While the title wasn’t outright referred to as Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 in the press release, it is very likely the game in question owing to its description of being a “co-op action shooter based on a major film IP franchise”.

The game, referred to in the press release as Project Avo, was expected to be quite close to an official announcement owing to the fact that it was briefly spotted on the official website for US game ratings board ESRB. The listing had been quickly taken down, but not without screenshots had been grabbed that indicated that Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 would be rated Mature 17+, and that it would come to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

The ESRB listing also included content warnings for Aliens: Fireteam Elite, indicating that the co-op shooter will feature blood and gore, strong language, and violence.

The fact that Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 was in development first came to light back in July 2024 thanks to an internal document that was spotted on Reddit. The document at the time had referred to the co-op shooter’s sequel as Project Mocando, as well as the fact that it would focus on improving “the mechanics, atmosphere and excitement of the original.”

The document described the title as featuring a 2-player co-op campaign with a runtime of between 8 and 12 hours. Along with this, it is also expected to have a new game mode dubbed Annihilation Mode. It is worth noting that these features were described as being part of an early build of the game, and as such, things might have seen several changes by now.

Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a 3-player co-op shooter that puts players in the shoes of colonial marines on a mission set on planet LV-895. Over the course of the game’s co-op campaign, players learn the secrets of the planet’s various ruins and caves, all while fighting off xenomorphs as well as rogue synthetics that have seemingly gone hostile. Missions typically involve one or two objectives before the crew of players have to make their way to an exit.

2022 saw a major addition to Aliens: Fireteam Elite with the release of the Pathogen expansion. The expansion brought with it a host of new environments and maps, as well as a new campaign that had players trying to figure out the nature and secrets of a mysterious pathogen that seemingly also effects xenomorphs. The expansion heavily expanded on the base game’s offerings of seven playable classes and several weapons and attachments with 8 new weapons, as well as new perks and cosmetic items.

Aliens: Fireteam Elite is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.

But while we’ll never get to see the Marvel MMO, much less play it, we have, at the very least, got a brief glimpse of what it would have looked like. Ramiro Galan is a freelance UI/UX designer who has worked on a number of AAA games, including the likes of Halo 5 and PUBG, and recently he shared images on his ArtStation page of the work he had done on the cancelled Marvel MMO as well.

The images show what would have been the game’s character creator and customization options, including being able to select your character’s gender, body type, name, powers and abilities, and cosmetic options such as your clothing, face, banner, and more. Given how early the game was in development before it got cancelled, it goes without saying that a lot of this stuff hadn’t been finalized- though the images do give us an idea of the sort of visual style and aesthetic the title was going for. Check them out in the gallery below.

It’s a shame that the Marvel MMO won’t be seeing the light of day, because it’s a premise that’s begging to be utilized. Hopefully another developer will see the potential here and decide to give it a shot in the not-too-distant future.

That project is not going to see the light of day, as it turns out. EG7 recent published an update in which it confirmed that it has cancelled its Marvel MMO, after having evaluated “the development risk profile, size of investment, and the long-term product portfolio strategy for the group.”

The project was going to see an investment of SEK 500 million (which is a little over $50 million) over the course of three years. EG7 will now use that money to further invest in existing games like The Lord of the Rings Online and DC Universe Online, as well as self-owned IPs.

“EG7 today announced it will be discontinuing the development of the Marvel project at Daybreak Games,” the company wrote. “Based on the re-evaluation of the development risk profile, size of investment, and the long-term product portfolio strategy for the group, the board has decided to change the development priorities and reallocate resources within the group to focus on alternative long-term projects. The company had planned to invest more than SEK 500 million in the Marvel project over the next three years. The company will now diversify this investment across multiple, smaller size projects within the group, including the previously announced major upgrades to The Lord of the Rings Online and DC Universe Online, and new game opportunities with our first party, original IPs.”

There are plenty of other Marvel projects in the works at a number of other studios, including Firaxis Games’ turn-based tactical RPG Marvel’s Midnight Suns, Second Dinner’s collectible card game Marvel Snap, and Insomniac Games’ action-adventure duo Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Marvel’s Wolverine.

Skydance New Media is also developing a story-driven single player action-adventure Marvel project, with its development team being led by Uncharted creator Amy Hennig. According to report, the project is either an Ant-Man game or a Fantastic Four title.

In its recent quarterly investor presentation, while detailing the company’s upcoming slate of games, EnaD Global 7 confirmed that a new AAA MMORPG based on a Marvel IP is in development at Austin-based Dimensional Ink Studios. In case that’s a name that’s not familiar to you, that’s the team that developed and handles DC Universe Online. The Marvel MMORPG is being led by Jack Emmet, who was the designer and creative lead on City of Heroes, and also currently leads the DC Universe Online team.

There’s no other details on the project, though considering the fact that it’s mentioned as a “longer-term” release, we can probably assume that it’s in the earlier stages of development right now. Meanwhile, the track record of the developer and the games it has worked on should also give us a good idea of what sort of game this is going to be.

Interestingly, this might not be the only AAA multiplayer Marvel game that’s in the works. Earlier this year, it was rumoured that PlayStation was working on an unannounced multiplayer Marvel title- read more on that through here.