Let’s Speculate about SkyDance’s upcoming Marvel Game…
D23 people! The huge biannual (and in this case biannual means every two years) all Disney event that covers all things Disney and I MEAN ALL THINGS DISNEY. You’ve got TV shows, movies, theme parks, fashion, anniversary panels, and yes, video games. Being such a huge brand tons of videogames are of course made bearing some IP Disney owns, though previously video games haven’t been a huge focus of D23, generally being saved for more specific gaming-focused events such as E3, Summer Gamesfest, The Game Awards, etc.
But this year, Disney has made sure to have it be known there will be a specific video games panel and it will be a “big deal”. They made sure to note that it will include updates on games like Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, Midnight Suns, Dreamlight Valley (which will have had its early access launch only a few days before this panel), Disney Mirrorverse and much much more including some new reveals which could be lots of different things, but one thing they made sure to let people know is that this panel at D23 on September 9th will be the first unveiling of Skydance Interactive’s new “Marvel Ensemble” game. Being that the panel is specifically presented not just as a Disney panel, but a Disney panel with Marvel’s name front and center, not only should we expect the majority of stuff shown to be Marvel-related, but this new game will probably be the showcase and biggest reveal.
We don’t really know a whole ton about Skydance Interactive at this point, but they are signed up to make both a new Marvel and a new Star Wars game and Amy Henning, known for her work on the Legacy of Kain, Jak and Daxter, and Uncharted series, is heading up the studio. So whatever the game is, it’ll likely be a story-rich character action game. Let’s speculate about what it might or might not be for a bit, shall we?
Rumors of a Daredevil game of some sort in the works have been around for years, maybe even a couple of decades at this point. And they had been floating around the announcement of Skydance’s new game as well, but given that this has been announced as a “Marvel ensemble game” a Daredevil or indeed, any solo hero game seems incredibly unlikely. There’s an outside chance of a game based on the Defenders or some similar street-level group that might include Daredevil, but one mostly focused on the man without fear seems incredibly unlikely.
A brand new game featuring the Avengers? Granted many are still kind of soured on the idea after Square Enix’s effort has been pretty poorly received overall, but an impressive trailer that is clearly a story-focused game not focused around confusing in-game currency and probably still at least a couple of years off could get fans excited about Earth’s mightiest heroes in video game form once again. Also, “ensemble” as a term certainly fits the Avengers as they are sort of a random ensemble of heroes rather than say a family unit or a highly trained team for that matter.
The Fantastic Four has also been a big rumor and obviously a great option for a video game if done well (and currently has no good MCU counterpart to be compared to) but the word “ensemble” makes me really doubt that it’s going to be based on Marvel’s first family of superheroes. Maybe I’m putting too much thought into the use of the word but “ensemble” usually to mean means a larger cast of characters and definitely terminology you wouldn’t use when describing a team that is literally family like the Fantastic Four is.
Now, when I think “ensemble” few games bring that to mind more than the Marvel Ultimate Alliance series. Do I think Skydance’s game will be a new game in that series? Eh most likely not, we don’t even know what the contract situation is with that series, and it really doesn’t seem like the kind of game Henning and co would make anyways.
What they might make, however, is a game that just stars a bunch of different Marvel characters that aren’t really an established team of any sort in particular but can team up and maybe even have a deep interconnecting story. I doubt it would have the sprawling cast of the Ultimate Alliance games but those games also don’t give characters much development so it might be a happy medium where you get a cast of anywhere from say 6–10 heroes that you get plenty of time to get to know and hang out with for anywhere from 20 to 30 hours which sounds like a great time to me.
So those are mostly my thoughts on what Skydance’s upcoming Marvel game may or may not be that’s set to be revealed at the D23 expo in just a little over three weeks. It could be any of these, it could be something completely out of left field we never even thought of. But it’s sure to be something exciting if Disney is specifically making a panel where it seems to be the big showpiece. I’ll certainly talk more about D23 when the event is ongoing, but have a few pieces in between now and then as well so see ya real soon!
