Written by Alisha Weinberger
Avengers #Reassemble! Square Enix to Develop Avengers Videogame for Marvel Entertainment
Marvel Entertainment’s latest announcement has the gaming community in a stir. Via ME’s twitter, a cinematic teaser trailer has dropped, revealing an Avenger-centric videogame. The project will be developed by industry titan Square Enix, in collaboration with its two subsidiaries, Eidos Montreal and Crystal Dynamics.
There isn’t much that can be said other than pure hype and speculation. The trailer is a hyperrealistic close-up, panning across a desolated battle, narrated by an unknown female voice. Strewn about are various Avengers motifs, from Bruce Banner’s broken glasses, Cap’s shield, and Iron Man’s disembodied arm. All of this building up to the iconic Avengers “A” logo and a trendy #Reassemble hashtag. It is way too early for any definitive release date, gameplay, or plot details, let alone what genre of game it will be.
Square Enix is a Japanese game developer known for bringing the world high caliber properties such as the Final Fantasy series or Kingdom Hearts, or even cult classics like the The World Ends With You. But to this writer, it’s no surprise at all Square Enix has dealings with a Marvel property.
Considering Disney acquired Marvel back in 2009 for a near $4 billion deal, and Disney and Square Enix have worked cheek-to-cheek before. Although Disney doesn’t own Square Enix, the two entertainment giants collaborated to create the Kingdom Heartsuniverse, its first game being released in 2002 prior to the Disney-Marvel deal. KH is an RPG action adventure series that follows main hero Sora as he traverses various landscapes from the Disney/Final Fantasy universe, interacting with a plethora of characters from their respective worlds. So far there are two main games in the series along with various spin-offs and a highly anticipated third that was announced at E3 2013.
If this sounds familiar to a younger generation, the toys-to-life, open world game Disney Infinity, which too capitalized on crossovers from Marvel, Disney/Pixar, and Star Wars, may come to mind. Sadly, due to cost and financial reasons, Disney Infinity came to an end in May of last year. However, Disney Infinity wasn’t the only Disney/Marvel game to get the boot. THQ was in the works to develop a big budget Avengers game that was supposed to be released alongside the 2012 film, but was scrapped due to cost.
It’s pure speculation that this Square Enix developed Avengers game was a long term goal preceding the Disney/Marvel buyout, or whether the cancellation of THQ’s own Avengers game and end of Disney Infinity had anything to do with it. When or Whatever this new Avengers game may be, and with the recent release Final Fantasy XV and a still unannounced release date for Kingdom Hearts III, Square Enix is going to have a busy year.
