Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra hasn't been canceled. But it's also not releasing this year.
Speaking to IGN ahead of Summer Game Fest, Shawn Kittelsen, a senior executive at the newly formed Paramount Games Studio, confirmed that Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra remains in development, adding that it's even in a playable state.
“It's a game,” he said. “It's happening. It's playable. I've got my SpongeBob controller here, but it's on my hard drive right now. So I can go through and play the build."
Skydance New Media first revealed Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra back in 2021 as an untitled narrative-driven action-adventure game led by studio heads Amy Hennig and Julian Beak. We saw a brief cinematic teaser at D23 in 2022, confirming Captain America, Black Panther (Azzuri), and a World War II setting, though very little else was shown.
The game's first big reveal came in 2024 when we officially learned the title at Epic's State of Unreal presentation. A story trailer was shared alongside a 2025 release window.
In May 2025, the game was delayed until "early 2026" to allow for "more polish" and to give the team more time to deliver "the best possible experience." And in November, it was pushed back even further, only this time Skydance didn't share a specific window, just a vague "beyond early 2026."
So what exactly is taking so long?
"We're continuing development on it, but Amy and the team have big ambitions for the level of quality that they want to hit. They are a relatively small team considering the AAA quality that they're delivering," Kittelsen explained. "What you've seen in previous footage is what the game looks like, and we're making it with a fraction of the resources that you see on other AAA games of the same type, and really trying to push a new development model that's a lot more responsible and sustainable.”
“When we see all of the disruption in the industry over the last few years, we don't want to replicate that by recreating all of the same problems,” he continued. “So you can build a team or you can build a game, but you can rarely build a team and a game. Skydance New Media started from scratch during the pandemic and had to build the team and had to build their tools, and then they got to work building the game. And I think there were really ambitious timelines set for that game, but they didn't take into account all of the things that can disrupt production and that can make you spend more time working on it."
Ultimately, the decision was made to "focus on the quality" rather than attempt to "push the game out as quickly as possible."
"So we're giving them the time to cook," he said. "We believe in Amy and the whole team there and supporting them, and that game will come out when it's ready. But it is very real and we are continuing to invest in it.”
Although it's comforting to know that Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra has not been canceled, Kittelsen has confirmed that it won't be released until 2027 at the earliest.
"I don't think it'll be 2026," he said, acknowledging the early 2024 “set high expectations and we want to make sure that the game that we bring out lives up to those expectations.”
In addition to Marvel 1943, Hennig's Skydance team, which is now officially under the Paramount Games Studio umbrella, is also working on an untitled Star Wars game, which still hasn't been fully revealed. According to Kittelsen, the primary focus will remain on Marvel 1943.
“I think the best thing to think of is we've got to finish Marvel 1943,” he said. “We're very much focused on that. So one thing at a time and we'll address Star Wars, talk about that when 1943 is finished. But first right now, all efforts are on 1943.”