Marvel Games

 By: Patrick Morris

Over the past 13 years the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become the highest grossing movie franchise in history. Unfortunately for Disney, Marvel has struggled to replicate that same success in the medium of video games. Across the several Marvel video games that have been either explicitly tied in to the MCU or independent of the MCU released since 2008, with one exception, Marvel has continued to make the same fundamental mistakes that has resulted in a slew of mediocrity. That one exception being Marvel's Spider-Man on PS4 proved to be an indication of the potential that lies in Marvel properties as video games when handled correctly. Despite multiple approaches failing, the prospect of Marvel video games is still a proverbial gold mine, by making a few changes and relinquishing some control Marvel could move their heroes into a new medium at a similar level of success as their movies. 

 

Before we get into the current state of Marvel games we have to take a look at what Marvel has done with video games since the inception of the MCU. The first major foray into video games was a batch of typical cash in licensed games. Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Captain America Super Soldier, Thor God of Thunder, and The Incredible Hulk were all poorly received cash grab games that were pumped out on a rushed schedule from relatively inexperienced dev teams in order to coincide with a movie release. These titles all came out at the tail end of the era of licensed games in which undercooked releases were a typical and expected part of the marketing cycle for basically any movie that has any appeal for a younger demographic. This series of Marvel games was never intended to stand on their own, they were a marketing tool at best and an afterthought at worst. 

 

After the discontinuation of the licensed games and a several year hiatus Marvel returned to the realm of triple A gaming with Spider-Man PS4 in late 2018. Upon the announcement of Spider-Man PS4 being developed by none other than Insomniac Games it was clear that this would be a radically different direction for Marvel video games as a whole. Marvel had done what Disney rarely does and relinquished creative control of their IP to n external team. Not only did Marvel allow Insomniac to create the game they wanted but according to Insomniac's Ted Price Marvel approached them and allowed them to choose which character they wanted to build a game around. By relinquishing control Marvel finally had a Spider-Man game that felt distinctly different from all other past and current iterations of the character with a story compelling enough to stand on its own without the assistance of an upcoming film release. Insomniac was able to perfectly tailor the type of game they made to the powers of the hero that was the game's primary focus. Recognition of talent and quality then surrendering the reigns when appropriate led to arguably the best Marvel video game ever that should have been to the Marvel Video Game Universe what Iron Man was to the MCU. 

 

Since Insomniac's Spider-Man game Marvel has partnered with Square Enix resulting in 2020's Marvel's Avengers and the recently announced Guardians of the Galaxy coming in October. From the moment it was announced Marvel's Avengers has been criticized for having the appearance of a third rate knock off of the MCU Avengers. When released the game was received poorly and heavily criticized for being made up of unimaginative combat lacking in the variety that one would expect from a game with characters whose abilities cover as wide a range as the Avengers. Many also complained of a lack of substantial story content and there in no way has been any attempt to link Marvel's Avengers to Marvel's Spider-Man. And to make things worse from what we have been shown of Guardians of the Galaxy the gameplay looks to be very similar to that of Marvel's Avengers. Of course we wont be able to pass judgement until the game is released but as of now the future of Marvel's partnership with Square Enix doesn’t look to be very fruitful. 

 

So what should Marvel do to achieve a similar level of success in video games as they have in movies? Before I get started I want to acknowledge that I am fully aware that this is all significantly easier said than done. That being said, the obvious route for Marvel is to create a Marvel Video Game Universe that is separate but telling stories in a similar way to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In order to do this Disney would need to create a development subsidiary that moving forward I will refer to as Marvel Video Game's (MVG). MVG would function as a visionary lead orchestrating the larger story arc's and how their characters will intersect with one another. Ideally MVG would have the freedom to identify talented development studios and contract those studios on a game by game basis. At the point of approach allowing those studios to choose off a menu of characters MVG intends to use in their ongoing larger story arc similar to how Insomniac was allowed to choose Spider-Man would result in developers being more interested in their work and in turn better games. Throughout all this it would be important for MVG to make long term decisions for the betterment of their games, that means not being afraid of exclusivity, and working toward larger story arc's similar to the MCU's phases. And finally these MVG games would need to look substantially different from their MCU counterparts in order to avoid the aforementioned third rate knock off look that is currently being realized in the Square Enix games. 

 

Overall the way the Marvel game's have been going in the past couple years with the exception of Spider-Man has left a lot to be desired. The fact that the video game industry generates significantly more revenue than the movie industry and the potential of a Marvel Video Game Universe should not continue to be ignored. During the early years of the MCU the movies were made great because the creators had the freedom to craft the stories they wanted surrounding the characters they cared about. While it may be highly unlikely, if Disney were to invest in a video game production house and allow them and their contracted development studios the freedom to pursue the stories and characters they were interested in Marvel could find even more success in video games than movies. But as it stands now I'm not hopeful for the future.