The long-expected, anticipated, and ominously titled Avengers Project from Square Enix will be presented at this year’s E3. The announcement came via Twitter along with the game’s new, official title: Marvel’s Avengers. The reveal is scheduled for June 10 at 6 p.m. during Square Enix’s Live E3 showing.


It’s been a few years of speculation and rumors as to what the game will actually look and play like after the company dropped the game’s first trailer, which showed the superhero team’s iconic set of artifacts and weapons lying alone on the ground in the midst of ruins. It looks like the game will take place after a catastrophe has taken place, resulting in a defeat for the Avengers. The trailer’s voice-over hints at a story that covers a time where the titular heroes need reassembling, which bleeds into that possible defeat at the hands of an as-of-yet unnamed villain (or villains?). In fact, the trailer closes with the hashtag #reassemble.
The game will be developed by Crystal Dynamics, the people behind the new Tomb Raider saga, the Legacy of Kain series, and the excellent Akuji the Heartless game for the first Playstation. The developer has earned a reputation for crafting solid adventure/platforming games, along the same lines as Sony’s Uncharted series, with an emphasis in single-player storytelling.


It was announced last year that one of Uncharted’s directors Shaun Escayg joined the development team along with Dead Space producer Stephen Barry. Their inclusion, along with Crystal Dynamics’ body of work, give off a mighty hint of Marvel’s Avengers being a single-player game that will either follow the likes of Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, and Hulk, or focus on a secondary team that will take up the fight the first team lost.
With Avengers: Endgame closing the chapter on the original movie Avengers’ group, a new game that reunites the core characters for another epic adventure might play right into the hands of those hoping to bank on the immediate nostalgia the movie created. On top of that, gamers have long been clamoring for Marvel games that match the level of quality DC games have managed to reach with games likes Injustice 2 and the Batman Arkham series.
Presently, PS4’s Spider-Man game is leading the way as proof Marvel games can complete on an event scale scenario without having to rely too heavily on direct movie-to-game adaptations, which hangs a cloud over the brand’s history. The announcement of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 3 for the Nintendo Switch suggest Marvel’s Avengers will not be a top-down action RPG-type game. I think it will be something closer to the Spider-Man game. Driven by character development and storytelling with an emphasis on the cinematic rather than on a grindy 100-hour journey littered with loot boxes.
Crystal Dynamics has earned the trust of many a gamer and its track record suggests the possibility of a single-player Avengers game. On June 10th, we’ll know exactly what it is that they want to wow us with.