Square Enix and Marvel Team Up for Avengers Project
By Cody Gravelle 28 January 2017
Square Enix and Marvel Entertainment announce that the two giants will be partnering up on a multi-game, multi-year endeavor called the Avengers Project.
Square Enix didn’t become one of the biggest development studios in the world just by producing the Final Fantasy series. Sure, Final Fantasy 15 was a massive success, but the popularity of that franchise has helped provide Square Enix with the kind of financial safety net to embark on other, much more risky endeavors. Gamers need look no further than the upcoming Kingdom Hearts 3, a collaboration between Square Enix and Disney, to see that Square Enix is a studio willing to try something new – especially if given the opportunity to work with one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world.
Despite the developer’s history of high-profile partnerships, another one being formed was low on the list of what gamers expected from Square Enix’s promise of an exciting reveal today. Instead of Final Fantasy anniversary news or the announcement of a sequel to one of Square’s many successful series, however, gamers got an even more thrilling announcement – Square Enix is teaming up with Marvel, and the partnership is being formed to developed a series of Avengers games called the Avengers Project.
The announcement was made with a trailer that highlights the phrase “#Reassemble”, accompanied by various iconic weapons associated with the Avengers being shown in states of disarray and abandonment. It appears that the Avengers Project will begin in a timeline that sees the Avengers split up and suppressed by one or more villains. The Avengers Project will also be a multi-year, multi-game partnership that will see games produced at least until 2018.
The development of the first game, and possibly more of them, will be handled by Crystal Dynamics, the team responsible for the Tomb Raider reboot that rocketed Lara Croft back into gaming relevance. Crystal Dynamics will also have help from Eidos Montreal, the studio that most recently developed Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, a game that was seen as the next evolution of the Deus Ex franchise. The pedigree of those two development teams should spell a bright future for the Avengers Project, although it is unclear if those studios will remain the primary developers for the rest of the games in the deal.
The trailer isn’t much to go on, but given the studios working on the Avengers Project and the success Square Enix has had with these kinds of high-profile collaborations before, there’s a lot of reasons for gamers to be excited about the new partnership announced today. The Marvel universe, and the Avengers, have a lot of different storylines worth exploring, and when it comes to narrative, there aren’t many better suited for the job than Square Enix.
The Avengers Project is a multi-year, multi-game partnership between Square Enix and Marvel Entertainment. No games have been announced yet.
