Marvel and Square Enix announce 'multi-game' partnership and Avengers game

Square Enix have acquired the rights to video games based on the Marvel superhero universe.

Marvel Square Enix Avengers — The Marvel, Avengers and Square Enix logos.

Square Enix have acquired the rights to make video games based on the Marvel superhero universe. The first game will star The Avengers, and was revealed with a trailer teasing the presence of The Hulk, Thor, Captain America and Iron Man.

The "multi-game" partnership will involve studios including Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics and Deus Ex developer Eidos Montreal, whose most recent games were published by Square.

It's not entirely clear if both developers are working on this Avengers title or whether one is and the other is working on its own Marvel project. We won't find out for a while, as Square has said there will be no further announcements until 2018.

The trailer (embedded below) includes a voice over from an unknown woman, who says: "They say the time of heroes is over, that if you're 'different' you're dangerous. But I know the truth. The world will always need heroes, we just need to reassemble."

Marvel's presence in the world of video games has been threadbare since the rise of its enormously successful cinematic universe (referred to as the MCU): an inter-connected series of films starring various superheroes who exist in a single narrative world and cross-over when there's a big enough threat.

The MCU began with 2008's Iron Man before solo outings for The Hulk, Thor and Captain America led to 2012's Avengers Assemble, which saw all four as well as various other characters team up on the big screen for the very first time.

Since then the series has gone from strength to strength, raking in billions of dollars at the worldwide box office.

A similar inter-connected "universe" for video games has appealed to Marvel fans for some time. In fact, we theorised about such a possibility after the announcement of Insomniac Games' Spider-Man game for PS4 at E3 last year.

Quite what this announcement means for the PS4-exclusive Spider-Man game, we haven't been told.