The long-in-limbo 3DS title from Keiji Inafune - Kaio: The King of Pirates - looks to have officially been canned.

King of Pirates was first revealed all the way back in 2011 for Nintendo 3DS, and was one of the first games from the Mega Man creator following his then-recent split from Capcom.

Little was ever actually shown of the game, but plans for it soon spiralled into an ambitious cross-media project from publisher Marvelous, with an anime series also slated for production.

But questions continued to be raised about the status of King of Pirates after Inafune's studio revaled work on numerous other games, most notably the crowd-funded Mighty Number 9. It is reported that Marvelous had sunk $3.8m into the project before its cancellation.