The quality of Marvel games has been raised in the past decade thanks to experiences like Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Gone are the days of cheap licensed games on the NES and SNES, where Marvel games came out on a constant rotation, from Spider-Man to X-Men titles.
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Overall, there aren’t many RPGs based on Marvel properties. While none of the following reach the heights of triple-A RPGs like Baldur’s Gate 3 or Persona 5, they are good in their own right. With the recent increase in quality, perhaps one day there will be a Marvel game as sharp as those other iconic RPGs. For now, these games will be ranked based on their quality and how deep their RPG mechanics go.
5 Marvel Heroes
Marvel Takes On Diablo
Marvel Heroes
- Released
- June 4, 2013
- ESRB
- t
- Developer(s)
- Gazillion Entertainment, Secret Identity Studios
- Genre(s)
- MMORPG
Marvel Heroes is a fascinating and complex game to talk about, as it was a constantly evolving free-to-play game. It can easily be likened to Diablo, but with Marvel characters and enemies instead of angels and demons. Gazillion Entertainment developed and released it for PC platforms in 2013, updating it constantly with new characters and story missions as the years went on. It was rebranded three times as Marvel Heroes 2015, Marvel Heroes 2016, and then Marvel Heroes Omega to coincide with the last build, which was finally released on consoles for the first time. Unfortunately, it wasn’t for long. PS4 and Xbox One fans got Marvel Heroes Omega on June 30, 2017, and then servers were shut down, along with the shuttering of Gazillion Entertainment, on November 27, 2017. Thankfully, fan servers still exist, but it has never been the same.
In its final days, the game itself was great. New players could pick from a variety of free and paid heroes, including Spider-Man, Nova, Captain America, Blade, Ant-Man, Black Widow, and more. Each character had a distinct skill path that catered to their style, such as using Captain America’s shield to ricochet it off enemies or Spider-Man’s webbing to hold enemies in place. With friends online, players could group up and create their own Avengers team of heroes. Compared to other top-down action RPGs like X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse, the environments in Marvel Heroes were much bigger, providing players with more room to breathe, especially in multiplayer. The only reason it is ranked at the “bottom” is that it can’t officially be played anymore without fan servers.
4 Marvel’s Avengers
Kamala’s Big Debut
Marvel's Avengers
- Released
- September 4, 2020
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T for Teen: Language, Mild Blood, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Crystal Dynamics
In terms of production value, Marvel’s Avengers is the best-looking Marvel RPG ever made. It just stumbled a bit with its live-service model and wasn’t fully an RPG. It can be likened more to an action-adventure game, and it features RPG elements like costumes, gear, skills, and leveling up. The game follows an Avengers celebration day when super-fan Kamala Khan attends and witnesses a disaster in which Captain America dies. With superheroes now on the run due to a new edict, the world is in turmoil. That’s when Kamala stumbles into Bruce Banner, and the two essentially go on a road trip to help the Avengers reassemble. Also, it may be a spoiler, but it’s obvious since Captain America is playable in the game: he didn’t die. The initial roster of heroes included Kamala as Ms. Marvel, The Hulk, Captain America, Black Widow, Thor, and Iron Man.
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In the campaign, players will be locked into certain characters during missions, mostly Kamala. It’s about as exciting and well-told as other action-adventure games from his era, like Uncharted and Marvel’s Spider-Man. The story and voice acting are definitely the greatest strength of Marvel’s Avengers, featuring talents like Nolan North, Troy Baker, and Laura Bailey. The characters controlled well in combat, too. Iron Man’s flight abilities are marvelous, Black Widow’s spy tech offered some good stealth gameplay, and it was just a blast to smash enemies as The Hulk. More characters were added after, along with new stories, including Kate Bishop, Hawkeye, Black Panther, Jane Foster, Spider-Man, and the Winter Soldier. The only thing that made the game stumble was the mission structure. It could get repetitive, as there wasn’t a lot of content at launch, and post-launch content was released too far apart. It was the narrow scope that helped the game focus on its narrative, which was both good and bad.
