Marvel fans can circle July 19 as the day they can pick up Marvel Alliance 3: The Black Order. The third installment in the series, and the first since 2008’s Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, was first unveiled during the 2018 Game Awards as a Nintendo Switch exclusive. Like the previous two entries, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 features a who’s-who of Marvel’s best and brightest teaming up in a co-operative action RPG epic.

Announced characters include The Avengers, Spider-Man, The X-Men, Captain Marvel, and the Guardians of the Galaxy. Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo are helming development of the title with Nintendo handling publishing duties, hence the Switch exclusivity. A new, original Marvel story puts Thanos and his Black Order, who appeared in Avengers: Infinity War, front and center as the primary threats of the game. The game retains the series’ top-down, action-RPG dungeon crawling, and will add a new Heroic Camera can also shift the perspective to a singular, behind-the-shoulder view for more intimate beatdowns with up to four simultaneous players.

In addition to providing the release date, Nintendo also revealed a few new characters. Deadpool, Black Panther, Spider-Gwen and Doctor Strange will be joining the fray. Though the full roster has not yet been revealed, the list of confirmed characters also includes the following: Scarlet Witch, Falcon, Venom, Iron Fist, Crystal, Lockjaw, Daredevil, and Nick Fury. Based on the newly revealed box art (shown in full below), the Miles Morales version of Spider-Man will appear as well. 

More characters are still to come, which will likely include the remaining Defenders who had been alluded to in a prior trailer. Before its announcement last December, the game had previously been rumored to be Square Enix’s long-awaited Avengers project that still hasn’t been fully unveiled. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 will be available in stores and on the Nintendo Switch eShop for $59.99.

It may have taken 10 years, but Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order probably couldn’t have arrived at a better time. Marvel has been as popular as it’s ever been thanks to its wildly successful film series. This third entry gets to ride the wave of momentum left after the release of the much anticipated Avengers: Endgame. The Switch exclusivity undoubtedly stings for fans who don’t own the console. However, who knows if the game would exist at all without Nintendo stepping in to foot the bill, so we’ll take what we can get when it comes to the resurrection of such a memorable series!

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Source: Nintendo