The Path To An Avengers Video Game Should Have Always Gone Through Insomniac’s Spider-Man

Robert Downey Jr. starred as Tony Stark for the first time in 2008. Iron Man. The movie is also a good one in and of itself. Iron Man The Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU, is the largest film and television franchise in the past decade. The post-credits of Iron Man served as a teaser for what was to come, as Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury informed Stark that he was a part of a bigger universe.

At the time, “The Avenger Initiative” felt like a throwaway tease for something that would never happen (even for those involved in writing the scene), but films starring Captain America, Thor, and Hulk started building an unprecedented interconnectivity. Then came the news of what was previously impossible: The Avengers. Some feared that the film of 2012 would try to handle too many different elements. Too many plots. There are too many heroes. There are too many superheroes.

It wasn’t. But it wasn’t.Iron Man 1 The following are some examples of how to get started: 2, The Incredible Hulk, ThorThen, Captain America the First AvengerThe characters and story conventions of ) were enough to carry the weight. The Avengers could home in on the parts that mattered. The Avengers was a huge success and, to this day, serves as a case study for how to build an interconnected movie universe.

Marvel’s Spider-Man

Marvel’s success is unique. While other companies have attempted to create a strong universe in different media, they have not been as successful. Marvel would therefore have known how to create a powerful universe when it decided to allocate more resources towards its gaming division. Marvel’s Spider-Man, one of its earliest games during the gaming revival by the company, gave us a good sense of what the future held. Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man 2018 kept multiple plates spinning throughout the fantastic story, with new takes on the iconic villains and heroes that the webslinger’s fans are intimately familiar. 

In stark contrast to the MCU’s approach with Spider-Man (which I also love), I was happy to have a video game series where Peter Parker – and eventually Miles Morales – were simply friendly neighborhood Spider-Men. The MCU Infinity Saga’s 2019 climax was a fantastic conclusion. Avengers: EndgameI was itching to play a game like that. Marvel’s Avengers, developed by Crystal Dynamics, was available in just over a month, or 2020. Although I liked the content of the single player, I felt that the game didn’t learn much from Marvel’s success with MCU. 

Marvel’s Avengers

Marvel’s Spider-Man was full of lovingly placed references and Easter eggs to a larger universe (including a comment from Spidey that the Avengers were out on the West Coast – the setting for Marvel’s Avengers), but the Avengers game takes place in a different universe entirely. That’s okay. Why rush to an Avengers story, when you could have built it up in the games? This felt unearned, rushed and I didn’t care for this Tony Stark version or Thor. It was a flawed game, but the absence of pre-existing building blocks wasn’t the worst part.

Insomniac’s first Spider-Man game nailed so much about what players want from a superhero game. It’s a self-contained, single-player story with ever-evolving gameplay, a massive playground to explore, and no live-service plan that banks on highly dedicated players that will spend money on microtransactions to keep the game profitable. No, Spider-Man was the antithesis of games like that, and in doing so, it remains relevant more than five years later, even as its sequels soared to even greater heights. And it accomplished all of that while still building a universe; it felt worthy of and in line with the legacy of the MCU’s first three Phases. Marvel’s Avengers, meanwhile, was unfocused, mismanaged, and, in its worst moments, felt like a microtransaction-riddled cash grab.

Although there are many things that Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 have done right, what Avengers has not, I didn’t realize this until last weekend, when I was putting the final touches to the storyline of Spider-Man 2. Marvel’s Avengers, I know, was created in parallel to Marvel’s Spider-Man. (Avengers launched in 2017, over a year before Spider-Man) And while hindsight always is 20/20 it’s never been more clear that Marvel Spider-Man was the model for all future Marvel games.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

You will soon be hearing about brief SpoilersMarvel’s Spider-Man 2 can be found in the two following paragraphs.

The story, the characters, and the universe are all affected by this. It is a good idea to useIt’s also true of how the game is played. Insomniac nailed the swinging and fighting of dueling wall-crawlers in New York. Although I think a lot can be applied to other heroes too, the Spider-Man 2 key features really drive this point home. Other characters can easily adapt new abilities like Peter’s Symbiote power or the Spider-Men gliding capability. Why can’t Iron Man and Doctor Strange use some of the core gameplay?

