Many believe Mega Man to be one of the great classic video game franchises of the 1990s. However, as time goes by, fans have begun to notice gaps in the franchise’s lore. While Mega Man Battle Network and Mega Man Star Force explicitly take place in alternate realities, the rest of the series is presented as a single contiguous timeline. This makes the clash in tone between the cheerful cyberpunk world of the classic Mega Man games and the grim post-apocalyptic earth of its sequel series Mega Man X stand out.
In Mega Man, things seem good for humanity despite mad scientist Dr. Wily periodically reprogramming industrial and war robots to go after his enemies. Meanwhile, Mega Man X takes place in a dark future where the environment has been devastated, most of humanity is dead, and the Maverick Virus is turning innocent robots into malicious killing machines. More importantly, the original cast is almost completely dead or missing, and what happened to them is never explained. The origin of the Maverick Virus is explored in the Mega Man X games, but the virus only becomes a problem after the series begins, so fans have spent a lot of time discussing what must have happened before that to put the world in such a dire state.
Mega Man X Cataclysm Theory Explained
The absence of the original Mega Man cast has never been explained by Capcom. However, the passage of 100 years and the decay of the world suggests that Mega Man’s fight for everlasting peace ended poorly. Dr. Light does appear in the Mega Man X titles as an AI copy of himself, and he says some ominous things about X’s potential to destroy the world. Furthermore, Zero - X’s best friend and reluctant enemy, the greatest creation of Dr. Wily - is confirmed to have committed mass murder while malfunctioning. The Cataclysm Theory combines all of this into a terrible picture of the past.
In short, the Cataclysm Theory argues that after Zero was activated by Dr. Wily in the Mega Man classic era, he killed the entire original cast and dealt an incredible amount of damage to the planet. This catastrophic event is referred to as the Cataclysm. While it may seem unlikely that a single robot could wipe out so many in the original cast, Zero is introduced as one of the most powerful robots ever created; a stoic but friendly Maverick Hunter who fights to protect humans, until things take a darker turn when his true history is revealed. Zero is a war machine designed to kill X and finally achieve Dr. Wily’s goal of world domination. However, Zero came out of his sleep capsule as a malfunctioning berserker before being defeated and releasing the Maverick Virus onto the world.
The Red Ripper in Mega Man X
It’s made clear that Zero killed several Maverick Hunters before he was taken down, and he killed the original Sigma by infecting him. The Cataclysm Theory argues that if Zero killed one set of heroes before the games began and nearly caused a second apocalypse in Mega Man X5, he could well have killed another set of heroes and plunged the world into chaos years prior. This terrible event would also enhance the character arc of Zero turning against his creator and saving humanity repeatedly in Mega Man X and Mega Man Zero. While Zero’s original creator has said that he dislikes it, showing it’s likely not the intended lore, this theory potentially adds a lot to the games.
In the absence of an official explanation for how the world of Mega Man X was pushed to the brink, the Cataclysm Theory provides answers for fans. It has been around for about a decade now, and has inspired many fan works. In Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters, Dr. Wily tells Bass that he’s working on a robot to kill all his enemies - Bass included - while Zero’s silhouette is shown in a capsule. The experience leaves Bass, a character known for his hot temper and determination, genuinely frightened. While it doesn’t confirm anything, it would certainly make sense if the fan’s image of a Cataclysm followed this scene.
Why Fans Like the Cataclysm Theory
The disappearance of just about the entire cast of the original Mega Man games, and the ominous way Zero is framed within, them are the biggest reasons the Cataclysm Theory took off. Yet, there are other reasons why this theory makes a lot of sense to so many. Fans believe the Catalcysm didn’t just kill the entire cast of the original Mega Man series, it also destroyed much of the world’s technology and caused massive ecological damage. Mega Man X is full of robots designed to repair the environment and run life-sustaining technology, as if the planet had suffered a major disaster. The Cataclysm would also explain why the technological prowess of the world seems to have gone backward in the last 100 years.
As mentioned, game director Keiji Inafune has stated that he believes Zero would never do such a thing. However, the fact that Capcom has hinted at the terror of Zero’s creation in the Mega Man games still leaves a lot open to fan interpretation. Furthermore, a similarly devastating event canonically wiped out most of the cast of Mega Man X before the events of Mega Man Zero. Given there is evidence for similar global catastrophes in the franchise, including whatever flooded the entire planet in Mega Man Legends, the Cataclysm Theory is still worth considering.
