By Eric Frederiksen and Andrew Hayward
7 min read
While superhero movies have been huge at the box office for years, video games have been slow to catch up. Maybe studios don't want to try to measure up to the likes of the Batman Arkham games or Spider-Man games. Maybe they're worried about ending up like Marvel's Avengers, the live-service co-op superhero game that came and went a few years ago.
Whatever the reason, we've gone for years without many good superhero games aside from the Marvel's Spider-Man series, which released its latest entry just last year. But now we have a bunch of other Marvel Comics games on the horizon from different studios—many of which have impressive talent and track records.
Keep in mind that some of these games are quite a ways out. Many of these games lack firm release dates, footage, screenshots, confirmed platforms, or even confirmed titles—just formal announcements. But that’s plenty to start dreaming over.
Here’s a look at every upcoming Marvel game with all of the known details.
Marvel meets Overwatch? That's certainly what Marvel Rivals looks like, based on the initial trailer released in March. Developed by NetEase Games, Marvel Rivals will be a team-based shooter and combat game featuring a wide array of headline comic heroes, including Iron Man, Spider-Man, the Hulk, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, multiple members of the X-Men and the Guardians of the Galaxy, and beyond.
It's a free-to-play PC game, which is new territory for Marvel—and it's coming pretty soon. An alpha test is set for May, though it sounds like it will be a closed test and there's no sense of when to expect the full rollout thereafter.
Of all the games on this list, Marvel's Wolverine has been out in the world the longest, having been announced all the way back in 2021. Insomniac cut its Marvel teeth on Spider-Man, and then proved its expertise with Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Spider-Man 2. The Ratchet & Clank studio is perfectly situated to branch out to other characters.
Insomniac has cited its desire to work on Wolverine because, despite being quite different from Spider-Man, both "feel deeply compelled to defend people who are less able to do so." Expect the gameplay to be quite different, with Logan being a surly, stout ball covered in hair and pointy bits, compared to the more lithe and acrobatic Spidey.
The studio was hacked in 2023, resulting in the release of unannounced info and even some early gameplay footage. If you dig around for those, though, remember that they're incomplete assets that were never meant to see the light of day—the end product could be quite different.
As with Insomniac's other games, we expect this game to be a PlayStation exclusive for a couple of years before appearing on PC.
Arkane Studios, known for Dishonored, Prey, and Deathloop, surprised us last fall with the announcement of Blade. This will be an action-adventure title following dhampir Eric Brooks, better known as Blade, in an original story. Arkane has said very little about the game, but previous games from the studio have relied heavily on exploration of limited spaces, gameplay that allows for player improvisation, and narrative depending on player choice.
Working on a licensed character like Blade may shift Arkane’s priorities somewhat, but we'd be very surprised if they suddenly dropped everything we know them for. We expect to see Marvel's Blade on Xbox Series X and S, and on PC. Whether it appears on PlayStation 5 is a total unknown at this point, as parent company Microsoft’s cross-platform strategy has been inconsistent.
Coming from Electronic Arts studio Cliffhanger Games is Marvel's Black Panther. If you don't recognize the studio name, don't worry—it was specifically created to develop this game. While EA hasn't talked in terms of specifics, we're expecting an open-world game set primarily in Wakanda.
Image: EA
The studio is "dedicated to delivering fans a definitive and authentic Black Panther experience, giving them more agency and control over their narrative than they have ever experienced in a story-driven video game. Wakanda is a rich superhero sandbox, and our mission is to develop an epic world for players who love Black Panther and want to explore the world of Wakanda as much as we do," according to studio head Kevin Stephens.
The idea of having more control over a story than any other narrative game is a big promise, and we hope EA and Cliffhanger can make good on the idea.
This game is definitely the odd one in the bunch, but we're excited. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves director Amy Hennig is in charge of developing this game for Skydance Media, which is reason enough to keep an eye on this title. Based roughly on the “Captain America/Black Panther: Flags of Our Fathers” storyline, this game is set not in the modern day, but rather during World War II, before Steve Rogers had settled in for his long winter's nap.
While Steve will be Cap, though, T'Challa wouldn't be born yet for another 40-plus years—so instead you'll be playing as the Azzuri, the wearer of the Black Panther mantle at the time. Also playable will be Gabriel Jones of Cap's Howling Commandos, and Nanali, leader of the Wakandan spy network.
The game will reportedly be an "narrative-driven, blockbuster action-adventure game," according to the initial announcement, and the latest trailer above definitely showcases that—but we still haven't seen real gameplay footage. It's due out in 2025.
Along with its Black Panther game, Electronic Arts also has an Iron Man game in development. EA says the game will be a "single-player, third-person, action-adventure" title. Leading the team is Olivier Proulx, who worked previously on the 2021 Guardians of the Galaxy game from Eidos Montreal—one of the real sleeper hits from that year.
Image: EA
Iron Man movie-inspired games were released over a decade ago to middling reviews, and Marvel appeared to cool off on games after that. Hopefully, this Iron Man game turns out a lot better.
Spider-Man 2 (shown) came out less than six months ago, so don't expect this game until around 2029 or 2030. While Insomniac has been developing excellent games like Ratchet & Clank and Sunset Overdrive for years, 2018's Spider-Man made the studio a household name among gamers and showed that Batman isn't the only superhero in town who can support a hit game.
Last fall saw the release of Spider-Man 2, which improved on the original in many ways and is one of the biggest reasons right now to own a PlayStation 5. We know almost nothing about this game other than the fact that it exists, but at least we have three great examples—between Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, and Spider-Man: Miles Morales—that remind us that Insomniac knows its stuff when it comes to ol' Web-head.
When Insomniac's data was leaked last year, one of the in-development games we learned about is a Venom spin-off from the Spider-Man series. Venom played a major role in Spider-Man 2, acting as a rift between himself and his best friend Harry, as well as a representation of the stress and frustration that Peter suppresses to do his job as Spidey.
While Harry and Peter both found redemption, though, Venom didn't so much. We're curious to see how Insomniac goes about turning Venom from the symbiote we met in Spider-Man 2 into the anti-hero we know from his years of comics. This game is in very early development, though, and we wouldn't expect to see it for a while. Expect it to be a PlayStation-exclusive title.
Hackers also revealed apparent plans for an Insomniac-developed X-Men game, but since there's little more to go on than that at this point, we'll leave it at that. Suffice it to say, there will be plenty of Marvel gaming ahead for years to come.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
Editor's note: All of the games above are expected to be traditional or "Web2" games without crypto or blockchain elements. this story was originally posted on March 9 and last updated with new details on March 29.
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