Telltale takes on the Marvel Universe- Amazing Possibilities or Marvel Fatigue?
No doubt most gamers and Marvel fans have heard the news that Telltale, creators of franchise licensed games such as the Walking Dead, Wolf Among Us and Game of Thrones, are now taking on their biggest project yet. If all goes well, in 2017 we will have a Marvel game from the now powerhouse studio.
A part of me is very excited about this. I have been a fan of Telltale since it’s early days when it was still experimenting with its episodic gaming structure. I giggled at the Sam & Max franchise, I squeed at the faithful and hilarious Back to the Future adaptation, and I even suffered through the somewhat ill fated Jurassic Park games. Then along came Walking Dead which helped forever change gamers’ views of the adventure genre.
Since then Telltale has become the go to company for franchise licensed games. After Walking Dead came Wolf Among Us, an adaptation of the Fables series which was just as enthralling. There’s Game of Thrones, which is proving to be a worthy entry in the Telltale pantheon. I have yet to play Tales of Borderlands but I have heard unsurprisingly good things about it. Telltale is a company which seems to value story above game mechanics and takes the time to develop a good story as opposed to cashing in as quickly as possible on a franchise’s success (see: every other franchise licensed game ever). They are the natural and logical choice to take on a massive endeavor such as Marvel.
Heck, they compelled me to play a zombie game in its entirety. I have yet to do that anywhere else.
At the same time though I was sitting with my friend the other night chatting about the nerd world as we do and he mentioned that he was starting to get Marvel fatigue. At first this shocked me. I too have been starting to grow tired of the multitudes of Marvel franchises being thrown my way but then I was never really into Marvel growing up. The man speaking to me was one of Marvel’s most adoring fans. He had comics stacked under his coffee table. He had Hulk merchandise all around. He was always among the first to rush to each of the new movie premieres.
However when I thought about it, really I can’t blame him. We have had…what…how many movies have we had now? I know I haven’t seen them all. I can’t seem to keep up with them. There’s something like five X-men movies, Guardians of the Galaxy which will more than likely have a sequel because come on what executive wouldn’t want to milk that, three Spider-man movies, two REBOOTS of said Spider-man movies a mere ten years after the fact, two Thor movies, three Ironman movies with a fourth in the works barring Robert Downey Jr.’s own fatigue, two Captain America movies, two (maybe three?) Hulk movies all featuring different actors and directors, an entire movie where almost all of these people get together and duke it out with a second one of those in the works, and probably a Black Widow movie because consarnnit we need at least ONE of these hundred movies to star a woman.
Although I’m not sure how she’s going to fight with all that hair flying in her face…just sayin’….
I mean JEEZ. Guys…that is…that is a lot of freaking movies. I don’t even know if I named them all. And many of them are related to each other and require background knowledge (it certainly was interesting watching Ironman 3 before Avengers). Don’t get me wrong, I’m very relieved that at least we’re getting a lot of GOOD movies out of this and that super hero movies are no longer the butt of Hollywood’s jokes, but it’s getting harder to get excited about these new Marvel products.
About the only thing to actually inject some new blood into the franchise recently was Netflix’s Daredevil series which came out this past month. Even then, if it wasn’t for my facebook feed being flooded with messages like “HOLY SHIT DAREDEVIL IS AWESOME!” I would have simply continued to binge watch reruns of 3rd Rock From the Sun and been none the wiser.*** With all of that…do we need to throw a video game on top of the pile? Who knows. I could be alone in my thoughts. It could be that my friend was a singular case. But there’s no denying…there is LOT of Marvel to keep track of.
I haven’t written it off though. If anyone can manage to pull off a Marvel video game, Telltale is certainly the best fit. They have become master storytellers and have overcome the many hurdles of making a normally action oriented series engaging for gamers everywhere. Besides, the game is not due to come out until 2017. Perhaps by then our fatigue will have abated, our Marvel movies depleted, and we will be chomping at the bit for more Marvel stories to come our way. See you in 2017, Telltale.
***Note: HOLY SHIT DAREDEVIL IS AWESOME. THERE’S CRAZY FIGHTS AND AWESOME AND HOOOOLLLY SHIT WHAT DID HE JUST DO HOW DID THEY DO THAT STUNT AND AWWW LOOK AT THE GRITTY, DARK AWESOMENESS AND LOOK! COMPLEX CHARACTERS WHO HAVE THREE DIMENSIONS!…ahem…If you have Netflix you should check it out. He’s pretty much Marvel’s Batman. I did not know this before. Yes, I am a loser.
