Marvel Games to Tell Original Stories, Not Held to Canon

Creative Director Bill Rosemann explains Marvel Games' goals.

By Jonathon Dornbush

Marvel Games won't force the developers it partners with to squeeze their games into existing storylines throughout Marvel's universes.

Speaking to IGN at DICE 2017, Marvel Games Creative Director Bill Rosemann instead assured that the teams behind games like Spider-Man for PS4 or Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series are being given the opportunity to create new visions of beloved characters.

"We want to give [developers] freedom to tell their story and we want to make it an original story," Rosemann said.

"We want to give our partners...freedom to look at all of Marvel history and to pick from what interests them. It's a bit like we're saying, 'Hey you're the chef, you're going to make this meal. Here's all of the ingredients. You pick the ingredients that you like and make a new meal."

We want to give them freedom to tell their story and we want to make it an original story."

Those new meals include four announced console and/or PC projects — Spider-Man for PS4, Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series, Marvel Vs. Capcom: Infinite, and The Avengers project from Square Enix.

Though all of these titles involve characters prominently featured in Marvel's current film slate, Rosemann pointed to the white spider emblem on Spidey's costume during the E3 2016 reveal of Insomniac's game as a "deliberate" move to allow these projects to stand as their own, unique ideas.

"We want all of our games to tell an original, all new story," Rosemann said. "We want [our development partners] to have passion, we want them to put their stamp on the games. It's their game. We want it to be their vision."

Rosemann did note, however that Marvel does consider where audiences are coming from with their awareness of each property. So, for example, Telltale's Guardians project will feel "familiar to people who have seen the movie," the first of which stands as Marvel Studios' fifth most successful film at the box office domestically and worldwide, with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 hitting this May.

We want every game to be game of the year."

But even with projects that leverage awareness of some of the most currently popular brands, Rosemann said Marvel Games' goal is never to force a game's development timeline to match up with an upcoming movie, show, or comic.

"We're not going to rush things, we're not going to get things out before they're done," Rosemann said, instead referring to Marvel Games' position as a company licensing its IP out to partner developers with the intent of giving them the space, and the support, needed to fulfill their creative visions.

"We're also not going to try to do the very tricky balancing act of trying to make a game that adapts a movie and get it out in the same window as the movie."

So while timeliness can be important, Marvel Games' focus is both on the quality of every individual project already announced as well as the need to listen to what fans, and the team at Marvel itself, are hoping to see next.

"We want every game to be game of the year," Rosemann said. "So we're focusing on each game at a time. We know there are certain characters people are really hungry for, [but] right now we're just going to focus on getting those right."

For more on Marvel's current slate of projects, read up on every Marvel game currently in development. And for more from Rosemann, hear what else he had to say about the plot of Telltale's Guardians of the Galaxy during DICE 2017.

Jonathon Dornbush is an Associate Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter @jmdornbush.

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