Marvel Gaming Continuing Huge Comeback with Ultimate Alliance 3 and Avengers
For a very long time, Marvel fans were starved of high-quality games. Ever since the Marvel Cinematic Universe started on its journey of theatrical dominance with Iron Man in 2008, fans have craved some video games. Then, at the start of 2017, Square Enix announced their multi-game partnership with Marvel and the upcoming game codenamed ‘The Avengers Project’.
In 2018, the wait was over, but not for the new Avengers game. Instead, gamers all over the world were treated to the incredible Marvel’s Spider-Man from Insomniac. Easily one of the best superhero games ever made, the game delivered the full Spider-Man experience with superb web-swinging mechanics across the open-world map of Marvel’s Manhattan.
Marvel’s Spider-Man showcased how great superhero games can be, and now we may be in the early stages of a huge comeback for Marvel gaming. It’s been a long road, but Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order and Marvel’s Avengers game from Square Enix are just on the horizon.
A long time coming
Ever since video games stopped being viable additions to movies, games based on cinematic hits died off. Marvel, to their credit, did try to keep up with games for the Iron Man trilogy, but many of these games were deemed to be lacking. In 2009, Disney completed their acquisition of Marvel, the same year that Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 hit the shelves, and allowed for more video games to come out, including Iron Man 2, Thor: God of Thunder, and Captain America: Super Soldier.
After that, Marvel started to stop funding intended triple-A class games and Disney pulled the licence from Playtech for one of the most popular online games. The Marvel progressive jackpot suite featured The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Wolverine, Avengers, Blade, Elektra, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and more. Luckily, the progressive games continued under a new banner, Age of the Gods, and continue to be among the most popular online casino games, but still, fans were disappointed that they could no longer spin in their favourite Marvel characters.
For the most part, the best gaming experiences that fans could enjoy over the last half-a-decade or so have been the Disney Infinity toys-to-life games and the Lego games. It all changed in 2018 with Spider-Man, and now, over the next 11 months, Marvel looks to continue its epic comeback.
A huge 11 months ahead for Marvel fans
As the emphatic Infinity Saga of the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes to a close with Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home, the dawn in Marvel gaming is emerging. With Marvel’s Spider-Man as the first in a long line of hopefully super games, next on the horizon is the Nintendo Switch exclusive Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order.
One of the most loved films in the Infinity Saga was the penultimate Avengers movie Avengers: Infinity War, with Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight, Corvus Glaive, and Cull Obsidian – known collectively as the Black Order – proving to be worth great villains to complement the ‘big bad,’ Thanos. In Ultimate Alliance 3, players will be able to assemble their own team of superheroes to take on the Children of Thanos.
The Switch exclusive features a massive roster of 34 playable characters at launch, including Black Panther, Black Widow, Iron Man, Deadpool, Venom, Doctor Strange, as well as, 11 non-playable characters, 27 bosses, and many more coming in future DLCs.
On 19 July, fans can sink into Ultimate Alliance 3, which looks set to have enough gameplay to see them through to the release of the long-awaited Square Enix title, Marvel’s Avengers. Unveiled fully at E3 2019, the story is set five years after an Avengers celebration goes wrong and the superheroes become outcasts as a result. Then, as you would assume, the likes of Black Widow, Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, and Captain America must reunite to save the world from a new threat.
With Ultimate Alliance 3 just around the corner, Marvel’s Avengers coming on 15 May 2020, and Square Enix having a multi-game deal with Marvel, we appear to be at the start of a golden age of superhero games.
