The Marvel Cinematic Universe has had a massive influence on popular culture, mimicking the combined universe that originally existed in the world of the comics. So far, the worlds of Marvel’s various video games have remained separate, but that wasn’t always the plan. At one point, Disney was apparently considering a connected universe linking various Marvel games, which would have been referred to as the “MGU.” Marvel Rivals writer Alex Irvine recently talked about those plans in an appearance on The Fourth Curtain podcast (via The Game Post), noting that it “was going to exist in the same way” as the MCU.
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The Fourth Curtain host Alex Seropian is a longtime game developer, and co-creator of franchises like Halo. Seropian had founded his own studio at one point called Wideload Games, which was acquired by Disney around the same time it purchased Marvel. From 2009 to 2012, he worked for Disney, and he says in the podcast that the MGU was “my initiative.” During the conversation, Irvine and Seropian reminisced about several ideas that were considered, before Disney opted not to fund the project.
“That was so frustrating because we came up with all these great ideas about how to do it,” said Irvine. “And I was coming out of ARGs at that point and thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we had some ARG aspects?’ There would be a place where players could go that all the games touched, and we could move them back and forth from game to game. We could link in comics, we could loop in anything, we could do original stuff. And then, as Alex said, it didn’t get funded.”
Irvine goes on to say that there were a lot of internal discussions about how the MGU would differ from the comics and movies, and how to keep things consistent. The Marvel Rivals writer believes that these questions might have been too big and complicated for Disney to consider, inevitably leading to the idea being abandoned. It’s important to note that this initiative was in the very early days of Disney’s acquisition of Marvel, so it could have had an impact on games like Marvel’s Spider-Man, Marvel Rivals, and more.
RELATED: Marvel Rivals Developer Teases Changes to Team-Up Skills, Plans Beyond Season 2
At the end of the day, the decision might have been for the best. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is able to keep things consistent largely because all of the movies and shows are released under one umbrella. The same has never been true for Marvel video games, where titles have been published by companies like Sony, Nintendo, Square Enix, and more. While we likely won’t ever see a big, interconnected universe of Marvel video games, we can expect some crossovers; Insomniac’s Spider-Man and Wolverine games will exist in the same universe, allowing for some continuity between them.
Do you think we’ll ever see an interconnected universe between Marvel video games? Are you happy this initiative didn’t come to pass? Share your thoughts with me directly on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!
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Image Credit: Paramount Network Television
