Avalanche Studios – the team behind open-world games like Just Cause and Mad Max – was at one point working on a game based on Iron Man. While its development was never announced to the public, and the game has long-since been cancelled, new footage has popped up that gives us a look at some of its earlier builds from the 2010s. Check it out on the Internet Archive.
As caught by Reddit user LeimBR, the footage, split up across eight videos, was uploaded by the same user who has in the past showcased early builds of Grand Theft Auto 5, and even footage from the canceled Rockstar Games project Agent.
While the videos are of early builds of the Iron Man project, with copyright information on some scenes indicating that it was from 2012, we do get a pretty good idea of what kind of gameplay it would have featured. One video featured gameplay from a demo that was seemingly made for E3 2012, and offered two distinct gameplay demos: “Kinetic Combat” and “Freestyle Flight”.
The title would have seemingly taken many of its cues from the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of the character, which would have been quite popular at the time. The HUD for the game seems to focus on minimalism, with elements showing up to denote the number of hits in a combo, XP earned, and even remaining health showing up as needed. A radar was also placed in the top-right corner that would have warned the player about the number of foes ahead.
A progression system was also seemingly planned through which players could upgrade various aspects of Iron Man’s capabilities, like speed, defense, damage, and extra weapons.
The “Freestyle Flight” demo, as its name implies, focused more on Iron Man’s aerial capabilities. Along with flight itself, the character would also be capable of engaging in combat, having to take on a variety of paramilitary aircrafts.
The uploader for the video has noted that all of this gameplay footage is from a restored early build of the game running on a PS3 development kit. This, along with the 2012 copyright year, indicates that Avalanche was going to bring it to PS3 and Xbox 360. Considering the studio’s work at the time, a PC release may also have been planned. Evidence of the game running on old console generation hardware is quite visible throughout the videos, with things like long loading times, low-resolution textures, and even the hazy brown look of the games of that era being all over the place.
As for what would eventually cause this game to be cancelled, Avalanche Studios co-founder Christofer Sundberg said back in 2022 that “company politics” got in the way, with tight deadlines meaning that the studio would have to massively increase its workforce.
In the meantime, a new Iron Man game is confirmed to be in development at EA Motive. While no details about the project have been revealed, job listings have indicated that it will feature “major singleplayer levels”, and that those applying for the job would also need to have experience with single-player action RPG games.
