Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 gets overshadowed by missing Avengers Project game

Marvel unveiled a gorgeous trailer for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3. Meanwhile, fans still yearned for an update on Square Enix’s Avengers Project.

It’s almost been a decade since the last game, but now Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order is set for a release date in 2019. The trailer premiered at The Game Awards Thursday night and was generally well received by those who saw it (you can watch below).

The game will be RPG style, with a cast of characters to choose from. It’ll be developed by Team Ninja, the makers behind the Dead or Alive series, Ninja Gaiden series, Hyrule Warriors, and (impressively) The Witcher series.

For video game enthusiasts, this game will only be on the Nintendo Switch. So if you’re a Marvel fan and you don’t have one already, you might want to put it down on your gift list this season. The description of the video on YouTube highlights what the game is all about:

"In this new storyline, heroes and villains unite in a race across the Marvel Universe to find the Infinity Stones before Thanos and The Black Order use them to unleash cosmic chaos. From Avengers Tower to the X-Mansion and beyond, every stop on the dangerous quest to thwart Thanos results in unexpected collisions of fan-favorite characters and iconic locations."

The trailer promises a huge cast of characters from the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the X-Men and even Spider-Man. Corresponding villains also make their appearances in the trailer, like Kingpin and the Green Goblin.

Unfortunately, the most common comments on Nintendo’s trailer were questioning where The Avengers Project trailer was. The game has been in development by Square Enix for over a year now. And though they promised more information in 2018, that promise has not been met.

Fans grew suspicious that we would get a surprise announcement at The Game Awards on Thursday when Joe and Anthony Russo were tapped to present an award at the show.

Although Marvel nor Square Enix said anything about The Avengers Project prior to the awards show, some fans still held out hope even after the Russos had left the stage.

Following their presentation, the broadcast was “hijacked,” and fans thought that would be the Avengers Project trailer. Instead, it ended up being an announcement for Persona 5, and Nintendo America’s COO Reggie Fils-Aimé was the next guest to take the stage.

On Twitter, users shared their mixed feelings of frustration and disappointed following the announcements.

Square Enix and Marvel announced the partnership to develop a series of games referred to as The Avengers Project in January 2017 — meaning next month will mark two years since the game first came to fans’ attention. Crystal Dynamics, involved with Tomb Raider and Gex games, and Eidos-Montréal of Deus Ex are also involved in the creation. They are promising a blockbuster game, but the release date on their website still reads “TBD.”

The Avengers Project’s trailer has a more realistic, gritty art style than that of the Switch game and features mainly the heroes in the Avengers. None of the characters are actually shown, beyond their symbolic items, leaving fans unsure of what to expect from it.

Still, here’s looking forward to the delightfully comic-book style game that is coming to the Switch. The Nintendo Switch has seen successful sales and lots of demand, and is expected to continue booming through this holiday season, especially with mega-fan favorites, like Smash Bros.’ newest edition.