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An Uncanny Journey Through the Marvel Ultimate Alliance Multiverse

The Ultimate Alliance of Marvel Heroes

by Neal Ronaghan - July 2, 2019, 12:43 pm EDT

The death and rebirth of the Marvel: Ultimate Alliance series.

2006 was the official start of a new console generation, and as such, Marvel and Activision wanted to take their successful X-Men-themed RPG series to the next level. Working once again with Raven Software, they set out to work on Marvel Legends, which soon became known as Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Unlike the past two games, Ultimate Alliance was set to come out on a dizzying amount of platforms. The GameCube was sadly dropped, but it still came to Xbox and PlayStation 2, as well as Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. It skipped the DS and N-Gage, but came out on the Game Boy Advance and PSP. It made its way to Windows as well. Years later, it’d even be ported to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

The roster expanded, tossing in some of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes like Captain America (a personal favorite of SanFilippo’s as he implemented the shield throw attacks), Iron Man, and Thor. Spider-Man and Human Torch, some favorites of Salmon’s, also joined the fray.

Salmon, who now works with SanFilippo at the Wisconsin-based indie dev Flippfly, returned to the series with Ultimate Alliance after taking a Quake break during the course of X-Men Legends II. “[I] inherited responsibility for the online multiplayer code that wasn't there for X-Men Legends!” she recalled. “The online multiplayer code was outsourced for [the sequel] but since I had just done multiplayer work on Quake, it was decided that I would take over the multiplayer code for Marvel: Ultimate Alliance when I moved back to that team. We also decided that we would be a launch title for the PlayStation 3 and ship on the Xbox 360. I had just shipped Quake 4 which was a launch title for the 360 and so I was a little nervous to do another launch title but it actually ended up not being as complicated as taking Quake 4 to the 360.”

With a strict annual dev cycle for X-Men Legends II and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, it was essentially a wonder both games came out so strongly, especially as more platforms were tossed in. SanFilippo detailed how he thought that happened: “Something that was really cool about the way these games were developed is that individuals had an incredible amount of autonomy and input on the game. If a designer had a cool idea for a level, or a boss fight, they could just make it happen,” he explained. “My role on the team was implementing hero moves, and after working on X-Men Legends 2 and then moving onto Marvel: Ultimate Alliance with the team, I was given a lot of leeway to try creative things that weren't necessarily in the design documents. I think this autonomy and trust of the team members gave them the ability to follow their passion and create unexpected and fresh elements.”

But that design philosophy was for the core version on Xbox and PlayStation. The Wii version was not as well regarded, though as someone who played it back in the day, I enjoyed it very much. It does claw at the story of the series’ future, though. Raven Software was responsible for the series in its entirety up to this point. The Wii and PSP versions of Ultimate Alliance were ported by Vicarious Visions, a longtime Nintendo-friendly studio best known for their recent modern work on Skylanders and the Crash Bandicoot Trilogy. Vicarious Visions would be handed the reins to the series in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, with Raven being off the project entirely. I was not able to get any total clarification of what happened, but the dodging of specific words from those involved insinuates that it wasn’t a completely welcome change. While Lipo wasn’t at Raven during this time, he did tell us that it “was a bit of a surprise to see [Ultimate Alliance] in new hands.”

With Raven out of the picture for the series they helped shape, Vicarious Visions took over as the lead for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions. n-Space, best known in Nintendo circles for their Nintendo-published GameCube first-person shooter Geist, took over the Wii and DS ports. The Wii version does not have the best reputation, though a lot of the issues seem to be indicate that the ports suffered from some late-game changes to the main versions. The most interesting part of the Wii version is the charmingly named B.R.A.G. system, which stands for Broadcast Realtime Accomplishment Gloating and made use of the now defunct WiiConnect24 service to share high scores and such with friends.

While the Wii and DS versions were seemingly the worst entries, in general Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 wasn’t as beloved as the predecessors. There were a lot of changes from the Raven-made 2006 predecessor. Debuting in September 2009, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2’s story followed the then-recent comic storyline Civil War, which made it a much more serious and sometimes dour game. Rekindling my own memories of this series for the purposes of this feature, the high points are when the game just lets you roll around in comic book nostalgia and smash the crap out of familiar enemies with your favorite heroes. Drama was never a core part of the X-Men Legends experience.

With Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, the series was thought to have died. As the games industry changed, the Marvel heroes license that Activision held seemed to not be as worthwhile, even if the makings of a culture shock was beginning in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Activision would go on to put out a handful of other Marvel titles, most notably the amazing X-Men Origins: Wolverine, coincidentally from Raven Software (and with heavy involvement from SanFilippo), as well as a few Spider-Man games of varying quality (Shattered Dimensions is maybe the best of that era), a Deadpool game, and the woefully miserable X-Men Destiny, from Eternal Darkness developer Silicon Knights. Sega dabbled in some movie tie-ins with Iron Man 2 and the Next Level Games-made Captain America: Super Soldier. The Marvel license bounced between a variety of other studios, with a Marvel pinball series from Zen Studios, Marvel Heroes from Gazillion Entertainment, a handful of LEGO games, a blast of Disney Infinity, and most recently the beloved Spider-Man on PlayStation 4.

That Spider-Man game appeared to be representative of a new era for Marvel games. Published by Sony and made by Insomniac Games, it was very specifically made for a single platform. A few months after its successful launch, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 was announced, a game exclusive on Switch, published by Nintendo, and made by Team Ninja.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 is an oddity. It’s a sequel to a game made a decade ago with minimal ties to the originals. Nintendo and Team Ninja, as far as we know, share no DNA with Raven Software or Vicarious Visions. What is most promising about Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 though is that it seems to tread heavily on the playful, nostalgic spirit of the earlier games in the series. Portrayed like a frenetic cartoon, this Diablo-like comic book game lets you play with your favorite characters as they travel through familiar worlds and tackle fabled foes. I’m beyond ecstatic to return to that style and this world. “It feels pretty good to see the series live on,” Lipo said of the upcoming Switch game. “Team Ninja’s got a great pedigree and it appears that the presentation and combat of these heroes are in super-capable hands. I’m super happy that they’re still supporting couch co-op! Sure, online play is the console standard these days, but there’s still something special about having friends over, sitting on the couch with a bunch of controllers and beating down some evil mutants!”

Salmon gave straightforward advice to the team at Koei Tecmo working on Ultimate Alliance 3. “Have fun with the characters and the universe,” and she followed that up by noting that one of the best parts of her Marvel projects at Raven was the reasonable development schedule that did it, primarily, by working normal hours and not constantly crunching. “If there is one thing that I could pick as a legacy to carry on from those projects it is that it is possible to make great games without crunch,” she sagely said.

On the precipice of a new entry in the series that started with completely different companies nearly 20 years ago, I’m trying to claw at just what made those early X-Men Legends game so memorable to me. I don’t have the same reverence to an X-Men: Children of the Atom or other similar comic book games (aside from the Sega Genesis X-Men game that has a top 5 Sega Genesis soundtrack). SanFilippo offered some thoughts on how Raven kept things humming and enjoyable. “[A] thing that was really impressive, in retrospect, is the way the team managed to stay so small, but also produced games with an incredible amount of content. This is really a testament to the efficiency of the team, and a lot of the great design decisions they made with the game and the tools used to build it.”

And all of this weirdly came full circle for me as well. Game Informer had Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 on their cover and I devoured their coverage, much like I did 16 years ago. A lot has changed in video games, comic books, and my world since I first heard about X-Men Legends, but after all these years, I still want to snikt up foes as Wolverine and travel through comic book history. Excelsior and Make Mine Marvel.

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