The Cancelled Avengers Game Explained | The Marvel Masterpiece

Welcome to heavy spoilers, with a brand new Avengers Game right around the corner, it’s the perfect time to go back and revisit the original project that was supposed to be centred around the MCU.

Let me take you way back to 2012, the MCU was just about to become to most successful movie universe of all time, and whilst it was making a huge impact on the big screen, there had been many failed attempts to try and replicate this in the video game market.

Whether it was Iron-Man 1 And 2, The Captain America Spin-Off Game or many of the mobile titles, nothing really seemed to cracking the market in the same way that the Arkham Franchise had slowly started to.

In 2010, THQ acquired the rights to produce an Avengers Video Game, that was set to launch in 2012 across all platforms in line with the film.

However, this game was not set to be a pure adaptation of the movie and was instead a completely original piece featuring enemies like Super Skrulls and more.

Avengers Cancelled Game Explained

Originally this was planned as a third-person action game in the same vein as some of the adaptations that had come before it, however after doing rigorous testing with Captain America to see how the combat could play out, THQ decided to switch to a first-person view that would put you in the perspective of your favourite Avengers.

Whilst I’ve seen some sources report that this is because there were several other third-person games out at the time involving the heroes that didn’t really deliver, I personally think this change was made due to the popularity of first-person shooters such as Call Of Duty.

You can even see from some of the early gameplay footage that XP counters litter the screen similar to COD and give off the impression that you’re building points towards leveling up.

The game was to be based heavily around Co-op with each player entering a sort of arena as their chosen Avenger to take on waves of enemies. The many arenas ranged around King Of The Hill, Deathmatches, Capture The Flag and more.

The Character Abilities

Each character had a different set of abilities with Hulk and Thor being more about Brute Strength whereas Iron-Man and Captain America were fast, agile and able to fire projectiles. Each player could perform an assist on an enemy which played out in a third person finishing move and really feels like big wow moments when you’re watching the gameplay. THQ really wanted this to play out like the Avengers did on the big screen with each one of them working together to combat The Skrull Invasion which is what the story centered around.

Cancelled Avengers Game Storyline

This plot was penned by Brian Michael Bendis who had written Secret Invasion which heavily focused on A Skrull Invasion and it’s definitely clear that THQ was trying to make this graphic novel the main focus of their game’s narrative.

The Skrulls as I’m sure many of you know can mimic the appearance and abilities of heroes and lots of the boss battles were takes on different characters such as Wolverine, Spider-woman and more.

The game opens with the Skrulls trapping the fantastic four in the negative zone before setting their sights on the world and trying to take down the planet. This worldwide war would see the heroes jumping from location to location and many of the early concept art shows places like Triskelion, The Helicarrier, New York and The Savage Land.

All in an effort to take down the Skrulls. Other plot elements and side bosses focused around Ultron and an evil version of Vision which the characters would have to face off against on their quest.

In the end, the heroes would go up against the Queen Skrull and a genetically modified Super Skrull that had been created underground by the villains. The Avengers of course won but the game reportedly set up sequels involving more characters from the universe.

Why Did It Get Cancelled?

Well, by 2011, the game was still massively behind. As with most movie tie-ins, there’s always a looming deadline and perhaps the project wasn’t as permitting to the experimentation that THQ was wishing to do on the work. At one point the studio even outsourced it the work to Blue Tongue Entertainment who worked on a lot of environment pieces and PC port.

THQ was spending a lot of money on this game in order to make it a success, however, after the release of Homefront, which caused a massive stock crash of more than 20% in 24 hours for the company, the business went into dire straits.

Add in addition to this their uDraw project which bombed massively and you have a company that is barely getting by due to a number of bad choices and projects that disappointed. In order to try and delay the company’s inevitable crash and gain some sure footing, directors of the business decided that now was the time to cut back on the bigger projects that were ballooning in price and thus the Avengers Game became the first thing in the firing line.

This is due massively to the inflation of the Australian dollar in 2011 which also meant that THQ was paying a lot more for the same amount of work and thus layoffs had to happen and there wasn’t enough manpower to maintain the project.

The game was very near completion but apparently, even this wasn’t enough to save it. THQ Australia was shut down and after failing to secure funding from Marvel, they were unable to continue such an expensive venture.

Whilst I’m sure many of us wish that we could take a trip back into the Quantum Realm to save this game Whatever It Takes, unfortunately, it seems like it’s something that’s forever going to be lost. I as I’m sure you would have loved to play it but I guess we’ll never get the chance to now that tech has moved so far forward and the MCU has changed in so many ways.