This article comes from Den of Geek UK.
Marvel’s Avengers (also known as The Avengers Project) is an upcoming game from the developers at Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montréal, with Square Enix set to publish the title, presumably across PS4, Xbox One, and PC. It’s unclear at the moment whether it shares continuity with Insomniac’s similarly-titled Marvel’s Spider-Man, but seeing Earth’s Mightiest Heroes together in a AAA game is a very exciting prospect either way.
The game was first announced in 2017, with a brief trailer that showcased familiar imagery pertaining to some of the most iconic characters in Marvel‘s stable of superheroes, including Captain America’s Vibranium shield and Iron Man’s armor. We assume most of the Avengers you know and love will make an appearance.
Square Enix has been tight-lipped thus far about the finer details, but that hasn’t stopped information from leaking and rumors from spreading. If you’re looking for a nice little summary of all of these rumblings, you’ve definitely come to the right place.
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Here’s all the info that’s fit to print about the upcoming Marvel’s Avengers game…
The Avengers Project Was First Announced in 2017
At the time of writing, the only trailer we’ve seen for Marvel’s Avengers is the teaser above that arrived on YouTube in January 2017. It’s since clocked up an impressive 13 million views, and the vast majority of thumb-based reactions have been upvoted. There is, it would seem, a fair amount of appetite for this game.
As for what this trailer actually contains, it’s nothing particularly groundbreaking: there are moody shots of iconic Marvel paraphernalia, with these instantly recognizable trinkets looking a bit worse for wear. The names of the companies come up on the screen, as does the Avengers logo, and the trailer ends with an intriguing hashtag: #Reassemble.
Further Reading: Marvel Movies Release Schedule
What might this mean? Well, if you’ll allow us to put our speculation hat on for a moment, we’d wager that Marvel’s finest superteam has been through a rough round of battles and needs to buck up its ideas and put things right. Interestingly, since this game trailer dropped, we’ve seen the movie version of the Avengers go through a similar cycle of massive defeat and hard-fought comeback across the Infinity War and Endgame films. We look forward to seeing what this game adds to the Avengers mythos to make things feel fresh.
The Avengers Project: Characters Are Customizable
Which heroes will be in The Avengers Project? The trailer includes Bruce Banner’s glasses, the God of Thunder’s trusty hammer, one of Tony Stark’s repulsor gauntlets, and the shield that’s traditionally wielded by Steve Rogers. This seems to suggest that Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America will appear in the game.
Interestingly, a description of the game that leaked on the E3 website states that Marvel’s Avengers will invite players to “master extraordinary abilities,” “customize your heroes,” and “combine powers.” While this is wild speculation, is it possible that these bits of information point to a “Create Your Own Hero” option in the game?
Further Reading: What to Expect from a Spider-Man PS4 Sequel
As it stands, Square Enix hasn’t officially announced which heroes will be in the game or how choosing your hero will work. We’ll just have to wait for a proper announcement and make do with speculation for now. Creating your own character, within the framework of the Marvel universe, is a pretty cool possibility, though.
The Avengers Project Has Single-player and Multiplayer
On top of the aforementioned customization options, we do know a few details about how gameplay will work in Marvel’s Avengers. From the description that popped up on the E3 website (before being promptly deleted), we know that the game is envisioned as “an epic action-adventure that combines cinematic storytelling with continuous single-player and co-operative gameplay.”
This mesh of single-player and multiplayer options has certainly caused a bit of intrigue. Could Square Enix be planning Marvel’s Avengers to be a big online, live service game like Destiny and The Division, where you can either tackle missions solo or team up with mates to complete tasks together? Certainly, the concept of “continuous” gameplay points to an online game world.
Further Reading: Avengers: Endgame Ending Explained
This definitely sounds like a cool strategy, allowing the game’s marketing team to target both superhero fans and regular visitors to hugely-populated online gaming worlds. Those fandoms combined would make a very broad church, and the marketing hashtags would write themselves. #AssembleYourTeam and so forth.
The Avengers Project: Villains Will Be a “Constant Threat”
There are no villains in the announcement trailer, and there aren’t any familiar foes mentioned in the leaked E3 description. So, for now, we’ve really got no clue who you’ll be going up against when you eventually load up The Avengers of Project.
There is, however, an interesting turn of phrase at the very end of the leaked E3 description of the game: it tells us that players will “defend an ever-expanding world under constant threat,” which seems to imply that there will be a steady stream of baddies to fight in an environment that keeps getting bigger.
Further Reading: 9 Superhero Video Games in Development
Although having a big pile of villains has proven to be a difficult task for superhero movies to pull off, this isn’t a huge cause for concern for a game. After all, Marvel’s Spider-Man recently reminded us that you can cram a vast group of evildoers into a gaming experience without the overwhelming overstuffed-ness that the same squad of sinister baddies would incur on the big screen.
We’re just wondering if the villains from the Avengers movies – Loki, Ultron, Thanos and The Black Order – will make appearances in this game. We certainly wouldn’t bet against it.
The Avengers Project Will Probably Arrive in 2020
In the company’s latest financial results briefing, Square Enix’s chief financial officer Kazuharu Watanabe stated that “due to the progress of our development efforts and out of consideration of competitor release schedules, our major launches will take place after midyear of FY2020/3.”
If our understanding of financial years is the same as Mr. Watanabe’s, this seems to imply that that big upcoming Square Enix games like Marvel’s Avengers and Final Fantasy VII Remake will probably be with us between October 2019 and March 2020. This gives us a window, then, but nothing that’s set in stone.
Further Reading: What’s Next for the MCU After Avengers: Endgame?
Of course, as soon as Marvel’s Avengers gets an official release date, we’ll be sure to update you and this article. Interestingly, if Square Enix holds off until 2020, the publisher may be able to launch the game across current-generation and next-generation consoles.
Neither the PlayStation 5 nor the Xbox Scarlett has set a firm release date at present, but punters and prognosticators are predicting that 2020 could be the year either one or both of them launch.
The Avengers Project Will Be Fully Unveiled at E3 2019
If you’re wondering when more Marvel’s Avengers news will become available, there’s one big date coming up to circle on your calendar: the E3 2019 schedule tells us that the iconic LA gaming expo will host a presentation from Square Enix on Monday, June 10 at 9 pm ET. We expect some big announcements to be made then and perhaps a new trailer to be revealed.
There will also be opportunities for E3 attendees to get hands-on with Marvel’s Avengers at the conference, so we’ll probably see some first impressions articles doing the rounds within the week. It should be interesting to see how the game goes down.
Whatever gets announced and whatever the game ends up looking like, we’ll be sure to keep you updated with all the latest news on Marvel’s Avengers as and when it happens.