D23's Disney x Marvel Games Showcase brought more information on some of the hottest upcoming titles including the reveal of Skydance New Media's first major project: an untitled Captain America game.
The World War II-era story is described as a narrative-driven, ensemble adventure game and comes from a team of AAA developers, including Uncharted director Amy Hennig. One of the most exciting aspects of the upcoming title is the reveal that players will be able to control both Captain America and Black Panther.
The characters have been known to team up in Marvel's films, with Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) often fighting against or alongside each other in Captain America: Civil War and the recent Avengers films. As it turns out, it was this team-up in the MCU that inspired the new Skydance game.
Origin of Captain America Game Revealed
Following the announcement of their new Captain America game at D23, Amy Hennig and story consultant Marc Bernardin came onstage to reveal some additional details about their upcoming project.
CNET reported that Bernardin told those in the room that the story for Skydance's new video game was inspired by the moment in Avengers: Infinity War where Captain America and T'Challa lead the army of heroes into the final fight.
In an interview with IGN after the showcase, Hennig and Bernardin explained further the origins of their idea.
Hennig said they wanted to "come up with something original" and do a team-up in the "classic Marvel sense" that would be set "out of the contemporary time period":
"When we talked to Marvel initially, we wanted to come up with something original, tell an original story and not feel like we were cribbing from something that already existed, although taking inspiration from all kinds of sources, right? And we loved the idea of doing kind of a team up in kind of the classic Marvel sense where you take characters who haven’t necessarily been in a story together. And then also to set it in a time that would be unexpected. Get out of the contemporary time period."
"And using that as our sort of problem space, we talked about what characters would be cool, what sort of mashup would be the most surprising, and yield the most fun. And this is kinda where we landed.”
Bernardin added that there's something "wonderfully fertile" about the WWII time period and exploring "what would the response be like in a place like Wakanda?":
“Yeah there’s something so wonderfully fertile about this particular point in time in both Steve Rogers’ life and in the ongoing continuity of Wakanda. Because Wakanda loves being, as we’ve seen in lots of iterations, the sort of cloistered nation-state that doesn’t interact with the rest of the world."
"But we’re dealing with World War 2, which is a war that touched everywhere. And so what would the response be in a place like Wakanda? To Hydra, and Germany, and Nazis, and giant global conflict? That seemed like a really, really interesting place to be."
As for Captain America, Bernardin said WW2 is "a really rich place" to explore "who [Steve Rogers] is at this point":
"And Steve Rogers in his time in World War 2, it’s been very needle-dropped, within both the MCU, definitely less so in the comic books. But it’s just a really rich place to play in the, ‘Who is this kid at this point?’ He’s probably still just 19 years old before he goes into his deep freeze. So who is he? And what is he about? And what does he have left to learn over the course of his time?”
Hennig also addressed whether the game would have co-op features, saying:
“Narratively yes, gameplay mechanics-wise no.”
Hennig added that Uncharted became a "shared living room experience" despite not having co-op capabilities, and this is something the team is aiming to replicate in the new Captain America game.
"We experienced something partly intentionally partly by happy accident on Uncharted that for people playing our game it was a shared living room experience… even if their hand wasn’t on the controller."
Will Black Panther and Captain America Team Up?
Skydance New Media's upcoming Marvel game will be a new take on the Captain America and Black Panther duo as players will control a young Steve Rogers in the 1940s (pre-deep freeze) and T'Challa's grandfather, Azzuri.
The teaser trailer for the untitled game seems to set the two heroes at odds, at least initially, as Captain America's shield can be seen marked with scratches by Black Panther's vibranium claws. Although it seems the two are destined to team up eventually to fight against their common enemy of Hydra.
Players may not be able to experience this team-up through co-operative means with friends, but the narrative choices of Skydance's new game will no doubt result in some more iconic moments between Black Panther and Captain America.