On the surface, it may seem like a silly question to ask why a studio has decided to pursue an AAA budgeted game based on an IP like Avengers. After all, the Marvel brand is the biggest its ever been, with the Avengers films specifically dominating the box office. However, not all successes on the movie screen translate, and committing to a game that will take multiple years to complete is no small matter despite the IP in question. The Square Enix CEO breaks down in a little more detail why they chose to greenlight an Avengers game.
In an interview with GamesBeat, Yosuke Matsuda said that, yes, part of the allure was the fact that it was a huge IP, but it also meant that a huge amount of work that could be done on this project could potentially flood over into other development projects. When so much work is being done on a project like this, assets from it could potentially be used for years to come.
“First of all, because it’s such a big piece of IP, I thought it lent itself to giving us lots of potential as far as what we could do regarding game design,” said Matsuda. “We’re still working on the Avengers right now, but I believe that what we achieve out of that is something we’ll be able to leverage on the development side at our studios going forward as well. For that reason, I decided that it would be good to take on this big piece of IP with Marvel.”
Marvel is flying as high as possible now, but their success in gaming is limited. The only major break out game in that respect was Sony’s Spider-Man last year. Will the Avengers ensure that the brand goes way beyond films? We’ll have to wait and see when it releases May 15, 2020 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Stadia.
