Marvel may not dominate video games the way they do comics and movies, but they sure are trying. Spider-Man on PlayStation 4 was one of the biggest games of last year. And Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 is dumb, but it has Blade, so how bad can it really be. At this year’s New York Comic Con, Marvel assembled its newest slate of games for us to play.
Even without Capcom, Marvel is a player in the fighting game space with Marvel Contest of Champions. Apparently that free-to-play mobile game has been humming along for years, amassing over 150 characters and billions of matches played. And now developer Kabam is making the battle even bigger with Marvel Realm of Champions coming in 2020.
Based on the Battleworld conceit of the recent Secret Wars crossover, Realm of Champions is an upcoming mobile game set in the same universe as Contest of Champions. But instead of a fighting game, this is a multiplayer action RPG. Set in a weird future alternate reality ruled by various barons, players pledge alliance to one of several superheroic dynasties. Go with House of Iron and you’ll get an armored outfit to aid A.I. Tony Stark. Side with Wakanda and Queen Shuri gives you your own Dora Milaje Black Panther armor. This lets you customize your character and team up with others while still basically playing as the superhero you want. Plus the reworking of characters injects some nice diversity. Get ready for President Peggy Carter and Madame Web Gwen Stacy.
For a more traditional Marvel tale, albeit told in a brand new format, we learned some more news about Iron Man VR. After playing a demo for ourselves, we’re already pretty confident that Iron Man gameplay translates pretty well to PlayStation VR. So aside from details like Josh Keaton voicing Stark, Ghost being the main antagonist, and Adi Granov designing various armors you choose in the garage, the biggest announcement was just the release date. Iron Man VR arrive on February 28, 2020.
And a few months later in May 2020, Earth’s Mightiest Bootleg Heroes assemble in Square Enix’s Marvel’s Avengers. I’m not going to lie, fam. I played the demo and wasn’t impressed. We’ll share more in-depth impressions later. But aside from some technically impressive visuals, I found the combat repetitive and the cinematic set pieces hollow. Who thought an Avengers game should take cues from Destiny?
But we did learn something pretty exciting about the roster. Alongside Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, and Black Widow Marvel revealed that Kamala Khan’s Ms. Marvel also joins the team as a young point of view character. Finally, someone Nolan North or Troy Baker can’t voice. The plot sees AIM stepping in to help the world through science after the Avengers disband following a tragedy they maybe caused. But AIM’s “help” involves hunting down Inhumans like Kamala who’ve begun developing “dangerous” powers. We just hope her stretchy limbs look less gross in her own upcoming Disney+ show than they do in this realistic video game.
For more on NYCC check out our cosplay photo gallery and watch the best trailers.
