Marvel is finally taking an honest stab at making a truly great video games set in the Marvel Universe. Instead of quick cash-grabs riding on the coattails of the on-screen adaptations, the company is trying something different: an entirely separate video game universe that can stand on its own.
Speaking to Gamespot during E3 last month, Marvel Games vice president Mike Jones explains the “roadmap” that Marvel Games has created for their upcoming titles:
“We absolutely have a roadmap. We have some incredible mobile, console, and VR games planned that I can’t announce or talk about today. We are curating our portfolio and trying to find the best match for character, partner, genre, platform and trying to not just see who wants a license to make a game. We’re actually very active in planning what are the right experiences for the right franchises for the right platforms, as well as finding the right partners who can provide the best of that.”
Going even further, Jones likens this philosophy to the Marvel Cinematic Universe:
“Marvel Studios decides who directs a film based on a character’s genre and type of story they’re in, so we’re similarly thinking the same way of who would be perfect for a Spider-Man or an Avengers game experience. We want to make sure that we pair the right characters and the right franchises with the best possible developers. There is a clinical portfolio management excel spreadsheet component to this process, but more importantly, it’s about passion. Teams are going to work on a game for three or four years, so the quality and the authenticity of the experience lives or dies by the passion and the vision of the teams that we’re working with. We’re constantly looking for development teams and publishers who love Marvel and are excited to tell a story or bring a particular experience to life. We’re here to support that drive. We think of ourselves as kind of facilitators in that sense. We want each of our partners to be the vision holder for their games.”
With Insomiac Games’ Spider-Man coming to PS4, The Avengers Project being handled by Square Enix, and Telltale Game’s Guardians of the Galaxy available now (and likely many projects yet to be announced), we are beginning to see this roadmap in action. It seems that there is a lot to look forward to from Marvel Games.
… You can find Jordan on Twitter (@JordJJones), and Facebook.
Originally published July 3, 2017. Updated December 16, 2019.
