EG7 announced yesterday it will be discontinuing the development of the Marvel project at Daybreak Games.
For those unfamiliar, EG7 is a gaming industry conglomerate that creates, markets, publishes, and distributes PC, console, and mobile games to a global audience.
Through its game creation companies Daybreak Games, Piranha Games, Toadman Studios, Big Blue Bubble, and Antimatter Games, the company employs over 470 game developers and creates its own original IPs as well as acting as advisers to other publishers throughout the world.
The reason given for cancelling the MMO was given as:
“Based on the re-evaluation of the development risk profile, size of investment, and the long-term product portfolio strategy for the group, the board has decided to change the development priorities and reallocate resources within the group to focus on alternative long-term projects.
The company had planned to invest more than SEK 500 million in the Marvel project over the next three years. The company will now diversify this investment across multiple, smaller size projects within the group, including the previously announced major upgrades to The Lord of the Rings Online and DC Universe Online, and new game opportunities with our first party, original IPs.
Along with this reallocation, the company expects a write down of approximately SEK 230 million in project related assets in Q2 2022.
As one of the long-term investments, the change to the Marvel project plan will not impact near to medium term revenues and profits other than the balance sheet and P&L impact related to the write-down.”
The game was unveiled in November of last year, and it was to be led by Jack Emmet, a veteran of the genre who had previously worked on DC Universe Online and Star Trek Online.
However, it was disclosed earlier this month that Emmet will be in charge of PC and console games at NetEase’s new U.S. studio, which should have been a red flag that the Marvel MMO was not progressing as planned.
It’s a sad day for Marvel fans who were looking forward to a new sequel, but given how successful the franchise is, it will almost certainly be picked up by another studio in some form or another in the future.