Where Are The Marvel Games?

[John Markley]

I hadn't thought about this before, but it IS rather strange.

Marvel has been keeping a tighter leash on their IPs (the ones they have film right to, anyway) than has usually been the case for comics companies- producing the movies with their own studio, tying them together and keeping them consistent with each other to create a shared continuity. Perhaps they're wary of liscensing out the characters to game developers because the results might clash with the unified, carefully managed universe they've had so much success with? Damage the brand, basicaly?

Best I can come up with.

 

[SilverUchiha]

The cancelled avengers game pre-release footage looked pretty darn good

Was just about to post something mentioning this.
While I'm not sold until I can play a finished product (which will never be released, I know). This certainly looks like the best Marvel-related thing to be made that I can think of. And it is sad that little effort has been made on this front. I know Marvel stated they're waiting for the right developer to make an Avengers game. But why not get the right developer for the other, smaller games. I could easily see Iron Man being a 3D bullet hell game. I could see another Hulk ultimate destruction. I could see a Captain America brawler. I could see a Thor-themed Platinum game. There's certainly room for more.

Perhaps the smart idea would be small indie-style budgets with indie developers at the helm. Minimize the risk if these games go south but maximize the potential ideas being made because the indie devs will try something they think fits the character best rather than just do something generic like most triple-A studios would do. Just a thought.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

With the exception of the final boss fight, the Wolverine Origins game was one of the best Marvel games ever made. But the topic being about Marvel games related to the current MCU...

I think Marvel knows that movie tie-in games have a track record of being horrible, broken, buggy messes. So rather than risk money, they just won't make any official games, outside of contributing to those collectible Infinity games.

 

[step1999]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this:
https://www.telltalegames.com/blog/discussion/94655/marvel-and-telltale-games-teaming-up-for-2017
We don't know yet if it's a movie tie-in, or even what hero it is, but there is another marvel game coming.

 

[Rack]

As a general rule, modern controls aren't suited well to three-dimensional flight, especially if you're adding combat in. I don't know any game that's ever done it well. Consider it's how Iron Man gets around, I'm not sure how well it'd work. He can't just walk around.

Warhawk, Ace Combat, Crimson Skies, Panzer Dragoon and Rogue Leader all spring to mind as ways it could work in 3d, and in 2D something like Galak-Z would be fantastic.

Same with Thor. What sort of game and controls match well with him? He's a strong, tough dude with a hammer. Very visually appealing, but doesn't have that gameplay depth to really let him shine.

Give it to Platinum, and give them more than a few months. Bayonetta/Devil May Cry gameplay with the Thor license? Can't fail.

 

[Politrukk]

Well if we seperate the games from the movies it should be a totally grand medium.

The only question is which developers or studios they should acquire/hire to do the work for them.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

The cancelled avengers game pre-release footage looked pretty darn good

Was just about to post something mentioning this.
While I'm not sold until I can play a finished product (which will never be released, I know). This certainly looks like the best Marvel-related thing to be made that I can think of. And it is sad that little effort has been made on this front. I know Marvel stated they're waiting for the right developer to make an Avengers game. But why not get the right developer for the other, smaller games. I could easily see Iron Man being a 3D bullet hell game. I could see another Hulk ultimate destruction. I could see a Captain America brawler. I could see a Thor-themed Platinum game. There's certainly room for more.

Perhaps the smart idea would be small indie-style budgets with indie developers at the helm. Minimize the risk if these games go south but maximize the potential ideas being made because the indie devs will try something they think fits the character best rather than just do something generic like most triple-A studios would do. Just a thought.

This topic also made me remember the Marvel arcade games

Captain America and the Avengers beat-em-up arcade game:


It was average, the Punisher beatemup was much better:

 

[hermes]

I think the main problem is that they have to divorce them from the MCU to work.

Some of my favorite Marvel games (I am talking about games like Marvel vs Capcom or Ultimate Alliance) work a lot better if they don't have to worry about continuity or adapting from a different medium.

Ultimate Alliance in particular felt like they throw everything but the kitchen sink at you: one level you were fighting Galactus in the Skrulls homeworld, the other had you fighting Namor in Atlantis, passing though the Mandarin, the X-Men mansion, Mephisto, the Executioner, Fin Fang Foom, the Frost giants and a big etc. Now imagine this game with the MCU hooks: having to work through the licences, characters lookalikes, not conflicting with the stories and characters used or planned to be used... It would have felt a lot more restricted and a lot less inventive.

 

[RealRT]

I am actually fine with that. Video games based off of movies rarely turn out okay, and it's painful to watch them try to push them on people.

Also, I believe this right here:

Well there were some games based off the Phase 1 movies - two terrible Iron Man games, a mediocre Thor game (God of War clone) and a passable Captain America game (Arkham ripoff).

might be a clue. I think Marvel carefully stuck their feet in the water at the beginning, before things really took off for their movies, and decided the water wasn't to their liking. I do remember the Captain America game, if only from X-Play. The others, I have no memory of even seeing. And I think that's it. Those games weren't that great. They didn't have the staying power, so I think Marvel went, "Nope. We're done. At least for now," and they never went back to the pool.