But on a more specific level, the section of Spider-Man 2 where you play as Venom told me that a great Incredible Hulk game has never been more achievable. As you are able to rampage your way through this linear, but highly satisfying sequence, it makes you feel unstoppable. Imagine what an entire game could be like if a team of talented developers built on that base.

The main detractor of my argument is the fact that Insomniac could not possibly make every Marvel game. There are so many reasons for this, but chiefly, it would be impossible to release more titles using this blueprint. Quality would almost certainly deteriorate and games such as the three Spider-Man title we have received would stop feeling special. Marvel Games, the licensor and publisher of Spider-Man games, can help.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns

The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s heyday was characterized by the fact that each movie was unique, even though Marvel Studios was overseeing the production. They guided and oversaw its creation, ensuring it was in line with the MCU’s overarching story. They all felt distinctly like Marvel superhero movies, even as they often existed within different subgenres. It was great. ThorCaptain America can take you on a thrilling espionage ride, or a fantasy movie featuring Norse deities battling in the space. Winter Soldier Before the stars of these films battled Ultron in an iconic summer blockbuster, they teamed up.  

Marvel Games should aim to replicate – at least in proxy – what Marvel Studios accomplished. If it wants to create a universe or a team-up game, it should look no further than how Marvel Studios approached that same task. Marvel Studios was the central organizing principal for the MCU’s architecture. However, the MCU creators were free to create their own steps while still using their creative visions. People became not only Iron Man fans or Captain America fans – they became Marvel fans. They saw each movie in anticipation of the next, and the slow build allowed for the satisfying payoff we received with each new Avengers title.

It makes perfect sense to farm Marvel’s latest push into the gaming space out to some of the best development studios like Crystal Dynamics, Firaxis, and Eidos-Montréal. It’s great that these creators can apply their different genre expertise to Marvel’s stable of heroes, but like the film side of the company, these games still need to feel in line with their counterparts. Some, like Midnight Suns and Guardians of the Galaxy, accomplished that better than others. However, when Marvel’s Avengers, a game featuring some of the most iconic characters in pop culture, failed to capture a lasting audience, I hope it served as a wake-up call to Marvel Games as much as the Spider-Man franchise’s success has. Spider-Man so perfectly laid the blueprint, much in the way the Batman Arkham series did more than a decade ago, so why not use it? 

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy

Marvel Studios in its best moments focused on producing a great film first, and an entire universe second. Marvel Games must look to its past successes in film to understand why it is so successful. Marvel does not need to create an entire universe for everything, but it can if they want. It’s perfectly okay for these games to live on their own – after all, the universe-first mentality backfires far more often than it succeeds; look no further than the MCU’s fourth Phase.

There is a lot to be done. Iron Man succeeded in laying a foundation by translating characters that feel ripped straight from the pages of our favorite comic books, Insomniac’s Spider-Man series excels at bringing these characters to life by placing them in heartfelt stories, understanding how to put an authentic interpretation of their power-sets in the palm of our hands, and creating a world that feels much larger than it actually is. These movies followed Iron Man didn’t feel like Iron Man Rip-offs are common, but filmmakers showed a keen understanding of the factors that made MCU’s first movie such a success. Marvel Games should be the organizing principle that oversees these games as they are pitched and developed to ensure that they operate with a full understanding of why Marvel’s Spider-Man succeeded when Marvel’s Avengers failed. Marvel Games should serve as that organizing principle that oversees these games as they are pitched and developed to ensure they are operating with a full understanding of why games like Marvel’s Spider-Man succeeded when Marvel’s Avengers failed.If it isn’t the direct spiritual successor of Spider-Man it will still have a similar feel.

Skydance New Media is releasing a Black Panther/Captain America game, while EA will be bringing out another Black Panther title. We also know that a Wolverine-themed game by the same studio as Spider-Man’s creator is in the works. We don’t know if those will be connected in any way to the Spider-Man games, but regardless, if they learn the lessons of what to do and what not to do from Spider-Man and Avengers, respectively, it will feel like a massive step in the right direction for the Marvel video games that exist outside of Insomniac’s Spider-Verse. Maybe the next Avengers video game we see will have the same build up Earth’s Mightiest Heroes deserve.

You can read our review of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 to learn why it is such a success.