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Devs Reveal Scrapped Plans for a Connected Marvel Gaming Universe 'MGU' Similar to the MCU

Marvel once planned a connected universe for its video games, just like the MCU. But according to former developers, those plans never came to life.

thegamepost.com

On a recent episode of The Fourth Curtain podcast, writer Alex Irvine and host Alex Seropian revealed that there were once plans to create a connected Marvel Gaming Universe (MGU). It would have tied multiple Marvel games together under one timeline, similar to what the MCU did for movies. The idea was exciting, but in the end, it never became a reality.

"When I first started working on Marvel games, there was this idea that they were going to create like a Marvel gaming universe that was going to exist in the same way that the MCU," Irvine said on the podcast.

"And I was coming out of ARGs at that point and thinking, 'Wouldn't it be cool if we had some ARG aspects?' There would be a place where players could go that all the games touched, and we could move them back and forth from game to game. We could link in comics, we could loop in anything, we could do original stuff. And then, as Alex said, it didn't get funded."

"Even back then, we were trying to figure out, 'If there's going to be this MGU, how is it different from the comics? How is it different from the movies? How are we going to decide if it stays consistent?' And I think some of those questions got complex enough that there were people at Disney who didn't really want to deal with them," said Irvine.

Instead, Marvel chose to focus on standalone games, giving developers more creative freedom without worrying about tying into a larger universe, and that approach has led to some incredible games.

 

[Puscifer]

Terrible idea

 

[LectureMaster]

Other than Spidey, there ain't even any successful Marvel games, and put all those failures together? What were they even thinking about.

 

[A.Romero]

I don't see how that could work without imposing unnecesary limits to devs.

What's the point in having Insomiac's Spider Man and any developer's Hulk living in the same universe? Just throw a few references, maybe some cameos or whatever?

No thanks. We have enough source continuity from comics so devs should never run out of histories and references to make.

 

[RafterXL]

Good, screw the MCU. There is nothing dumber than having 40 movies all linked by story.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

The MCU was a great idea at first but its ramifications have been pretty terrible. Having a neverending interconnected saga ends up in half-assed products that lack any uniqueness.

 

[blacktout]

Other than Spidey, there ain't even any successful Marvel games, and put all those failures together? What were they even thinking about.

The hilarious thing is that you have to imagine that Sony would have wanted to keep the Spider-Man games separate, so the hypothetical MGU wouldn't have even have had that going for them.

 

[jshackles]

Kinda makes sense considering that the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy games both had the same kind of shitty off-brand MCU character models / designs.

 

[AJUMP23]

They needed to make the Marvel Mass Effect.

 

[semiconscious]

'the idea was exciting... & then we found out how long it actually takes to make a video game...'

 

[Larxia]

Other than Spidey, there ain't even any successful Marvel games, and put all those failures together? What were they even thinking about.

Guardians of the galaxy and Midnight Suns both were extremely good games, better than Insomniac Spider-Mans in my opinion, by far.
They were however not very sucessful indeed, which is a shame.

Kinda makes sense considering that the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy games both had the same kind of shitty off-brand MCU character models / designs.

For Avengers I agree. Guardians of the Galaxy though looks great on its own I think, Gamora looks better in the game in my opinion actually (and is a much better character too), but I can understand the comment. I did like the game more than the movies though.

 

[Loomy]

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

No thanks

 

[MiguelItUp]

Scrapped for good reason. Not doing such a thing just gives them much more freedom, and that IP needs that in games.

 

[Fbh]

Seems like they reached the best decision. Let games be standalone instead of having to force connections.

The MCU was a great idea at first but its ramifications have been pretty terrible. Having a neverending interconnected saga ends up in half-assed products that lack any uniqueness.

The MCU was great when all you needed to do to keep up was watch 1-2 movies a year.
Eventually not only did the quality go down but they also want you to watch like 3 movies and 3 Tv shows a year and it just became too much

 

[intbal]

Other than Spidey, there ain't even any successful Marvel games, and put all those failures together? What were they even thinking about.

I thought Rivals was supposed to be a success.
Was that all a fraud?

 

[DryvBy]

Good, screw the MCU. There is nothing dumber than having 40 movies all linked by story.

Yeah, I'm so checked out of these movies. When someone asks me if I've seen any Marvel movies in the past 5+ years, my reply is always "no, and you haven't either since there's no true ending". I don't want to watch 3 hours of poorly acted CGI cartoons.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Other than Spidey, there ain't even any successful Marvel games, and put all those failures together? What were they even thinking about.

That Jean Grey game is releasing this year or next year. I think it might have Wolverine in it.

 

[Zannegan]

Other than Spidey, there ain't even any successful Marvel games, and put all those failures together? What were they even thinking about.

Nothing on that level. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 was fun and I think fairly successful. But I agree: with How the Avengers was out of the gate, it's a good thing everyone else didn't have to make games tied to that albatross.

 

[ReBurn]

I liked Guardians of the Galaxy come at me

 

[Zannegan]

I thought Rivals was supposed to be a success.
Was that all a fraud?

To his point though, Rivals was only free to be as good as it is because it wasn't tied to another studio's universe or creative vision. Imagine if it had to take cues from the numerous less successful Marvel games that came before.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Probably made sense until Marvel's Avengers failed. You could have easily worked in the Guardians and Sony had made the deal for Wolverine/X-Men.

Could have had the potential for larger scale story telling and there is still some evidence that Spider-Man and Wolverine's worlds are connected.

Most of the people shitting on this didn't grow up with the comics and cartoons where cross over was king.

I can see why this didn't work out, but it wasn't a bad idea at all.

 

[Zannegan]

Probably made sense until Marvel's Avengers failed. You could have easily worked in the Guardians and Sony had made the deal for Wolverine/X-Men.

Could have had the potential for larger scale story telling and there is still some evidence that Spider-Man and Wolverine's worlds are connected.

Most of the people shitting on this didn't grow up with the comics and cartoons where cross over was king.

I can see why this didn't work out, but it wasn't a bad idea at all.

The issue was definitely more in the execution than the idea. Still, an MGU could have restricted so much in terms of story and even gameplay moves.

Still, I think a loose connection rather than a strict MGU would have been better. Maybe specific missions or (hopefully free) DLC characters for games where that would apply like the cartoon and comic crossovers you mention.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

I would have been fine with this but only if it's done properly and if it was for all systems

 

[ResilientBanana]

Good, screw the MCU. There is nothing dumber than having 40 movies all linked by story.

Yeah, could you imagine if graphic novels did this? It would be the worst.