So Why Hasn’t Marvel Considered a Re-Release of the Captain America & the Avengers Arcade Game?

Avengers: Infinity War drops this Friday in theaters, and while it will no doubt continue Marvel Studios’ streak at the box office, it does leave an interesting question — why isn’t there any kind of direct game release?

Sure, we’re seeing a number of themed events in releases like Marvel: Contest of Champions and Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2, but it’s interesting that an Infinity War-based game isn’t happening. We know that Square Enix is hard at work on some Avengers-related games, but we won’t be seeing them for a little while longer. So we’re left wondering what Marvel could’ve done to fill the gap.

And it hit us — why didn’t the company consider re-releasing a classic game in the Marvel lexicon for players to enjoy again? As for which game we’re talking about, it’s Captain America & the Avengers, which first came to arcades in 1991, before transitioning to home consoles around a year later.

In the game, players choose from Vision, Hawkeye, Iron Man and Captain America — the comic book versions, mind you — as they take on Red Skull and a number of other heinous enemies, all in the name of saving the Earth. The game features a combination of beat-em-up action and side-scrolling shooting stages, and supports up to four players in the arcade (or two players on the Genesis and SNES).

Oh, and did we mention how great the dialogue in the game is? “You can’t escape!” “You will be the one escaping!” Not to mention when Captain America thanks fellow heroes for helping him and his colleagues out, like “Thank you, WAAAASP!” and “Thank you, Quicksilver!” We still can’t get enough of it.

So did Marvel miss a window of opportunity with this game? Looks that way, but there are some interesting things that were found while we were wondering about a re-release, and why it probably didn’t happen.

Marvel Wants To Focus On the Future of Games, Not the Past

Usually, most game developers don’t dwell upon game ideas of the past, but instead on ones that work for the modern gaming landscape. That doesn’t mean everyone follows that mantra — just look at what Sega and SNK are doing with their classic game compilations and releases.

For Marvel, though, it could’ve been thinking that it didn’t want to take attention off of its forthcoming releases. Insomniac Games’ Spider-Man, for example, is easily going to be a standout for PlayStation 4 players this September; and the Square Enix Avengers games are likely to be huge, especially with Marvel’s involvement.

That said, it wouldn’t have really hurt for Marvel to give Captain America a shot on the market for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC. Two reasons for that — number one, it would’ve given Marvel fans and classic gamers something to enjoy over the summer; and two, it never hurts to get side revenue, especially from a game that would be fairly easy to translate to home consoles. (As long as Mindscape doesn’t do it, mind you — we’re still trying to figure out what went wrong with the SNES version.)

So what other reasons could there be?

Was It a Rights Issue?

Another thing that a lot of you might bring up when it comes to bringing Captain America & the Avengers to home systems is the need for rights. After all, it’s a game from 1991, so there’s a chance that Marvel would’ve had to find out what all it needed to license to bring the game over. No doubt it would need to talk to Data East, and perhaps even a few artists that used assets in the game — even if they’re owned by Marvel.

But we’ve seen companies work in the past to bring back classics, even ones tied in with franchises. For instance, in 2007, Ubisoft released a TMNT game to go with the tie-in computer-animated film, and as part of that promotion, it teamed up with Konami to re-release the NES Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for Wii, as well as the classic arcade game for Xbox 360.

Likewise, Marvel also worked with Konami to bring back the Marvel’s X-Men arcade game for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 a few years ago, despite the older artwork and the lack of a six-player option. (It’s still great with four.)

Both of those games are no longer available, but they serve as an indication that, with the right talks, Captain America & the Avengers could have made a return to current consoles.

Another Reason…Or Another Game?

Perhaps Captain America & the Avengers isn’t quite the retro celebration Marvel might be looking for. Its events don’t quite tie in with Avengers: Infinity War, even though all of its characters — well, maybe not Hawkeye, even if this one’s completely different from Jeremy Renner — do.

So what could the company have considered instead? Well, X-Men would probably be out, namely because licensing anything through Konami these days is usually an uphill climb.

But what about Sega’s Spider-Man the Videogame? Shortly after the release of Avengers, this four-player beat-em-up was introduced, featuring Spidey, Sub-Mariner, Hawkeye (yes, same Hawkeye) and Black Cat, as well as a slew of supervillains, from Venom to Green Goblin to Kingpin.

Now, that doesn’t have ties with Infinity War either, but it’d be pretty smart for Marvel to figure out something with Sega and Sony to re-release the arcade game with a home version, as a tie-in with Spider-Man when it drops in September. And who knows, Infinity War could find a home release at the same time, giving a one-two promotional punch to go along with that home translation — if it were to happen, mind you.

For that matter, Data East’s Galactic Storm could also be thrown in there. And it probably wouldn’t hurt for Marvel to discuss a potential Marvel vs. Capcom Anthology of some kind for various consoles, despite the lack of success for Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite. We assure you, people would come back for the classics, especially Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

Relax, Here’s How You Can Enjoy the Classic Captain America Game

Something tells us that Marvel will be focusing more on the future of games than the past, so Captain America & the Avengers — along with the other games we mentioned — probably won’t see a re-release. It’s a bummer, because it seems like an ideal way to get Marvel fans buzzing while we wait for the bigger games to arrive.

But for those of you curious to see what the classic game is all about, there are a couple of options. The first is tracking down an actual Captain America & the Avengers coin-op, which is a little easier than you might think, since it has fairly good circulation. (An arcade ROM for your emulator wouldn’t hurt either, if you don’t feel like looking.)

As for the second option, it’s on the Sega Genesis. Data East produced the home version of Avengers for that system, and it’s a good adaptation, even with the two-player limitation. It plays nicely, and has pretty good graphics and music for its time. It’s certainly better than the SNES version, which was developed by Mindscape and…not as good, sadly.

So there you go. Even if we don’t get the Captain for current consoles, at least we have the classic versions to turn to. “Thank you…Wonderman. Okay, go!”