The mobile action brawler released its 3.0 update Tuesday, adding Thor as a playable Champion alongside new modes such as a single-player focused Summoner’s Journey and a boss battle. Different weapons and gear sets Thor can equip pull inspirations from a multitude of versions of the character, and this is reflective of the game’s overall take on Marvel. As Frizzera puts it, the original pitch he presented internally said: “What if we completely broke our toys?” Game Rant spoke to Frizzera and Marvel Realm of Champions development director Ethan Young about Marvel Comics and how its representation has evolved.

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Frizzera was a part of development studio Kabam when it began working on mobile fighting game Marvel Contest of Champions in 2014, driving its narrative and art direction using a knowledge of comics going back to stories by Walt Simonson and others in the 1980s. Young said Frizzera is a “creative mastermind,” and while Young also loves the Marvel universe he gets to learn more every day. Contest became a “big laboratory” for Kabam according to Frizzera, and his initial idea for Realm was to branch off the alternate reality premise with the “next logical step:” A game with character customization in a universe that feels “fresh but familiar.” Frizzera continued,

Marvel greenlit the idea, acknowledging the timing of a mobile game centered around multiple realities as the MCU goes in the same direction with projects such as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Mechanics followed story in this case, and Young said that seeing the push and pull of trying to represent narrative in a cohesive, functional way is a “fascinating experience.” Frizzera agrees, saying the two departments sit in on one another’s brainstorming sessions. “The creative license we have and territory to explore seems endless, especially when you get to marry that with building cool gameplay experiences,” Young said.

One of Frizzera’s favorite ways to use that creative license is adding Easter eggs into his stories because, “If you’re a Marvel fan I want you to be as excited as I am.” He said finding one fan on a forum recognize a nod to Marvel comics from their childhood makes him happy, and feels Marvel as a whole excels at this kind of Easter egg placement. Marvel also reportedly appreciates teams like Kabam taking C- or B-list characters, polishing them, and bringing them “out of obscurity” because it helps comic, movie, and TV writers see which characters are big hits with fans.

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“I think everybody is looking at what everyone else is doing to see what’s next, because we can only use the same three guys from the Avengers so many times,” Frizzera said. He feels especially in the age of mobile games with less monetary investment than AAA titles there are storytellers more willing to throw ideas at the wall and see what sticks, which has helped center gaming in the conversation. “Gone is the age of video games being the ugly duckling.”

The key example of this for Frizzera is the inclusion of Maestro, an alternate version of Hulk, in Contest of Champions. The character “nobody used” was a major player in that game and Realm of Champions, where his death leads to the war between Battleworld’s Houses. Maestro appeared in an expansion for Crystal Dynamics’ Marvel’s Avengers earlier this year, and Frizzera feels Contest bringing him back into the spotlight had a lot to do with that. With thousands of characters in the Marvel universe, he said some are primed to have a comeback. As Young said,

Marvel Realm of Champions is available now on Android and iOS devices.

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