Iron Man: Marvel canceled the open-world game from Just Cause Makers in 2012

Iron Man: Marvel Cancelled an Open-World Game in 2012 From Just Cause Makers

The Iron Man open-world game was canceled in 2012. Marvel and Disney pulled the plug on the title, which was developed by Avalanche Studios, the company behind the Just Cause games. In an interview with MinMax, studio co-founder Christopher Sundberg said that the Iron Man game was in development for “two years” before it was finally finished around 2012. Reasons included “company politics” with Disney, which caused internal friction, and it was smaller. Deadline to complete the Marvel project.

Sundberg noted that the development cycle was ultimately a “mess” as Disney increased the Iron Man game’s budget and reduced the deadline to an entire year. “We will have to hire 70-80 people in the team – for which I will be responsible for finding new projects. But the development time was so short, if we had accepted it, the studio would have been completely broken,” he said. Full interview Uploaded to MinnMax’s YouTube channel.

Disney was scrambling to replenish staff at the studio, so Avalanche could meet the revised deadline to complete the game. This put more pressure on Sundberg, as he was urged to find new projects to work on once development on Iron Man was complete, now with a shorter development period. While the project was great from a development perspective, it wasn’t a business fit for his Stockholm-based studio, he noted.

It made sense for Marvel and Disney to tap the creators of Just Cause, known for creating chaotic experiences filled with explosions and rich environments with unique characters that ping your missions. Sundberg notes that the Iron Man games were mostly focused on melee-based combat, where you could knock enemies through walls with repulsor gloves. The now-cancelled Iron Man game allowed players to simply “fly and fly anywhere” on an open-world map.

“There were a lot of great people involved on both sides and it would have been great. I am sure,” he added. When asked if the title was a tie-in to the Robert Downey Jr.-led Iron Man 3, Sundberg was positive that it was a standalone game, but was unable to remember well since “that was 10 years ago”.

In 2010, Sega released the Iron Man 2 video game — which recreated iconic moments from the films — aimed at the consoles, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS, and PlayStation Portable. The game received generally unfavorable reviews, with a Metacritic score of 44.

EA is now reportedly tapping into the Marvel craze, as leaks point to Iron Man and Black Panther video games, the latter of which is expected to be open-world.

Both games, while still unconfirmed, are likely to launch on all major platforms – PS5, Xbox Series S/X, and Windows PC.