The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has revolutionized the entertainment industry with its interconnected series of films and TV shows, weaving a long-running and cohesive narrative. However, Marvel video games have taken a different approach, with each title existing in its own separate universe. For instance, Insomniac's Marvel's Spider-Man games and Eidos-Montreal's Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy are entirely disconnected. This trend continues with upcoming titles like Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra, Marvel's Wolverine, and Marvel's Blade, which also lack any shared continuity.

Yet, there was once a vision at Disney to create a Marvel Gaming Universe (MGU) that would emulate the MCU's success in the realm of video games. So, what led to the abandonment of this ambitious project?

The Rise and Fall of the Marvel Gaming Universe Concept

On The Fourth Curtain podcast, host Alexander Seropian and guest Alex Irvine delved into their experiences with the proposed MGU, shedding light on its ultimate demise. Seropian, known for co-founding Bungie and later heading Disney's video game division until 2012, spearheaded the MGU initiative. Irvine, a veteran writer in the Marvel gaming world, notably contributed to the successful Marvel Rivals.

Irvine recounted the initial excitement surrounding the MGU: "When I first started working on Marvel games, there was this idea that they were going to create a Marvel gaming universe that was going to exist in the same way that the MCU did. It never really happened."

Seropian elaborated on the initiative's origins and its unfortunate fate: "When I was at Disney, that was my initiative, 'Hey, let's tie these games together.' It was pre-MCU. But it didn't get funded."

Irvine, who had previously worked on the innovative I Love Bees alternate reality game (ARG) for Halo, shared his vision for the MGU: "That was so frustrating because we came up with all these great ideas about how to do it. And I was coming out of ARGs at that point and thinking, 'Wouldn't it be cool if we had some ARG aspects?' There would be a place where players could go that all the games touched, and we could move them back and forth from game to game. We could link in comics, we could loop in anything, we could do original stuff. And then, as Alex said, it didn't get funded. So we made a bunch of games."

The complexity of the MGU concept may have contributed to its downfall. Irvine explained, "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."

It's intriguing to ponder what might have been if the MGU had received the necessary funding. Perhaps we would have seen Insomniac's Spider-Man games sharing a universe with Square Enix's Marvel's Avengers and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, featuring crossover characters and culminating in an epic event akin to the MCU's Endgame.

Looking forward, there remains curiosity about Insomniac's upcoming Marvel's Wolverine game. Will it share a universe with Marvel's Spider-Man? Could we see Spider-Man or other characters from those games make appearances in Wolverine?

Sadly, the MGU remains a fascinating "what if" in the annals of video game history. Yet, in some alternate universe, perhaps it thrives as a reality.