Hello all, as no doubt many of you are, I’m excited to see the sequel to
The Avengers. It’s been three long years and during that time we’ve seen Marvel grow. They made an almost perfect sequel with
Captain America: The Winter Soldier, they tried something interesting and fun with
Iron Man 3, and they took a huge gamble with
Guardians of the Galaxy. There’s
Thor: The Dark World but the less said about that the better.
Perhaps some younger users on this site won’t remember a time when almost every blockbuster movie got a tie-in video game. Some were good, most were terrible; but in a lot of ways it was a great way to take that experience you saw on screen and extend it at home until the VHS/DVD came out.
I remember playing
Aladdin for the Mega Drive and learning how the game was looked at and worked on by Disney animators, playing
The Warriors on Xbox late at night and drunk with my buddies, feeling that rush as Spider-Man in
Spider-Man 2, and going into beast mode in
X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Screw VHS, I was flying dat magic carpet!
For all the great tie-ins, I think the stigma was that they were rushed and felt cheap. I don’t agree with that fully. In fact, I think like anything, it all depends on the creative talent and whether they have the right vision.
Lately Marvel has been playing it very low-key with their games. There’s Marvel Heroes which is a lot of fun, but that’s more of an ever evolving free-to-play game and not really something that will adapt to the different game. They’ll release some skins and maybe some levels, but not much else.
Marvel’s Head of Video Games, TQ Jefferson had this to say a year ago:
“The Avengers game will come when we have the right partner, that has the right vision, that has the time to develop a strong, competitive triple-A title and wants to do it right,” Jefferson said. “It has to hit our three pillars: Fun and engaging gameplay, true to the characters, compelling story. Without hitting those notes, we shouldn’t do it. Gamers, they know better. They’re not going to flock to something that’s sub-par.”
I get what he’s saying, in that the company should always evaluate on the contributions made to the larger goals of the company. Still, a year later, it’s shocking that we haven’t heard anything. Either there’s no talent that could make a video game worth playing, or they’re resting on their laurels.
I’m sure many of you have ideas for the type of Marvel video game you’d like to play. Maybe you’d like an old-school brawler, an Action-RPG, an open-world game. When I say that the possibilities are endless, that’s not false. There’s so many avenues Marvel could take, and yet here we are with nothing to show for it.
Perhaps Disney is scared due to the numerous cancellations of Star Wars games, but that didn’t stop them from getting a new Battlefront off the ground. There was news of the Avengers FPS(?) that leaked sometime after the first
Avengers film came out. Perhaps they didn’t see a solid direction for that, or perhaps they thought it would be too much of a risk.
So we get a new Battlefront game and not an Avengers game? What gives!
Still, that risk, is just that – a gamble. Perhaps it won’t pay off, but it could. I think Marvel is doing really well with their cinematic universe, but they are floundering with their games. With
Batman: Arkham Knight coming out soon, it’s almost embarrassing that Marvel can’t see this opportunity.
So at the end of the day, I have no doubt I’ll enjoy
Age of Ultron, but I can’t stop but think that there’s something I’m missing, that we’re all missing. For all the great moments, the excellent action, and the cinematic glory we’re no doubt going to see, we’re going to leave the theatre, many of us wanting to feel that sense of scale and fluidity on a more interactive level. Sadly though, that’s something we’re going to be missing, the one thing I’ll miss most definitely.
Agree? Disagree? You know the drill! Comments section. Don’t hesitate to let me know what you’d like to see in a Marvel game.