Update []:
Cat Yard Games' reimagining of Mega Man X6, Mega Man X: Viral Nightmare, has just received its very first demo, giving players a chance to check out the new PC-based fan game that aims to fix some of the issues people initially had with the original Mega Man X6.
The demo, which is being called "Batch 1," was released last Friday (on February 13th, 2026) and is now available to download from SonicfangamesHQ.
It contains a revised version of the original game's nightmare souls system, an option to mix and match armour sets, and newly redesigned levels, with the five playable stages that are currently available being Eurasia Crash Site (the intro level), Amazon Ruins (Commander Yammark), Inami Temple (Rainy Turtloid), Magma Furnace (Blaze Heatnix), and Weapon Center (Infinity Mijinion).
There are also four armour parts to collect, as well as 17 swappable "parts", which you'll now be able to purchase from Douglas, in yet another tweak.
You can grab the patch here.
Original Story []: When people rank their favourite Mega Man X games, the PS1 title Mega Man X6 usually winds up appearing towards the bottom of the list.
Released in 2001 (or 2002 if you live in Europe), the sixth entry in the Mega Man sub-series is often viewed by many fans online as a bit of a rush job, with the game coming out a mere 12 months after Mega Man X5, which was originally envisioned by series producer Keiji Inafune to be the end of the story.
Because of this tight production timeline, it ultimately ended up featuring a lot of rough edges and ideas that didn't necessarily come together (like the Nightmare System), making it one of the more challenging games to recommend to newcomers in its original form.
Thankfully, over the years, we have seen some amazing fan-made hacks being produced, which have sought to give the game a much-needed overhaul (like Mega Man X6 Tweaks and Megaman X N's Edition), but it appears that there is also another option that will soon be available to players: a PC fan reimagining from the developer Cat Yard Games (thanks Rockman Corner).
This PC reimagining, which is being called Mega Man X: Viral Nightmare, is being developed "from the ground up" in Gamemaker Studio 2, and is Cat Yard Games' own vision of what he'd like to see in X6, as well as Mega Man games in general.
The armour system, for example, has been tweaked, letting you wear armour pieces as soon as you get them (rather than having to collect all four parts) and can be mixed and matched, as in Mega Man X8. There are also new abilities for some of the less useful armour parts, to give them something to make them more desirable.
In addition to that, how you acquire parts has also been changed. In the original game, parts are acquired from rescuing Reploids, with the number of parts you can equip being dependent on your Hunter rank, determined by the number of Nightmare souls you've collected. But this will apparently be the opposite in Viral Nightmare.
Parts will now be bought directly from Douglas and will be paid for with Nightmare Souls, with your rank instead being determined by the number of Reploids you save. New parts will become available in the shop by completing levels, with these parts being based on the level.
The plan for the game seems to be to release it in chunks, with the first volume set to contain the intro stage, and four levels (Commander Yammark, Rainy Turtloid, Blaze Heatnix, and Infinity Mijinion). Of these, 4/5 are complete, meaning the first release shouldn't be too far off (hopefully).
You can watch Cat Yard Games' explainer video here for more information on the project. He's also posted a couple of videos of the game in action, including the Rainy Turtloid boss fight and Commander Yammark's stage.