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What Was THQ Brisbane Working On Before The Studio Closed?

By Tracey Lien on September 15, 2011 at 1:30 PM

An anonymous source from THQ’s former Brisbane studio has leaked videos showing gameplay and trailer footage from the Marvel game they were working on before the studio closed, The Avengers. We have three of them here. Update: The videos appear to have been removed from YouTube, but we took some screenshots before they were taken down.


The source tells Kotaku Australia that it was the only game that THQ Studio Australia (Studio Oz) was working on at the time of the closure and they had already poured 18 months of hard work into crafting what was anticipated to be a high quality Marvel movie game instead of just another licensed title.

When the developers at the studio got wind that Studio Oz was in trouble, they made these videos for Marvel in hope that the comic book giant would come on board and prevent any closures. Despite the superhero first-person brawler impressing Marvel, the project was ultimately canned by THQ.

The game was being developed for Xbox 360 and PS3, with THQ’s Melbourne studio, Blue Tongue, said to have been working on the PC version. Our source tells us that approximately 200 people in total were working on the game, including Blue Tongue and outsourcing.

From the footage we’ve seen, the game looked incredibly promising and Studio Oz seemed to be on the right track in making a movie tie-in that could stand on its own and wow players. It’s disappointing to know that the project has been canned — it would have been fantastic to have such a big project come out of an Aussie studio.

We wish the developers the very best, and if any former THQ developers would like to get in touch with us to share their story, they can contact us here.

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Comments

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  • BrontoThunder
    September 15, 2011 at 10:37 AM

    Another outsourced movie-game; yeah that would have done wonders for the Australian game industry.

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    • Cheshire
      September 15, 2011 at 2:10 PM

      Actually – It could have. Not all licensed titles are ‘me too’ fillers, and the reactions to the vids suggest people WERE excited, which is not normally the case for licensed games.

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    • Franz
      September 15, 2011 at 4:21 PM

      Thank goodness this movie-to-game cash job was put in a shallow grave, like we need any more of those!

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      • Shovels
        September 15, 2011 at 6:02 PM

        Hey Franz I don’t know why you have such a negative attitude to what looks like a really interesting game. It didn’t look like a slapped together title, a lot of time and effort went into making it. So maybe next time think before you type.

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      • Lobo
        September 16, 2011 at 2:30 AM

        Yeah. Thank goodness that game got canned…along with all the staff that were working on it. That’s totally a good thing right?

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  • ♣TadMod♣
    September 15, 2011 at 10:43 AM

    That. Looked. Amazing!

    WHY DID YOU CUT THEM OFF, THQ?!?!?!!?!!!

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    • Jarvgrimr
      September 15, 2011 at 11:49 AM

      That game looked bloody fantastic! I’m so sorry to the THQ bris guys, that was some amazing work they were doing.

      That looked like it would be mad fun to play with mates.

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      • Tailblazers
        September 15, 2011 at 12:05 PM

        EPIC!

        Everything about that game was great and very different to everything else you see in games. 4 player co-op with the ability to have mulitple of the same character, Ultimate Marvel universe, Skrulls and Super Skrulls, first-person view is a brillant way of doing it. I love the left 4 dead style and hope everyone of the bris guys get jobs because that was an amazing movie connected game!

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  • pew pew
    September 15, 2011 at 10:47 AM

    THQ? Probably on ways to make Aussies pay an extra 100% premium on all of their titles.

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  • GiantDave
    September 15, 2011 at 11:01 AM

    Have the clips been pulled or are they still available somewhere?

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  • Cray
    September 15, 2011 at 11:02 AM

    Man, I’m pretty sure I knew one of the programmers for the Brisbane THQ office. He was awesome, and my friends and I used to play L4D1 with him all the time.

    Never met him in real life, but just having that contact and knowing that he would’ve been out of a job made the THQ brisbane office closure just that little bit more depressing.

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    • Nightro
      September 15, 2011 at 9:13 PM

      That was probably me, or a friend of mine :D. does the [oZMsis] tag ring a bell? We played loads of L4D, only programmers who did IIRC.

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  • Tom
    September 15, 2011 at 11:04 AM

    That’s a real shame, those clips were looking pretty good. And I’m not even one to play those types of games :(

    Definitely liked the first person aspect of the Hulk the most.

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  • Scared
    September 15, 2011 at 11:04 AM

    The game looks great, too bad they didn’t get the chance to finish it.

    Going off what an Ex-Studio Oz employee said the tech (especially MP and tools) was way behind so that probably didn’t help.

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    • Forlorn
      September 15, 2011 at 11:12 AM

      That is very wrong. The tech and tools were awesome and the person who posted that obviously held a grudge or had no idea what they were talking about.

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    • Potatoman
      September 16, 2011 at 7:40 AM

      Agree with Forlorn, to suggest ‘way behind’ is a bit rough. Might not have been a polished toolchain like the UDK, but much of the tools and tech was well advanced, I mean it had been used for several projects.. Perhaps the complaints were more directed at tool useability issues.

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  • brentyj
    September 15, 2011 at 11:19 AM

    loving the way first person is being used for more then just shooters these days. Someone please finish this game!

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  • matt30822
    September 15, 2011 at 11:19 AM

    The game looks solid – reminds me of War for Cybertron for some reason – only with 4 player co-op in the campaign and that it is third person. Would have picked this up if it had launched for $60-70 around the same time as Avengers movie if got decent reviews.

