The MCU (Marvel Connected Universe) was a record-breaking success on the big screen, but plans for a similar MGU (Marvel Gaming Universe) were apparently scrapped because Disney was worried about it becoming a logistical nightmare
Author and Marvel Rivals writer Alex Irvine said as much on The Fourth Curtain podcast, explaining that when he first started working with the superhero factory, "there was this idea that they were going to create, like, a Marvel gaming universe that was going to exist in the same way [as] the MCU."
Bungie co-founder and former Disney Interactive Studios boss Alex Seropian backed up those claims. "That was my initiative," he says. "It was pre-MCU, but it didn't get funded."
Essentially, projects like Marvel's Spider-Man, Marvel's Blade, and EA's upcoming Black Panther game would exist in the same continuity and intersect, a la the Avengers films. Irvine explains his idea also involved ARGs, so the developers "could link in comics" and "loop in anything" or "could do original stuff."
Some of the ideas sound wildly ambitious, but that's also why the MGU never went ahead. "Even back then, we were trying to figure out, 'If there’s going to be this MGU, how is it different from the comics? How is it different from the movies? How are we going to decide if it stays consistent?' And I think some of those questions got complex enough that there were people at Disney who didn't really want to deal with them," Irvine explained. "That was so frustrating because we came up with all these great ideas about how to do it."
In fairness, movie studios have the luxury of being able to predict release dates (and, mostly, reliably hit them) years in advance. Even then, the MCU regularly goes through expensive reshoots and comic book crossovers are sometimes plagued with delays while trying to juggle the work of several different writers and artists. Games are even more fickle and prone to creative changes and, often, delays. Disney itself didn't and still doesn't have enough developers under its umbrella to work on several games in-house, so I imagine keeping a consistent continuity would be nearly impossible if you're splitting production between multiple external teams, each with their own hardships trying to organize hundreds of developers.
Not to worry, there are a ton of new games coming in 2025 and beyond.
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