The new game, which has been created in partnership with Marvel, is now in pre-production.
Electronic Arts announced today(opens in new tab) that a fresh game based on the Marvel superhero Iron Man is in development at EA Motive, led by Marvel’s Avengers and Gatekeepers of the Galaxy producer Olivier Proulx.
It’s being developed “in collaboration with Marvel” and is currently in pre-production, which means we won’t see anything substantiative about it—or a launch date for quite a time.
Proulx said. Marvel is encouraging us to try something new. We have a lot of freedom, which wants to keep the team involved.”
The announcement also encourages you to submit applications for positions at EA Motive (opens in new tab) “if you’re interested in helping them craft the ultimate Iron Man videogame adventure.” Unfortunately, none of the listings explicitly address Iron Man at this moment, so we won’t be able to gather any extra data this way.
I’m no superhero expert—my collecting days were much more able to focus on Vertigo-style fare and spinoff narratives like Legends of the Dark Knight and Marvel Comics Presents—but I can’t help but wonder if Marvel is a little behind the occasions on this one. Another license that EA has leaned into is Star Wars, which is relatively timeless and open-ended at this point, but Iron Man is something entirely different: A specific character whose plotline has been brought to a close. Sure, Iron Man is still popular in comic books, but the character’s popularity stalks entirely by Marvel films, not comics. Even if the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s impact continues to resonate (which I suspect), the spectacular failure of Marvel’s Avengers(opens in new tab) demonstrates that success on the big screen does not necessarily equate to a video game hit.
That’s not to say EA’s Spider-Man game won’t succeed Marvel’s in the new tab) is proof of that—but at the quite least, Spider-Man is a fascinating character. Iron Man is more analogous to a good Black Sabbath song (opens in new tab).
Of course, this would not be the first Iron Man game based on the films: That honor goes to the 2008 release(opens in new tab) by Artificial Mind and Movement, now known as Behaviour Interactive, which featured voice work from Robert Downey Jr. and Terrence Howard and was not especially good. Avalanche Studios, the developer of Just Cause, went to work on its own Iron Man game a few years later, but that project fell apart after a few years.
