It's taken three years, but the free-to-play Marvel MMORPG, Marvel Heroes, is ready to play as of right now. Gazillion Entertainment went the full nine to craft this game, with a story from Marvel mastermind Brian Michael Bendis, who has written some of the company's most well received story arcs, like House of M, and several stories in the Ultimate universe, where a majority of the recent Marvel films seems to have a basis in.
Bendis is obviously more than qualified to weave the web of Marvel Heroes, as is the man behind the gameplay, none other than David Brevik, a key founder of Blizzard who worked on the ridiculously successful Diablo franchise.
"For over three years we've been building Marvel Heroes to be an exciting, free-to-play massively multiplayer action game, and we are ecstatic to finally put it in the hands of Marvel fans and gamers alike," said Brevik on the game's release. "The creation of Marvel Heroes has been a labor of love. As a die-hard Marvel fan, it's an honor to give players the chance to take on the roles of their favorite Marvel Super Hero in an epic adventure."
Players have their choice of 23 classic Marvel characters in all, like Johnny Storm from teams like the Fantastic Four or Iron Man of the Avengers, or more "independent" operators like Deadpool or the Punisher.
The idea of customization is key. Each character has its own skill building system, power trees, and equipment (this in particular is key, as it's how the game will be making a good portion of its money via micro-transactions). "You're going to be able to not only customize the way he looks, but the way he plays. Say Wolverine is in his X-Force costume and he specializes in a lot of bleeds," Brevik said during the New York Comic Con this past fall. "That's who I envision Wolverine to be. That's the kind of game we're trying to create. You play as the hero you want to be."
Gazillion plans on releasing updates to the game to ensure that gamers keep playing, including story missions, new characters, and other additional content.
The launch is exclusive to PC's for the time being, but a Mac launch is scheduled for some time in the future. Interested? You can download the game from the official Marvel Heroes website here.
