From the highs of Spider-Man to the lows of Avengers to the somewhere-in-betweens of Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel’s recent track record with big, AAA blockbusters has been somewhat hit or miss, but slowly yet surely, it’s continuing to find more and more of its footing. Especially when looking ahead to the future, it’s hard not to look at the lineup of Marvel games that are currently in the pipeline at a number of developers around the world and be optimistic about what it has in store, especially given the fact that, right now, there’s a number of them that are promising single player narrative-driven experiences, something that Marvel is particularly well suited for.
As such, here, we’re going to take a look at every upcoming game based on a Marvel property that has been officially confirmed to be in development so far and talk about everything we know about them at this point in time.
MARVEL’S WOLVERINE
With three excellent Spider-Man games now under its belt, Insomniac Games has comfortably carved out an unforgettable place for itself in Marvel history, and the next challenge that the studio is looking to take on is none other than Wolverine himself. Marvel’s Wolverine has been in development for a while now, and even though official details on the game are scant at best, purely based on how well Insomniac has done with the Spider-Man license, it’s easy to get excited about what it’ll do with Wolverine.
Of course, though official details on the game aren’t readily available, there has been plenty of information that has emerged through other channels. Even if we don’t dive into the data breach that Insomniac suffered in December, prior reports over the last couple of years had shed light on some interesting details about the game, alleging that it will be a semi-open world experience set in the fictional Marvel city of Madripoor, while adopting a no-holds-barred approach to the grittiness and violence that one would normally associate with Wolverine and his adamantium claws.
How accurate those details will end up being remains to be seen, and for now, there’s no word on when the game will be out- though reports have claimed that it’s targeting a 2026 launch. Does that mean we might get to a new look at it sometime this year? Or would Insomniac prefer to hold off for a little longer and kick off the game’s marketing cycle in earnest sometime in 2025?
MARVEL’S BLADE
This one came out of nowhere. Arkane Studios may have had a 2023 to forget, thanks to the disaster that was Redfall, but its Lyon team – responsible for the likes of Dishonored 2 and Deathloop – ended the year on a strong note, with the surprising announcement that it was developing a Blade game. Now, it’s fair to say that the vampire-hunting vampire doesn’t have the universal mainstream appeal of someone like a Spider-Man or an Iron Man (or not yet, anyway), but as the property’s many dedicated fans would tell you, the prospect of a Blade game that prescribes to the design philosophies and sense of style one usually associates with Arkane sounds almost like an unlikely yet perfect fit- much like Spider-Man and Insomniac when that pairing was first announced.
So what do we know about Marvel’s Blade so far? It’s going to be a single player action-adventure game that is going to integrate many of the immersive sim elements Arkane has become renowned for. Set in the city of Paris, it’s been described as a mature and gritty experience – appropriately enough for Blade – and, interestingly enough, will be Arkane’s first third-person game. As for when it’ll be out? There isn’t much clarity there. At the time of the game’s announcement, Bethesda said the game had “just begun development”, though the LinkedIn profile of campaign director Dana Nightingale would suggest that it’s been in the works since 2022. Either way, it’s quite a ways off yet, with journalist Jeff Grubb having claimed that, as things stand right now, the game is targeting a 2027 launch at the very earliest.
SKYDANCE NEW MEDIA’S CAPTAIN AMERICA AND BLACK PANTHER GAME
Probably one of the more unique games in this entire list, given the fact that it’s starring not one, but two renowned Marvel heroes. In 2021, it was announced that Skydance New Media – led by Uncharted creator Amy Hennig – was working on a new Marvel game, and in 2022, it was announced that the game would star both Captain America and Black Panther. Set during World War 2, along with the two heroes, the game will also star two non-superpowered humans, and feature all four as its main playable heroes. The premise in and of itself is a fascinating one, and when you add to that the fact that the game is being billed as a big, cinematic, story-driven blockbuster, it becomes even more enticing.
The last time we heard anything about this game was over a year ago at this point, and there hasn’t really been any new information on it in the time that’s passed since then. With no gameplay footage having been revealed so far and not even an official title having been confirmed, our hope is that we’ll be seeing more of this game at some point in the not-too-distant.
CLIFFHANGER GAMES’ BLACK PANTHER GAME
Skydance’s game isn’t the only one that will be representing Black Panther. Leaks had claimed for a while that EA was working on a single player, open world Black Panther game set in Wakanda, and in July last year, that was confirmed. The game is being developed by Cliffhanger Games, a new Electronic Arts studio established in Seattle and let by Kevin Stephens, who was previously the studio head at Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War developer Monolith Productions.
Up to this point, we’ve seen nothing of the Black Panther game, but the few details that have been revealed sound promising. It’s going to be set in an open world Wakanda, which Cliffhanger Games is describing as an “expansive and reactive” setting. Interestingly, it will also feature what’s been dubbed the Open Story system, which is promising “dynamic narrative and branching dialogue” to allow players to shape the story how they see fit. Exactly how that differs from regular choice and consequence mechanics remains to be seen- but the idea of a Black Panther game with player choice and a branching story is certainly an intriguing one.
Black Panther is being built on Unreal Engine 5, and upon its announcement last year, was said to be in early development. In all likelihood, that means it’ll be at least a couple of years before we start hearing more about it.
MOTIVE STUDIO’S IRON MAN GAME
Before Black Panther, the first Marvel game that EA announced was Iron Man, being developed by Motive Studio, the team behind 2023’s incredible remake of Dead Space. And what exactly do we know about it? Well, not much. We know it’s going to be a single player, third-person, action-adventure title, but that’s pretty much it as far as concrete details are concerned. Beyond that, job ads have suggested that it might be an open world game, and that, unlike Motive’s past projects – all of which were built on EA’s internal Frostbite engine – it’s being made on Unreal Engine 5.
There isn’t much clarity on when the game is going to launch either. When it was announced in September 2022, it was said to be in pre-production, and a little over a year later, in October last year, Motive Studio GM Patrick Klaus revealed that the game was still in early pre-production. What does that mean for how far away the game is from releasing? Well, it’s probably going to be a while. But will we be seeing at least a debut trailer at some point in the next year or so? That seems perhaps a little likelier.
EA’S THIRD MARVEL GAME
When Motive Studio’s Iron Man game was confirmed to be in development in 2022, EA revealed that it was set to be a part of a multi-game partnership that the company had entered into with Marvel, with a subsequent Bloomberg report claiming that the deal was going to cover three games. Since then, the second game has been confirmed as Cliffhanger Games’ Black Panther title- so what could the third game be? Given the complete lack of information (official or otherwise) on this front, all we can do for now is speculate, but based on how EA is handling Black Panther and Iron Man, it seems safe to assume that the third title will be another single player action-adventure experience. With those two still being in the early stages of production though, it’s probably going to be quite a while before we start hearing anything even close to concrete about the third game.