Marvel X-Com: My Hero
The strategy game based in the Marvel universe by developers Firaxis, best known for the highly acclaimed X-Com series of turn-based strategy games, is definitely a thing, but we have very little in the way of concrete details on the game as of yet.
Some possible details came to light recently, however, and seemed to potentially paint the upcoming game in a bad light before it’s even revealed.
According to Jeff Grubb, the upcoming Marvel strategy game from Firaxis will not feature any existing MCU characters and you’ll create your own custom team of heroes. While this is an unconfirmed rumor, Grubb generally has the inside knowledge and a good track record so it’s pretty reasonable to believe this is the case.
People seemed to take this in a very negative manner, but also seemed to take it as this Marvel game will be Marvel mostly in name and wouldn’t even have any Marvel characters. While that is an outside possibility depending on your interpretation of Grubb’s statements it seems highly unlikely.
The idea that a Marvel-branded game wouldn’t feature any Marvel characters is kind of ridiculous. Grubb specifically states that the game wouldn’t be based on any MCU franchises (literally no recent or upcoming Marvel games are and for good reason, direct tie-ins tend to be terrible), and likely wouldn’t feature any existing characters. While that could be interpreted as not featuring any Marvel characters, it almost certainly means that at worst you’ll just see characters that have yet to be introduced in the MCU movies and shows. Marvel literally has thousands of characters to use that you’ve rarely if ever seen outside of the comics so that’s still a lot of room to play around with.
He even goes on to say the game will focus on the supernatural element of the Marvel universe, which hasn’t really been explored in the MCU to be sure. You’ve got Doctor Strange but even that might not be considered supernatural the way the MCU is set up.
The part where you won’t be playing as established heroes but rather creating your own custom team might not sound great to people who want to play as their favorite superheroes, but certainly makes a lot of sense and fits how Firaxis tends to make their games.
Chimera Squad has a little more personality to it when it comes to your party members, but the X-Com games are pretty much about playing with customized characters that you might assign a personality to but don’t really have much on their own. I definitely think a game where you create a customized team of heroes to deal with supernatural characters in the Marvel universe and interact with characters like say Blade or Ghost Rider or Morbius sounds like a potentially really good time.
Hopefully, we will get some concrete answers soon, as the game is heavily rumored to be unveiled later this month, possibly during GamesCom which starts on the 24th and runs through the 26th. But out of the upcoming Marvel projects we are currently aware of, this has the potential to be my favorite both because it’s doing something different from the usual character action game and I’m a sucker for a good turn-based strategy title and I honestly haven’t really sunken my teeth into one since Fire Emblem: Three Houses so I’m game for a new one to really get my attention.
That’s all for today and most likely the rest of this week but Marvel’s AvengersL War For Wakanda is dropping next week and I have been playing that quite a bit again to prepare so expect certainly impressions on the expansions and probably some more on the game where it stands as a whole as well. See ya real soon!
