinger right out of the gate lets you secure victory well before the special weapon gauge ever runs dry.

Megaman: Dual Override is slated for a launch on PC and consoles in 2027.