EA's Iron Man Game Adds Fan-Favorite Marvel Writer
Fan-favorite Marvel writer Ryan North has joined the team of EA's Iron Man Video Game.
EA's Iron Man video game has tapped a fan-favorite Marvel writer to help pen its story: Ryan North (The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Inhumans: Once and Future Kings, Darkhold: Iron Man).
North confirmed his involvement with the Iron Man video game with a Twitter post, which read:
It's no secret that I love Iron Man and have written my heart out for Tony Stark every chance I've had. So I'm PRETTY STOKED to say I'm part of the writing team on the upcoming IRON MAN game from @MotiveStudio!
P.S.: you are not ready for how amazing this game is going to be :0
That's not only a writer hire that carries a lot of clout with diehard Marvel Comics fans – it's also a pretty glowing early endorsement of this Iron Man video game.
Motive Studio (Dead Space) is developing the Iron Man game; Ashley Cooper (Gotham Knights) has also been brought on board to write the game, stating in a Twitter post that "If you told 12 year-old me that this is what I'd be doing professionally, she'd lose it. Thrilled to announce I've joined EA Motive as a Senior Writer on Iron Man!"
The sort of talent that EA is bringing together for this Iron Man game is perhaps the most telling thing about the project. Cooper's focus was building Gotham Knights' Bat-Family dynamics and character interactions; Ryan North's distinctive character work has even ushered team books like Fantastic Four into interesting character studies of the individual members, while still being fun and fantastical. All in all, it seems like EA's Iron Man game will play up the fun of Tony Stark's playboy world, even while giving players the freedom to take flight and fight as Iron Man.
Missions will presumably require Tony's resources and smarts both in and out of the armor; it's into those latter moments when Tony is trying to work the room at an elitist gala, or even tinker in his lab, will need snappy energy and dialogue to make them fun – same goes for Iron Man encountering other heroes around the Marvel Universe. In that sense, Ryan North is definitely a promising addition to the team.
Iron Man game executive producer Olivier Proulx teased to GameIndustry.biz last year that the studio wasn't just building an entire gaming world around Tony Stark/IronMan – they're free to build an entirely new(ish) one:
"[Marvel is] also really pushing us to make this Motive's version of Iron Man," said Proulx. "What is the new story that we can tell with Tony Stark? That is incredibly empowering for the team. It's very much about collaboration and working together on a weekly basis, pushing ideas, challenging each other… it's a great experience."
Motive Studio GM Patrick Klaus recently revealed some technical details about the Iron Man game, as well as where it stands in development:
"We're still early in pre-production and taking our time to make sure we set the best possible foundation for development. But already, we're finding so many opportunities to explore story, design and gameplay with Iron Man, and it's exciting to see the fantasy start coming alive," Klaus revealed. "Even this early in the process, we've put in place a Community Council made up of Iron Man and Marvel fans; as with Dead Space, they'll be offering feedback on pretty much everything throughout the development process. Meanwhile, we've chosen Unreal Engine 5 as our game engine, in order to empower the dev team to work their magic and create something really special."