3 Marvel’s Midnight Suns
Card-Based Tactics
Marvel's Midnight Suns
- Released
- December 2, 2022
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T For Teen Due To Language, Mild Blood, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Firaxis Games
- Genre(s)
- Tactical, RPG
Marvel’s Midnight Suns is, without a doubt, the Marvel game that is the most RPG-like out of the entire roster. Players get to create their character, The Hunter, who is fully voiced as a male or female hero, and is tasked with setting up a secret society of Marvel heroes to put an end to the evil sorceress Lilith, who is corrupting other heroes and villains. Players assemble their team of heroes from both obscure and well-known Marvel characters, including Doctor Strange, Blade, Magik, Ghost Rider, and so on. Similar to other Firaxis Games, Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a strategy game. In this case, character actions are dictated by cards that can account for their movement and actions during their turn.
Maps are typically smaller than those of other strategy games, making them a bit of a breeze to complete. In between missions, players can hang out at The Abbey, their hideout, to converse with other characters, and find out more about them. Story choices play a role in the game as well, so in terms of customization options, Marvel’s Midnight Suns wins. The game’s charm definitely comes from learning about character quirks, like Blade’s love of movies, and while the companionship between The Hunter and the other Marvel heroes doesn’t quite hit the mark compared to similar strategy games like Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the overall package is an interesting and entertaining one.
2 Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
Avengers Assemble!
Marvel Ultimate Alliance
- Released
- October 24, 2006
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T For Teen due to Mild Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Raven Software
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG
Unlike Raven Software’s previous two Marvel action RPGs, X-Men Legends and X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance cast a wide net to gain more players. In 2006, Marvel fans could buy versions of this game on the GBA, PC, PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii, Xbox, and Xbox 360, and there was a remaster in 2016 for the PS4 and Xbox One. The main console versions began with a team of four comprised of Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man, and Wolverine, who were going after Doctor Doom in his castle. Like any good Marvel story, the game evolved from there, allowing players to explore famous locations like Atlantis, Asgard, Stark Tower, and the Sanctum Sanctorum. Deadpool, Human Torch, Ghost Rider, Daredevil, Nicky Fury, and many others were added to the playable roster throughout the campaign as well.
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On missions, players always had a choice of which four characters they wanted to bring along, except in co-op, since everyone could choose their own hero. At the time, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance was a novel way to combine some of the best heroes and villains together in one epic RPG that made sense within the Marvel universe. With the advent of MCU films, this game probably wouldn’t have been as exciting if it were released today, as crossovers happen all the time. The cutscenes also lack the production value of something like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, but Marvel fans will get a lot out of this game’s story regardless. Plus, the remastered versions help make Marvel: Ultimate Alliance more accessible compared to some other games, or at least, accessible to those who bought it between 2016 and July 2018, because that’s when it and its sequel were delisted.
1 X-Men Legends 2: Rise Of Apocalypse
Top-Down Mutants
X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse
- Released
- September 20, 2005
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T // Mild Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Raven Software, Vicarious Visions, Beenox, Barking Lizards Technologies
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG
There are two truly great X-Men games from the PS2 era: X-Men Legends and X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse. X-Men Legends set the tone with a dungeon crawler that let players take four X-Men heroes into missions. They would each level up as they went along. The plot was a typical battle of good vs evil, with Magneto once again trying to take over before the X-Men rolled into town to take care of business. It was a good top-down action RPG, but X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse is better on several fronts. The game adapts the Apocalypse plot line from the comics, bringing Magneto’s team and the X-Men together in one collaborative effort to stop him from annihilating everything.
The first game offered four-player local co-op only across all platforms, but X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse added online support. It’s still a better couch co-op game, but the option to play online is there. The diverse range of characters is better than the first game's, since there are villains to play, like Magneto, Juggernaut, and many others. Once players find their favorite four X-Men, they can keep playing as them to maximize their levels or switch it up on a mission-to-mission basis. Overall, it’s a very pulpy story that won’t move players, but the brawling action and diverse lineup of X-Men characters is more than enough to place X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse at the top of the list.
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