In celebration of Mega Man’s 15th anniversary, the franchise made the jump from action-platformer to tactical role-playing game with the 2001 release of Mega Man Battle Network. This fourth subseries featured a young boy named Lan Hikari and his NetNavi MegaMan.EXE as they fought cybercrime in a society completely reliant on the Net. As Lan, players explored the town of ACDC, accepting quests and searching for Battle Chips that functioned much like cards in a collectible card battling game. But once “jacked in” to the Net, players fought as MegaMan.EXE in a gridded arena, with each side having its own 3x3 section. The success of this first game spurred a lengthy series on the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS consoles, ultimately concluding with Mega Man Battle Network 6.