One of the biggest surprises of the 2021 Game Awards was Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy winning Best Narrative. Not only was the category stacked — it included serial 10/10 winner Deathloop and eventual Game of the Year winner It Takes Two — but Marvel games not published by Insomniac Games were notorious for being critical duds. As a result, Guardians’ victory in this category was a huge accomplishment, as it beat out games that were clear favourites.
The win validated Jay Ong, EVP of Marvel Games, and his team’s long-term goal of becoming “the world’s best creative consultancy” by collaborating with developers who create games that appeal to fans.
“This was a huge win,” Ong told The Verge. “A key thing was that they got the heart right, which is at the center of a lot of the Marvel stories.”
For the longest time, Marvel games weren’t known for their quality. In the early aughts, games like Spider-Man 2 and The Punisher were little more than playable versions of Marvel’s blockbuster movies.
“[Our] games were tied to movie releases,” Ong said. “One of the things that we realized very early on was that that was a recipe for very subpar games.”
In 2014, Ong described a major shift at the organization, which saw it move away from its previous “inconsistencies.” According to Ong, the team chose “quality over other things like monetization or IP.” “As a result, we fully rebuilt the company to work with the greatest, most exceptional talent available.”
This exclusive focus on elite talent led to relationships with Insomniac, the creators of Ratchet & Clank, Firaxis, the creators of XCOM, and Eidos Montreal, the creators of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The IP and some creative assistance would come from Marvel Games, but the developers would be free to make whatever stories they wanted. Attracting these high-quality developers, according to Ong, is akin to wooing.
“It’s almost like our secret sauce,” he explained. Rather than keeping the details of how the sauce(sage) is made a secret, he outlined an elaborate and almost romantic process that involves learning about a studio’s likes, dislikes, and passions.
“We talk about the creative process,” Ong said. “Do we have the same cultural fit? Do we have the same strategic alignment in terms of what we want this game to be?”
For Marvel Games, it’s all about finding the right fit between studio and IP. “We want to work with partners whose games we want to play,” Ong said.
It’d be easy for the Disney-owned publisher to show up at a developer’s door with the biggest bag of cash and a mandate to make whatever Mr. Mouse wanted.
However, a key component of Marvel Games’ new approach is a developer-driven relationship in which Marvel provides some guidance based on its knowledge of the entertainment industry but largely leaves the developers in charge of the ship.
“We don’t start with ‘Can you make this game?’” Ong said. “It’s more of a ‘What would you like to do with us?’”
That’s how Guardians of the Galaxy came to be. Ong relayed a story of getting “pinged out of the blue” by Eidos Montreal with an idea for a Guardians game.
“He had a ton of passion for it,” Ong said of the studio head who approached him with the Guardians pitch. “He was saying, ‘We were made to do this.’”
“And we love Deus Ex,” Ong continued. “We played the heck out of those games. Since we were very familiar with the team and what they do, we thought that would translate well to Guardians.”
Indeed, one of the most common themes in Guardian reviews, including The Verge’s, was that it was a pleasant surprise. Eidos Montreal, in collaboration with Marvel, was able to turn their love for Deus Ex into a critically acclaimed game that won narrative awards.
The success of Guardians of the Galaxy is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what fans may expect from Marvel games in the future. While Ong wouldn’t go into detail about what gamers might expect, he did suggest that future games will explore tales and characters outside of the X-Men, Spider-Man, and the Avengers – properties that have hitherto dominated Marvel games. Future Marvel games may also deviate from the conventional action games that Spider-Man, Miles Morales, and the Guardians have been.
Marvel Games’ strategy appears to be working, as it is guided by a set of principles and a focus on quality talent. Spider-Man and its spinoff Miles Morales are considered must-play titles for the PlayStation, in addition to Guardians of the Galaxy’s best narrative win. Marvel Games announced a partnership with former Naughty Dog creative director Amy Hennig’s game studio earlier this year, as well as the development of a new Wolverine game at Insomniac Games.
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