New details have emerged suggesting that an unannounced Marvel title reportedly in development at XCOM studio, Fireaxis, will not include existing Marvel characters.
Rather than use existing Marvel characters, the game most commonly referred to as Marvel XCOM while we wait for an official name, will instead have players create their own superheroes.
The news comes from journalist Jeff Grubb during a Giant Bomb live stream (behind a paywall and first spotted by VGC) with the well-informed journalist suggesting that the title could be announced during Gamescom later this month.
Grubb went on to say that the game could even be considered an original property despite being based on the Marvel universe.
“The reason that it might still be [considered] a new property even though it’s a Marvel thing is that… this is not going to pick up any existing franchise in the [Marvel Cinematic Universe], it’s not even going to be existing characters,” he explained.
“The game is going to focus on the supernatural elements of the Marvel universe…I don’t know if that necessarily means like Blade, but I do think there will be vampires in it, and I don’t know if it means mystical Marvel [characters]… but I think you might see enemies of that type that you’re fighting.”
His thinking is that players will be able to customize their team in a similar way that players could in the past with the XCOM series.
It was only last week that 2K said it would be revealing a new franchise this month with the suggestion being that Firaxis could be the team developing it.
Earlier this year, there were also rumours that a turn-based Marvel game was in the works at Firaxis so this would tie in neatly with how the rumour mill is progressing.
Reportedly, Firaxis’ take on the Marvel series will play much like XCOM which features teams of soldiers taking on alien forces in turn-based battles. The series is known for being hard with a deep combat system. The latest game in the series, XCOM 2, earned an average Metacritic rating of 88.
In other Marvel news, Square Enix is currently working on a Guardians of the Galaxy game.