Blade
One of the bigger surprises at last night’s Game Awards was the reveal of Arkane’s next game, which is not Dishonored 3, but another dip back into vampires post-Redfall, however ill-advised that may seem. Rather, Arkane is making a Blade game, a surprising licensed Marvel offering that was shown off in an action-free spot.
After that, we learned that the game is meant to be third person, not first person, like most of Arkane’s past games, but one thing we did not learn, weirdly, is whether or not Blade is an Xbox exclusive.
It feels like it should be a no-brainer. Microsoft bought Arkane as part of the Bethesda/Zenimax deal. Arkane just released Redfall this year, an Xbox exclusive that was always going to be an Xbox exclusive after that deal. But the Blade trailer listed no platforms. The website lists no platforms. And even those with usual insider knowledge don’t seem to have a clear idea if Blade is actually Xbox exclusive or not.
Windows Central’s Jez Corden goes down a long list of possible reasons for this confusion, including a move meant to avoid anti-trust scrutiny by announcing yet another exclusive as Activision stuff is still going on.
Another theory is that avoiding the declaration is a way to promote “viral marketing” rather than divide people by console base and therefore instigate negativity (I don’t buy this one).
The most likely answer to me is another one he proposes, that Disney and Marvel may still be working this out. While Sony still fully owns Spider-Man at this point, which is why a Marvel Spider-Man game on PlayStation being exclusive makes sense, that is obviously not the relationship Microsoft has with Disney, Marvel and Blade.
It seems like a tall order for Disney to license a game and then have that be restricted to a specific console ecosystem rather than spread across all available platforms, particularly with an actual Blade movie coming up this could generate hype for.
I mean, think about licensed Marvel and Star Wars games in recent memory besides Spider-Man and Insomniac’s pending Wolverine. Can you name any others that have been made exclusive to either PlayStation or Xbox? Because I can’t, and I do wonder if that’s a stipulation of getting that license outside of rare occasions, hence why you see so many of these games be third party across places like EA and Ubisoft and Square Enix.
I don’t even know if it’s a question of money. Granted Disney has been struggling recently, but is the issue here that they’re waiting for Microsoft to pony up some huge sum to make Blade exclusive to Xbox? I mean maybe, but that would strike me as pretty weird. Or it could be one of those hybrid timed exclusive deals instead.
Regardless, it’s an odd look for Microsoft who is always trying to prove that it is now in an era of high quality, much-anticipated first party games. Blade would seem to qualify, given that it’s made by a developer they fully own, but they’re just…not saying that, raising all these questions. Hopefully we’ll know more soon.
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