Marvel Comics and Electronic Arts have canned an agreement to develop games under the Marvel banner, the two companies announced today.
First announced in 2004, the contract between the two entertainment giants led to only one release, Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects, released in 2005. The next planned release, a fighting game most recently in development at EA’s Chicago studio before it was shut down, has been canceled.
In a statement to GameTap, an Electronic Arts representative said, “EA and Marvel have jointly agreed to discontinue development of the Marvel titles under the EA Games label. This was a business decision based on EA’s portfolio strategy.”
Marvel released a similar statement, but added the termination of the deal “will not affect Marvel’s ongoing plans to release fighting games based on the Marvel properties in the future.”
Kudo Tsunoda, the former general manager at the EA Chicago studio, recently announced he was leaving EA to take a position with Microsoft’s Xbox division, although according to the GameTap report, it’s unknown whether his departure has any bearing on the cancellation of the deal.
