Ever since Iron Man suited up for the very first time on the big screen in 2008, Marvel has released no shortage of TV shows, movies, and video games over the years. The superhero giant hasn't slowed down with the passing of time, and some of its biggest releases still remain on the horizon. There was even a time before Avengers: Endgame when it seemed like Marvel couldn't miss, yet for every project that saw the light of day, another one was ultimately axed.
The video game department, especially, has had a very difficult time given how many different titles have been cancelled over the years: from the tie-in Avengers game meant to be released in 2012, all the way to a recent Black Panther solo adventure. Fans were even worried that Motive's Iron Man would never hit shelves prior to the game's leak, and we're still mourning the loss of Insomniac's live-service Spider-Man game. What makes these cancellations all the more disheartening is that we rarely got to see what these projects were meant to be like, as most of them die surrounded by secrecy. Fortunately, we have a new exception to this rule.
Footage of Avalanche Studios' cancelled Iron Man game makes its way online
In the early 2010s, the developer behind the acclaimed and destructive Just Cause franchise, Avalanche Studios, was working on an Iron Man game. The project never came to be due to an extremely short development period that would've "broken the studio completely," according to Avalanche Studios co-founder Christofer Sundberg.
While the game never came close to seeing the light of day, we now have a look at over an hour of development footage that showcases what Avalanche planned for the Armored Avenger. As is the case with any Just Cause game, Iron Man would've had a huge sandbox world filled with destructible environments.
Tony Stark would've been able to fly across the skies and engage in air combat. Furthermore, he would've had an arsenal of weapons ready to be used, including missiles, photonic rays, and his ever-reliable arc repulsors. While none of the videos really give us a taste of what the story would've been like, one of them displays two interesting mission objectives: "Join Bruno Hogan in his lab" and "Meet up with Whitney Frost." That means both Melter and Madame Masque were planned to be antagonists.
The debug menu in the footage has three entries for "lairs," which would've been explorable, sandbox-like areas or "maps." One of them is called "Firebrand Lair"; another is the "Radioactive Man Lair"; and the last is the "Blizzard Lair." While they are all showcased in the leaked videos, it's clear they were works in progress. None of these areas were filled with activities or interesting landmarks, and by the looks of it, they were all very remote locations. As such, we never see Iron Man flying across a city populated with buildings, vehicles, and civilians.
Last but certainly not least, Iron Man changes his armor, signaling that multiple costumes were meant to be unlocked (which is almost a given in any superhero game). But even with an hour of development footage, it's difficult to grasp the game's true potential given how early in development it was. It's clear Avalanche Studios needed more time to fully realize its vision, which is what ultimately led to the title's cancellation.
On the bright side, we will play an Iron Man game in the future, developed by Motive Studios. While no release date has been revealed just yet, a trailer for this upcoming project was also leaked. So now that the cat is out of the bag, it shouldn't be long before Marvel drops some official news.
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