Why they haven't come back for so long, I have no idea. Maybe they just don't want to ruin a good thing by jinxing it, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that those first few games turned them off of the idea.

Well, thing is though, they just licensed them out to Sega instead of doing publishing and quality control themselves.

I mean come on. Lego Marvel Super Heroes was awesome (then again so are most Lego games by TT).

 

[Xeorm]

Warhawk, Ace Combat, Crimson Skies, Panzer Dragoon and Rogue Leader all spring to mind as ways it could work in 3d, and in 2D something like Galak-Z would be fantastic.

None of those are really 3d controls. They work by eliminating one axis (usually the one going into the screen) so you can control the other two well. Great for when you're going fast over large distances, but terribly for someone like iron man who's trying to fly in a small area much of the time.

Give it to Platinum, and give them more than a few months. Bayonetta/Devil May Cry gameplay with the Thor license? Can't fail.

Possibly. Though the tone of their games doesn't seem like it'd fit Thor's tone.

 

[Strazdas]

I can see it working for heroes like Iron Man where suit upgrades could be considered progression but you would still be grounded by what you can actually do. most others though would either make you play a hero so OP you would be bored or would have to invent some abritrary limitations that just end up annoying.

Spider-Man 1-2 (PS1)
Spider-Man 2 (PS2)

you do know spiderman games still get made, right? they are so horrible they rival the recent Tony Hawk game.

That being said i would LOVE for there to be Prototype 3, always loved those games.

 

[Kameburger]

I think they were also happy with Lego Marvel. That game was pretty good, and distant enough from the film universe to not damage the brand, but close enough to it to be a little treat for the fans.

 

[TallanKhan]

and those who werent shite where only "decent" games.

Spiderman 2.

And that is all I shall offer in response.

 

[RealRT]

you do know spiderman games still get made, right? they are so horrible they rival the recent Tony Hawk game.

And your point is? Yeah, there were Spider-Man games based off the last two movies and yeah, they sucked, just like the source material, but my point was that it IS possible to make good Spidey games like the ones I mentioned above.

 

[Strazdas]

you do know spiderman games still get made, right? they are so horrible they rival the recent Tony Hawk game.

And your point is? Yeah, there were Spider-Man games based off the last two movies and yeah, they sucked, just like the source material, but my point was that it IS possible to make good Spidey games like the ones I mentioned above.

my point is that holding up a game from two decades ago as some shining example when the series went down to make one of the worst games out there is a bit delusional. Is it possible? maybe. will they do it for next spiderman game? sure as hell not.

 

[teamcharlie]

The Marvel movies are...fine. I've seen most of them, they never knocked my socks off but they're worth killing a few hours over. Big badda boom, not a lot of depth. One thing they do really well, though, is tell stories through their action beats, which helps them sell to foreign audiences where Disney can't depend on the translation being good or culturally specific references making sense, and which is where Marvel seems to be making most of their money these days.

You watch it in the US and speak English, you get it. You watch it in Thailand with a shitty Thai translation that kinda doesn't make much sense, you can still follow along because of visual storytelling techniques. The movie may cost $300 million to make, but not only does it do a billion in sales but also a bunch of money comes out of cheap-to-make toys that sell for a serious markup around the world thanks to the now-easily-recognizable characters.

Contemporary video games, on the other hand, depend on the written story beats, and tutorials, etc. Essentially, the translation quality actually matters, which is not something you can depend on when you're talking about all the places in the world that Marvel has been selling to. The audience is no longer 'people who live near enough to a theater to go see it and bring their friends/family,' but people willing to spend hours at a time playing a video game on a console or computer. The price of entry goes up ($60), the length of the game is almost unquestionably going to be greater than the length of a movie, meaning your quality has to be consistent for a longer period of time for basically the budget of a medium-sized movie (which Marvel doesn't really do)...yeah, no. Not their wheelhouse at all. Expect big-ass movies and cheap-to-make freemium mobile games for the forseeable future from Marvel.

 

[RealRT]

you do know spiderman games still get made, right? they are so horrible they rival the recent Tony Hawk game.

And your point is? Yeah, there were Spider-Man games based off the last two movies and yeah, they sucked, just like the source material, but my point was that it IS possible to make good Spidey games like the ones I mentioned above.

my point is that holding up a game from two decades ago as some shining example when the series went down to make one of the worst games out there is a bit delusional. Is it possible? maybe. will they do it for next spiderman game? sure as hell not.

Yeah, it is delusional, thankfully, I did nothing of the sort. I merely listed the superhero games made since the NES era that were actually good.

 

[Darth_Payn]

I think Disney and Marvel should put more money and manpower in video games to expand on the Cinematic Universe. I liked Captain America: Super Soldier and how it fit in the middle of the movie, when Cap and the Howling Commandoes are trashing all those HYDRA locations. The one in the game just so happened to be a castle that once belonged to Baron Heinrich Zemo.