During the 2023 The Game Awards, Arkane Lyon and Xbox Game Studios shocked the gaming world by announcing a new game based in Marvel’s universe, Marvel’s Blade. Blade has been a favorite of Marvel fans, including myself, for decades, even before Marvel shifted to its more popular heroes. As of late, Blade has been showing up everywhere: Avengers, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, in addition to his own comic book. He’s starred in a few games, but he’s never had his own game until now.
In this article, we’ll give you the low-down on everything we know about Marvel’s Blade and keep updating the article when Arkane Lyon and Xbox Game Studios start tossing out new information that we can all sink our teeth into.
Here’s the Marvel’s Blade announcement trailer, in case you missed it.
What is Marvel’s Blade all about?
We don’t know everything about the game, so here’s the description sent to us from the press release materials.
Is Blade an Xbox-exclusive title?
That’s an interesting question, especially since when we first saw the trailer, there was no mention of the game being an Xbox exclusive. Nor was there an Xbox logo at the end of the trailer. This started a lot of back and forth about this being available on other platforms. You know how the interest is. Then, shortly after the trailer we saw during The Games Shows aired, another trailer that featured the Xbox logo at the start and the end was released on the Xbox YouTube channel.
Here’s that trailer.
Yet, that doesn’t mean the game is an Xbox exclusive. Xbox owns Bethesda, and Arkane Lyon has also made a game for PlayStation. Yes, it was before the Xbox acquisition, but it was still on the PlayStation, nonetheless. See, there are a lot of questions here, but I’ll be honest and say I don’t care either way. I want the game to be good. I don’t want Arkane Lyon to drop the ball or fuck this up. Yeah, I said that.
If you’re that concerned about whether this game will be an Xbox exclusive, wait until Xbox says it is or isn’t. Which it isn’t doing right now.
What type of game will Marvel’s Blade be?
According to Arkane Lyon, the studio behind the game, Marvel’s Blade, will be a single-player, third-person game. Not a live-service game. Not a first-person shooter. It will be a full-blown single-player experience from the masters of video game storytelling.
This will also be a mature 17+ rated game; don’t forget that part. Since this will feature vampires, we’ll hopefully see lots of blood and visceral combat. Thus, the rating.
This will also be Arkane’s first try at a game based in the Marvel universe, and I know they are likely super excited. What’s interesting is that this is going to be based on Blade. A character that has never had his own game. We’ve had countless Spider-Man games, various Marvel character team-up games, an upcoming Black Panther game, and even a Guardians of the Galaxy game. This is a first, and I’m looking forward to it.
What will the game look like?
Given that the trailer doesn’t tell us much, I can’t tell you. However, several pieces of artwork by Arkane’s Sergey Kolesov and Jean-Luc Monnet have been posted on the Marvel website. I’ve seen several people complain that this means the game will be Cel-Shaded, but I don’t believe so. This is concept artwork, and it doesn’t represent what the game looks like. Still, would it be so bad if it does look like Cel-Shaded? SIFU pulled it off, and that was an amazing, action-filled game. Again, I’m not confirming anything here; that bit is just speculation on my part.
Either way, the concept art looks pretty damned good.
What game engine is Marvel’s Blade running on?
Initially, the game was thought to be using Epic Games Unreal Engine 4 or 5, but that’s not the case. Like Deathloop, Arkane Lyon will develop Marvel’s Blade on the Void Engine. The Void Engine is based on the ID Tech 6 game engine but has been heavily modified by Arkane, making it suitable for larger and denser game maps. Given how much time and effort Arkane Lyon put into the Void Engine for its games, it’s no wonder the company had stated a few years ago that they don’t plan to abandon it anytime soon.
Who the heck is Arkane Lyon?
I’m sad I have to answer that question, but I’ve seen people confuse this developer with others, such as Riot Games. So I know mind going into detail. Arkane Lyon is known for developing some of the best games known to mankind. The Dishonored series, Prey, and more recently, 2021’s Deathloop. It’s a great studio backed by some great talent.
When is Marvel’s Blade being released?
Nobody knows. Ask again in another year or two. Seriously, the game just started development, and Arkane Lyon is in its hiring phase for the game, which is a few years out. Don’t expect this until 2026 at the earliest… maybe. According to GamesBeat’s Jeff Grubb, Arkane Lyon is targeting a release date in 2027. Of course, this part is a rumor, and we don’t know exactly when to expect the game. Dare I say that maybe we won’t see this until the next generation of consoles? It’s not that farfetched.
