No More Heroes for Marvel and EA

By Stevie Smith Jan 29, 2008, 18:02 GMT

Marvel and EA\'s first offering was somewhat... imperfect. Credit: EA.

Sad news for superhero fans hoping for good things from the videogame partnership formed by Marvel and Electronic Arts, with Marvel Interactive today confirming that the creative deal has been prematurely abandoned by mutual consent.

"Electronic Arts and Marvel have jointly agreed to discontinue development of Marvel fighting games under the Electronic Arts brand," explained Justin Lombros, VP of Marvel Interactive, in an official statement. "This was a business decision based on Electronic Arts portfolio strategy and will not affect Marvel’s ongoing plans to release fighting games based on the Marvel properties in the future."

Back in the summer of last year, the two media giants decided to pool their considerable resources in order to craft a brand new fighting franchise built on the appeal of Marvel’s extensive character catalogue.

However, the future of that new IP was recently thrown into uncertainty when Electronic Arts revealed it was closing EA Chicago, the studio responsible for the game’s ongoing development.

Marvel has since insisted that the unnamed fighting series remains in its plans, although concrete information regarding a new developer and publisher has yet to be divulged.

Prior to this week’s dissolution of the Marvel/EA partnership, the comic book and gaming powerhouses had only managed to produce Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects, which largely failed to raise much interest when it launched in 2005.