Iron Man VR Team Teases Avengers and Marvel Connections

Iron Man VR is poised to allow Marvel fans to become a super hero themselves when it launches on PlayStation 4 in early July. The game calls for players to put on the Iron Man helmet, soar through the skies, and blast repulsors from their hands as Tony Stark does in comics and movies. As with all things Marvel, the desire for connections and more character is present any time an Avenger is brought to any platform. While Iron Man VR is very focused on Tony Stark as the armored Avenger, there is a chance that other familiar faces from the Avengers roster may pop in.

Bill Rosemann, VP & Head of Creative at Marvel Games, and Ryan Payton, director of Iron Man VR at Camouflaj, opened up about the upcoming release in an interview which will be published in various pieces leading up to Iron Man VR's launch. Of course, one big question is which Marvel characters aside from the already announced Iron Man, Pepper Potts, Nick Fury, and Ghost will we see in this game. While they are keeping the identities of the others close to the vest, it does look like Marvel fans can look forward to world building and teases of future expansions (likely not in the form of DLC for this game).

"This adventure, we're really focusing on telling an ultimate Iron Man story," Rosemann says. "It's not a team experience, it's an ultimate Iron Man story, so we're really going to focus on Tony in and out of the suit. That said, you're in the Marvel Universe, so there will be what we call... we don't call them Easter eggs, we call them building blocks. You will see locations, companies, brands that you would expect to see in the Marvel Universe, so keep an eagle eye out for all sorts of Marvel flavor."

Rosemann doesn't want to dive into which other characters might fit this VR model in the future, just yet. "I'm just going to say that I think Camouflaj has completely delivered on the fantasy of being Iron Man," he says. "So for the moment that is totally going to satisfy me."

Of course, Iron Man does come with two characters in itself. You have the Armored Avengers and you have Tony Stark. "That was part of Camouflaj's and Ryan's one-two punch," Rosemann explains. "What makes Marvel characters, both the heroes and the villains, so unique amongst all other IP in the world is that when Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko set out, they said, 'We're going to put the human in the superhuman. Our characters are not going to be perfect, and we're not just going to focus on them while they're in their costume. We are going to fully explore who they are out of costume.' In fact, in most Marvel origin stories, you've seen this both in the comics and in the movie, you meet the character first, before they gain their powers. You meet Tony Stark first and you get to know him, like him, and see what his challenges are, and then he goes into the cave and becomes Iron Man."

Iron Man VR is intentionally not an origin story for Tony Stark.

"Specifically for Marvel's Iron Man VR, it was about putting players into the actual shoes of Tony Stark, seeing his full body realized, and him putting him into situations that help allow Tony to confront his past but do so in a way that leverages the unique and immersive storytelling strengths of virtual reality," Payton explains. "What I mean by that is that, as you know because you played the demo, seeing other characters up close and personal in VR is really, really magical. So what we wanted to do is to not do a really broad story that touches on all sorts of different themes and have dozens and dozens of villains showing up and coming in and out."

All of these choices lead to interesting story points, including Ghost being a villain in the game, which called for interesting developments as the Marvel Cinematic Universe grew over the five years while Iron Man VR was in development. More on that on Monday.

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Iron Man VR comes out for PS4 on July 3.