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  • yukon
    September 15, 2011 at 11:27 AM

    I’ll never understand why some developers keep persisting with making games that are primarily 1st person view. It was ok in the 90′s when developers were learning how to program in 3d environments.

    1st person view is good for times when you want to zoom in. 3rd person is much better for seeing your character in action, especially a brawler like this.

    The “floating hands” view looks ridiculous now, as it tries to be like virtual 3d.

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    • alinos
      September 15, 2011 at 11:55 AM

      I agree that the hands could have used a little more work, mainly because the hulk only seemed to have 4 attacks.

      But most of these games generally suck because they are in third person.

      The camera and flying in general is done poorly with Iron Man games.

      Hulk isn’t too bad since he like wolverine is one of those guys that can do heap’s of close quarters area effect attack’s.

      Iron man and Captain american in my mind both need that first person perspective. Since Iron man is a guy with guns close combat always seems kinda weird with him. And there’s no where near that feel of power if he’s in third person.

      I think the most important thing here is that this could have been an awesome Co-Op avenger’s game that could have been a real blast to play together.

      Especially now that rage has told us to bugger off. And i’m done with Dead island the only thing on the horizon is Borderlands 2(some games are just made to be played with other’s and it looks like this could have been one of them

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      • yukon
        September 15, 2011 at 4:35 PM

        I think these types of games need to take as much as they can from Batman Arkham Asylum’s combat system.

        It had scope for melee and range fighting, and the combat animations were epic.

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        • Alinos
          September 15, 2011 at 5:36 PM

          The thing is though that for slot of these characters 3rd person melée has been proven to be garbage batman worked because it had the right amount stealth and street brawling. Which is solid batman.

          These other heroes bar hulk cant really work in the same way

          It’s about making the player feel like they are the character so you have to play to the strengths of the character

          Ironman for instance often has slot of in helmet shots and the like so to me it’s only logical to play from that perspective

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          • A developer
            September 20, 2011 at 1:46 PM

            We spent a shit tonne of time making sure it played well – a lot went into the AI, the combat moves etc to make it feel right. And it felt awesome. Most people that played it felt that it was the best FP melee they’d ever played. The reason was simple, we didn’t force the player to use melee all the time. There was a rythym that allowed the player to close distance, attack an enemy, re-aquire a target and move to the next kill.

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  • Johnny Sweetbread
    September 15, 2011 at 11:30 AM

    Some little french dude who looks like Napolean is probably re-writing their C# code in fortran in Montreal.

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    • DeeJay
      September 15, 2011 at 1:00 PM

      You couldn’t sound more ignorant if you tried.

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  • Baron
    September 15, 2011 at 11:47 AM

    What a shame, looked refreshing…..heres hoping

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  • Apollo
    September 15, 2011 at 12:03 PM

    Looks like it was using the Space Marine engine.

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  • anon
    September 15, 2011 at 12:11 PM

    It wasn’t using the Space Marine engine, it was using a custom in-house engine. Also Blue Tongue were working on more than just the PC port – they were doing an entire chapter of the game and x360/ps3 features.

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  • Fenixius
    September 15, 2011 at 12:31 PM

    Oh my gods, where do I put my money?!?

    …what do you mean I can’t? ;___;

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  • Mike
    September 15, 2011 at 12:54 PM

    Extremely disappointing that this was canned… even in an unfinished state it looked incredible. Is it really too late or is there a potential for this to be picked up and continued elsewhere? Surely they will want a move-game tie-in when The Avengers is released?

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  • Joah
    September 15, 2011 at 1:06 PM

    Oh fuck you THQ. HOW COULD YOU DO THIS.

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  • Jake
    September 15, 2011 at 1:16 PM

    It looks allright…. But yeah, I’m not sold on the concept. FPSs always look good for brief periods of time, it’s how they hold up over the long run that counts.

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  • Pixel-Ferret
    September 15, 2011 at 1:24 PM

    must admit, the Iron-Man flying looks AWESOME… me be sad now and go cry for a while for the loss of the propect of a proper Iron-Man game

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  • ShiggyNinty
    September 15, 2011 at 1:27 PM

    I would have bought and played the shit out of this. Looks amazing.

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  • Paddington
    September 15, 2011 at 1:45 PM

    What? No Hawkeye? I know he was a late addition to the team, but he would have rocked in the FPS model. Outside of that, it looked like a great concept – very fresh addition to the Superhero game genre.

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  • coolguy
    September 15, 2011 at 1:46 PM

    No way can this be canned. When the Avengers movie is released they will have to make a game to go with it….this one is nearly done, no point in starting from scratch.

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    • FixWhatUBreak
      September 15, 2011 at 2:56 PM

      Don’t be suprised. It happened to another Brisbane studio, Pandemic, with a big licensed project (Batman: TDK video game). They just let the game go despite the countless hours and $ sunk in to it.

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  • DominicDesign
    September 15, 2011 at 2:21 PM

    Wow, that was a lot better and further along than I thought it would be. The first person gameplay looked really promising… I really hope eveyone working on the game can find work again soon.

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  • El Sombrero
    September 15, 2011 at 2:40 PM

    “Avengers T…”
    This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by THQ Inc..
    Sorry about that.

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  • mjhellscream
    September 15, 2011 at 3:19 PM

    FPS Iron Man? That would have sold me from the get-go…

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