The Best X-Men Games No One Played
Should Team Ninja have made X-Men Legends 3 instead?
Somehow it's 2019 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance is back. It makes no sense, but the gaming franchise that endeared itself to True Believers in the late noughties has returned, debuting to a moderately positive response in July. It's developed by Team Ninja and is also a Nintendo Switch exclusive, and while it does bear all the hallmarks of its two predecessors, it isn't quite the same thing, stumbling in a similar fashion to the Vicarious Visions-fronted Ultimate Alliance 2, which was seen as a step down compared to the original 2006 title developed by Raven Software.
In many ways, Ultimate Alliance should be seen as Raven's series. They built the first game themselves, and it was also they who developed X-Men Legends, MUA's spiritual predecessor, and a series all too many fans seem to overlook, either due to the declining popularity of the X-Men during the rise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or simply because Ultimate Alliance is seen as the bigger, better, and more ambitious title.
Releasing in 2004 and 2005 respectively, X-Men Legends and its sequel were isometric, co-op oriented dungeon-crawlers that focused on Marvel's eponymous uncanny group, arriving at a time when - in the wake of the nineties TV show and then Fox's movies - the X-Men were still the House of Ideas' most beloved and famous superhero team. That seems almost strange to think in the age of the MCU and the Avengers, but it's true - to many, the X-Men were and still are Marvel's most important superhero property.
So, why now? Why X-Men Legends? Well, apart from the fact that Ultimate Alliance has sparked new interest in the series, the X-Men are also on the up. Teased for MCU Phase Five and on the cusp of a new golden era with the arrival of writer Jonathan Hickman, Marvel's mutants have embarked on their own little resurgence, and so it feels only apt to talk about one of their more successful - if not forgotten - exploits in the gaming medium.
The Legends series was an absolute gem, and one all too many tend to forget.