The True Story Of The Cancelled Avengers FPS Game
Turns out THQ almost had a triple-a Avengers title as far back as 2012.
When Square Enix and Eidos Montreal formally announced Marvel's Avengers for Stadia, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One at E3 2019, it might've given both gaming and Marvel fans a sense of déjà vu. After all, only a few years prior, another high-profile interactive outing based on the very same Marvel superhero team had been revealed only to be unceremoniously quashed and relegated to the dustbin of gaming history.
Intended to tie-in to Joss Whedon's The Avengers (2012), The Avengers (working title) was a multiplayer, co-op brawler set to be developed by THQ Australia and fellow Aussie devs Blue Tongue Entertainment. The Avengers caught the attention of eagle-eyed redditors as far back as 2011, after it had already been quietly shuttered.
Besides the prospect of a proper, triple-a movie tie-in game (which throughout the '10s seemed more and more unlikely), what caught fans' eyes was the game's first-person perspective, not what you would normally expect from a co-op superhero game. It wasn't an FPS though, at least not according to the game design director. "What we're calling it is a first-person ranged brawler," they were quoted as saying in a video by the YouTube channel DidYouKnowGaming.
The gameplay would've been co-op between four players, with the game emphasising teamwork as an essential mechanic. Each of the playable characters (Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, with Hawkeye & Black Widow planned as unlockables) would have a unique play style, such as Iron Man being able to fly and Hulk having strong melee attacks.
Assist attacks allowed players to stun enemies, leaving them open to be finished off by other players, such as Thor summoning lightning followed by Captain America flinging his shield. XP would be earned by through melee combos, which would unlock additional abilities via skill tree. Each character would've had a special, temporary "hero boost" used to temporarily raise their stats, like Iron Man creating energy shields around allies.
Rather than being a direct story tie-in to the Whedon film, the game would've followed an original story penned by longtime Marvel scribe Brian Michael Bendis, inspired by the "Secret Invasion" crossover event he co-authored. This tracks with the presence of a Super-Skrull enemy in the leaked post-cancellation footage, who displays the combined powers of X-Men members Wolverine & Cyclops, and the Fantastic Four.
So what happened? As is with most things, money. Development began in 2010 when THQ acquired the rights from Marvel. Their Aussie division was handling development for the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, while Blue Tongue was handling the PC port. Plans were considered for a Wii U version, and a game mode that would include Kinect motion control functionality, but both were dropped.
It all came crashing down with THQ's much-publicised financial woes mid-2011, when the failure of Homefront and their misguided uDraw peripheral cost them over $100 million. Meanwhile, the value of the Australian dollar rose, meaning THQ Oz and Blue Tongue were being paid more than the rest of the company. THQ wound up closing both studios and reached out to Marvel for additional financing, but were turned down, at which point the game was pretty much dead in the water. The Avengers license would wind up in the hands of Ubisoft, who would make their own Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth, which borrowed some of the earlier game's concepts including the "Secret Invasion" storyline.
Fans have clamoured for a proper, triple-a Avengers title for years, and with Square Enix's forthcoming project, it seems that long-delayed dream might finally come to fruition. The game is currently set to release in September 2020, but given the many, many extenuating circumstances present in the world-at-large right now, whether it'll meet that date is yet to be seen. Personally, I won't believe it until I have the game in my hands, in the console, downloading a day 1 patch, playing, crashing, rebooting the console, and finally getting the damn thing to work.