Marvel has been dominating some of the biggest spaces in entertainment for years now, and the realm of video games is no exception. Between Marvel's Spider-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, and a series of upcoming projects, comic fans seem to be in very good hands when it comes to the future of superhero games. And as if Marvel's current slate of games couldn't get any bigger, recent news suggests that a Marvel MMORPG may be in the works from the team behind DC Universe Online.
While there isn't much information around this project between Marvel and Dimensional Ink Studios, it's hard to deny just how much potential it could have. On top of the general excitement around a Marvel MMORPG, this project could serve as a replacement of sorts for the often maligned Marvel's Avengers. Crystal Dynamics' attempt at bringing Marvel's biggest team together in one game tried to do a lot of different things with a live-service model, but much of it fell flat for varying reasons. With how familiar the MMORPG genre as a whole is with live-service content, this new Marvel project could greatly improve on everything Avengers tried to do.
How A Marvel MMORPG Could Approach Combat
Out of the many complaints that players have had with Marvel's Avengers, one of them consistently falls to the game's combat. While some characters can be exciting to use, there is little variation between the available heroes. Characters like Hawkeye and Kate Bishop are just different shades of the archer archetype, and most everyone else is some variation of a brawler. A Marvel MMO would have the advantage of the class systems that are commonplace in the genre, each of them capable of mixing up combat. Even if it took a simple four-class approach, it would already provide much more variety than Marvel's Avengers.
A Marvel MMORPG Could Have A Much Bigger World
On top of combat complaints, one of the problems with Marvel's Avengers is the game's lack of variety when it comes to its environments. While the addition of Wakanda earlier this year was a welcome change of pace, many of the game's other regions are still simplistic and relatively small in scope. If a Marvel MMORPG, especially coming from Dimensional Ink Studios, took an approach similar to DC Universe Online, it could give players some sprawling open worlds. Instead of nondescript parts of the Eastern Seaboard, players could explore key locations from the comics and see things like Avengers Tower or the Baxter Building.
A Marvel MMORPG Could Give Players The Heroes They Want
Marvel's Avengers promised to deliver a suite of heroes as DLC with its live-service model, but the offerings have left much to be desired so far. Black Panther was a welcome addition, but after over a year on the market and with the upcoming Spider-Man DLC being exclusive to PlayStation, the number of heroes available in Avengers makes the team seem rather small compared to its comic and film counterparts. A Marvel MMORPG could take on a much greater scale from the start, not only including the core Avengers but adding more niche characters such as Squirrel Girl or Moon Knight to make the game feel like a fleshed-out Marvel experience.
The reported Marvel MMORPG does not have a lot of official information around it, and it's probably going to stay that way for a long time. Nevertheless, it's hard to deny just how much potential it could have, and how much better it could be compared to Marvel's Avengers. While the live-service model has worked for other games in the industry, the approach that Avengers took has shown time and time again that it just doesn't work consistently enough. Hopefully, if this MMO project comes to fruition, it will be the experience that fans were hoping for with Marvel's Avengers.
A Marvel MMORPG is rumored to be in development.