What you need to know
- Arkane Lyon, the developer behind Bethesda Softworks titles like Dishonored 2 and Deathloop, is working on Marvel's Blade.
- The news broke during the Game Awards 2023, where a trailer showed the infamous Marvel vampire killer.
- Update: A previous version of this article wrote that Blade is an Xbox Series X|S console exclusive and heading to Xbox Game Pass, however, there's no current official evidence that this is the case. We regret the error, and have asked Microsoft to clarify.
Xbox players have another vampire-hunting game to look forward to.
During the Game Awards 2023, Arkane Lyon showed up to reveal Marvel's Blade, a game based on the iconic Daywalker of the same name. As a half-vampire himself, Blade has a number of special abilities that aid him in his pursuit of killing vampires, though Blade is capable of walking in sunlight and suppressing his hunger for blood. Check out the announcement trailer below:
Marvel's Blade is a radical departure for Arkane Lyon
Arkane Lyon, one half of Arkane Studios under the Bethesda Softworks publishing wing at Xbox, has worked on a number of games in the past such as Dishonored 2 and most recently Deathloop. While these games were first-person titles focused on stealth and dynamic systems due to being immersive sims, Marvel's Blade is a fairly radical departure, with director and studio head Dinga Bakaba confirming that it will be a third-person game.
“As a kid of mixed origins, I felt a special connection to Blade—a hero with a dual heritage himself,” said Bakaba. “The opportunity to put our spin on this character is a dream of mine and a challenge that our team embraces with a passion. We couldn’t be happier to put players in Blade’s boots, as he becomes the champion of my hometown of Paris, one stake at a time.”
Update: As Arkane Lyon is an Xbox studio, Marvel's Blade could be exclusive to Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC, and will most likely launch day one on Xbox Game Pass. However, Microsoft has clarified neither at the this time. We have reached out to Microsoft to comment.
Analysis: No ice-skating uphill with this one
I'm totally down for a Blade game, and it I'm curious how Arkane Lyon will be adapting to work on this game. While Deathloop still carried the DNA of its Dishonored predecessors, this seems like it'll be very different, so I'm looking forward to seeing how everything plays out.
It's also really cool that Xbox fans are potentially going to get an exclusive superhero game, giving Xbox an answer to Spider-Man on PlayStation. I know that's something that players have wanted, so, if true, it could be a big deal for the Xbox brand. On the flip side, if this game is not exclusive, it will only serve to fuel on-going rumors that Microsoft wants to wind down its console hardware platform, and eventually go fully third-party like Sega did in yesteryear.
In any case, be sure you don't miss out on any of the other gaming news coming out tonight with our The Game Awards 2023 live blog!
