Watch Gameplay Footage From A Canceled 2012 'Avengers' Video Game

This fall, Marvel and Square Enix are releasing the most in-depth and expansive Avengers video game that we've ever seen. But back in 2011, there was another Avengers video game title in the works that was intended to be released in 2012 around the same time as the first movie was hitting theaters. Unfortunately, it ended up getting canceled, but new footage of early gameplay has recently surfaced online, giving us an idea of the kind of game we missed out on.

The footage above (via GeekTyrant) was was recovered from a hard drive by someone over at ObscureGamers, which was then uploaded to YouTube by Andrew Borman, who works as a Digital Games Curator at the Museum of Play in Rochester, New York. It comes from an early build of The Avengers game running on Xbox 360, and as you can see, there are still missing, incomplete elements in the game. Characters and environments have little to no texture, some are still just polygonal renderings, and certain items are represented as boxes labeled "Gem" and whatnot.

THQ was the publisher behind what would have been an action adventure game where players control The Avengers from a first-person perspective and team-up with three other players Though the game was intended to be released around the same time as Marvel's The Avengers movie, it was not tied to the movie narratively and instead used elements of the Secret Invasion storyline featuring the villainous, shape-shifting alien race known as Skrulls. Even the comic event's writer Brian Michael Bendis was working on the game.

As you can see above, we have Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and Captain America as the four characters in co-op play. Black Widow and Hawkeye also would have been featured in the game, but they were intended to be unlockable characters and not available to choose at the start of the game. The game would have also featured appearances from Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Ant-Man as well as the villain Ultron. However, it's not clear how many heroes would have been playable characters.

The gameplay footage takes us through a level that appears to be a massive Skrull ship in space. There are various types of enemy Skrulls for you to beat up, ranging from smaller, weaker soldiers to bigger, more heavily armored warriors. The video shows off the various abilities that Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and Captain America have, including each of their signature weapons and trademark moves.

This may be an early version of The Avengers game, but I think it's probably better that it got canceled. It seems like a pretty standard beat-em-up game that doesn't really use the characters to their full potential. Plus, I think the first-person perspective doesn't add much and makes the overall combat feel rather clunky. Again, that could be just because this is an early build of the game, but nothing I see here gets me very excited.

If you'd like to see more, here's a teaser that was released by THQ back when the game was still being worked on:

As for the forthcoming new Avengers video game, that's slated to be released on September 4 We'll get a glimpse at some new footage from Marvel's Avengers in an upcoming "War Table" streaming event scheduled to take place on June 24, so stay tuned.