Nintendo Feels Good About Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order
The announcement of a new Marvel: Ultimate Alliance game was a shock to fans of the long-absent series for a few reasons. The primary reason was that almost everyone thought we would never see another entry in the well-received franchise again, especially considering the most recent of the titles was released back in 2009. And yet the series is being revived an entire decade later, and seemingly out of the blue, absolutely flooring those who thought the series was dead in the water years ago. The bewilderment fans felt at Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order’s announcement at The Game Awards was paired with the equally shocking revelation that the game will be coming exclusively to Nintendo Switch.
In an interview with IGN, the ever-enjoyable Reggie Fils-Aime discussed how the collaboration came to Switch, and how excited they are to host the title exclusively on their platform. The president of Nintendo of America discussed the process that brought The Black Order to fruition, citing the past collaborative efforts between Nintendo and Koei Tecmo’s Team Ninja as one of the major driving forces behind the game’s creation. Another, according to Fils-Aime, is the fact that Marvel was simply looking to make the game happen.
“What happens in the world of development is you have companies who have positive experiences in working together, coupled with franchises being available, and the franchise owner wanting to do something with a particular franchise. And in this case, those three elements came together in order to create the opportunity for that game.
And we love that. And we’re constantly looking for those types of opportunities. It’s the Team Ninja portion of Koei Tecmo that’s working on this. They’ve got a lot of skills, and it really helped paint a picture of what that game is going to be. We’re tremendously excited about it.”
Fils-Aime and Nintendo seem genuinely excited to be working on this collaborative effort, and how could they not? Marvel is arguably the biggest it’s ever been on virtually every front, with its films consistently dominating the box office. Even Marvel’s recent gaming endeavors have found major success, with Spider-Man being heralded as one of the best releases this year. The repertoire between Koei Tecmo and Nintendo is already harmonious, as they have partnered previously to create games like Hyrule Warriors.
Interestingly, Marvel doesn’t seem intent on sticking to one platform, with the aforementioned friendly neighborhood Spider-Man finding its way exclusively to PS4. This is actually quite encouraging, as it demonstrates Marvel’s apparent desire to create good games regardless of the platform they appear on. Shedding unnecessary brand loyalty benefits fans, as it shows the gaming community that their commitment is to handing their properties over to those who they believe are best suited for the job. If there is any takeaway from Fils-Aime’s words, it’s that we should be as excited for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order as Nintendo is.