Marvel Comics announced at this year’s SD Comic Con (in an interview with Marvel.com) that they’re going to be releasing an upcoming game called Contest of Champions. The actual game development is being done by Kabam, who have released other games like The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth, Fast & Furious 6: The Game, Castle Age HD, and more.
As for the story, that will be written by Sam Humphries who’s been involved with writing Avengers A.I., Uncanny X-Force, and others. Cuz Perry from Kabam describes the game as “one vs. one, arcade-style fighting game with multiplayer as well as RPG [Role Playing Game] elements with a quest/story mode where you’re pitted against a wide range of heroes and villains from the Marvel Universe”. In viewing the trailer, I noticed Spider Man, Captain America, Thor, Juggernaut, Storm, Hulk, Vision, and Black Panther, being used to demo gameplay while others like Iron Man, Dare Devil, Deadpool, Rhino, and others are shown in the opening of their YouTube trailer.
I believe what I saw was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg though, as Perry states that they’ll pull characters from “Avengers, Thunderbolts, X-Men, Inhumans, Guardians of The Galaxy, the Brotherhood, X-Force just to name a few”. The gameplay is not going to include virtual buttons or virtual joysticks, but use something more “intuitive and easy”, according to Perry. It will be set up to use the grist of one-on-one fighting games: light, medium, and heavy attacks with combos and signature special attacks for each character.
The interview didn’t include details regarding release dates or pricing although since this is being published by Kabam, there is a good chance it will be free-to-play with optional IAPs involved. They did point to their Facebook page for future updates on the game.
Official Website: Marvel
