We all know that Spider-man is coming to the PlayStation 4 on September 7 of this year. It’s poised to be a huge hit, but it just feels as though they’ve wasted so much precious time. The last decade came to a culmination this summer for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (well, half of a culmination anyhow) as Avengers: Infinity War hit theaters in April. Over the past ten years we must have had a slew of video games set in the Marvel Universe keeping us as hooked in that world as movie-goers, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. Spider-man looks to be the first win for Marvel on consoles and PC since Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 which was released all the way back in 2009! Sure there was Marvel Heroes Online, but that failed to even be as popular as D.C. Universe Online. This, in and of itself, is a travesty considering how popular Marvel is currently and how far from grace D.C. was fallen since their cinematic universe has failed to really hit home with fans.
We know that SquareEnix has worked out a deal with Marvel and there are games coming set in the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy Universe, but we haven’t even seen game play on any of those games yet, let alone have any sort of release window. Handsome Phantom’s own Kevin gave us the rundown of what we’d like to see in the future of Marvel games. Now that SquareEnix has announced they are having a press conference at E3, we expect to find out more information regarding their Marvel plans along with other properties like Kingdom Hearts.
Public Enemy Number One: Disney Infinity. I was a fan of the toys to life fad as much as the next guy, but when you put all of your eggs in one basket you’re sure to fail eventually. Disney and Marvel was so committed to this platform that they abandoned all other gaming options for way longer than they should have. Admittedly, we did have some fun experiences playing in the Guardians and Avengers Universes but they were ultimately expensive watered down versions of what should have been created. Instead of giving us the baby versions of each character and game, Marvel and Disney should have developed full blown games that gamers would have lined up in droves for… begging them to take our money.
Deadpool did receive his own standalone game in 2013, mostly due to the fact that Fox and not Disney have the rights to the character and realized that a game released with characters from their upcoming movie would do well. The game was serviceable, ultimately forgettable, but at leased they tried. Had it launched a little closer to the 2016 film it’s not hard to imagine the game performing better. Even the next gen re-release came out months prior to the films release which was probably meant to get the buzz going early. However, holding it until the following year may have helped even more.
When Iron Man was released in theaters over a decade ago, they had no idea how big the brand would become. Disney still hadn’t bought them and Iron Man really wasn’t the household name that he is today. Having said that, there has been plenty of time in the last ten years to right this ship and give the people what they want, and what they want is good video games where they can take on the persona of the heroes they have grown to love on the big screen. Thankfully, it doesn’t feel like too little too late, because the games that we are about to receive seem as though they are going to meet and exceed all expectations. It’s just hard to believe it took them so long to finally get their act together.
Adding Thanos into Fortnite is a huge step in the right direction. This is a beautiful sign that within the realm of Fortnite, anything is possible. Hopefully, ten years from now, we are talking about a cinematic universe that is still going strong with 40 films under its belt. With any luck there will be plenty of games to go along with them. They don’t need to be direct movie tie-ins because, let’s be honest, those are always terrible anyway. They just need to release good games set in the Marvel Universe in a timely manner and we’ll be happy.
