Marvel’s Daredevil Cancelled Video Game Footage Revealed

In the time before Marvel Studios ascension to the top of the superhero mountain, Marvel was all about licensing its IP. While this resulted in some fantastic partnerships, it also generated some duds as well as a few projects that never saw the light of day.

One of these projects is Marvel’s Daredevil video game, which was developed by 5000 Ft Inc. Actually, that isn’t totally correct. Thanks to Unseen 64’s investigation (via DidYouKnowGaming) into what went wrong with the project, we now know that it wasn’t Marvel that was completely in control of the vision. In fact, one of the bigger issues that hindered development on the game was the constant push and pull of differing creative visions from both Marvel and Sony, as the game was being designed for the Playstation 2.

As Unseen 64 explains it, the original vision for the game was to be a small series of vignettes, which would highlight some of Daredevil’s most iconic storylines and characters. Frank Miller’s run on the book was heavily used to build the story, and the game starred everyone you would expect, including Elektra, Bullseye, Kingpin, and even the Punisher later down the line.

Unfortunately for 5000 Ft. Inc., Regency soon announced their upcoming Daredevil film starring Ben Affleck, and at that point, the scope of the project changed from a smaller game to a more Grand Theft Auto-like open-world experience. That’s a big shift, but the ideas they had to support it were sound.

The developers were including a shadow world, which basically would operate like Batman’s detective vision in the Arkham Games. DD could see through walls and objects in this mode, but he could also see reverberations of sound, like if someone pulled a weapon, and would then be able to dodge the shots. There are also designs that show him being able to see injuries to the body of his enemies as well as seeing how fearful they were.

In that regard it was a little ahead of its time, but it seems internal issues at the studio along with the constant tug of war between Sony’s “inventive” gameplay mechanics (a Tony Hawk Skater like grinding mechanic is stretching the definition of the word inventive) and Marvel’s want to adhere closer to the character’s roots, ultimately did the game in. Still, it’s an interesting what-if scenario, and would have probably been something worth playing if Sony and Marvel could’ve somehow gotten on the same page.

The whole video is well worth a watch, and you can see more of Unseen 64’s videos here.