Don't Expect Any Marvel Video Games To Take Place In The Marvel Cinematic Universe
The world of video games based on movies has consistently been a depressing one. Most of the time the games are weak, uninspired video game versions of the movie offering nothing original or exciting as far as gameplay is concerned. Even with something as exciting as the Marvel cinematic universe, the video games for characters such as Iron Man, Thor and Captain America have been downright awful. And it doesn't sound like Marvel Games plans on trying that again anytime soon.
Find out more about the future of Marvel video games after the jump.
In case you didn't hear earlier this week, Marvel Games and Sony announced a new Spider-Man game that will be exclusive to PlayStation 4. Here's the trailer for what promises to be a very cool game:
The video game company Activision has been behind most of the Spider-Man games released over the the years, but according to Jay Ong, the head of Marvel Games (via Uproxx), they're not involved with the Marvel property in the video game arena anymore:
"...the future of the Spider-Man console games is with Sony and Insomniac. With [regard to] other console partners, stay tuned. There's many more interesting additional things to come. But Activision is in the past, with regards to Spider-Man."
Activision's track record with Spider-Man games hasn't been all that stellar. The only video game worth a damn is Spider-Man 2 from 2004, which functions both as a movie tie-in game and also an awesome sandbox superhero game that allows you to swing around New York City however you please, choosing which people you help and where to go next. There's a story to follow, but it's up to you where you go and how it progresses. It's one of the best superhero games ever made, but Activision has never made a game that has even close to being that good since then.
Some of the problem with Marvel games has come from being tied into the release of movies. Thankfully, that's not something Marvel Games is worried about anymore, and they're giving game creators much more freedom by not linking new, forthcoming Marvel games to any of the films. Ong says:
"When we tell people that they aren't just building a movie game, that opens up their eyes. "You mean we have the freedom to invest and deliver the title that we want to deliver?" They don't have to meet some artificial date. We give them time. We initiate projects far earlier than we used to."
Unfortunately for Marvel movie fans, that means you won't be playing with Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Paul Rudd or any of the other Avengers in their own video games. But if that means we start getting more quality superhero video games from Marvel, then that's a sacrifice we'll have to make.