Throughout yesterday there were numerous rumors that the game Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra might have been canceled. This has led to a chain of events that has led its studio, Skydance New Media, to have to tell its staff that their project has not been canceled. An odd situation that only makes sense when you take into account the cascade of recent cancellations, the singular nature of the studio’s situation, and how the writer’s track record made people fear the worst.
A studio with a turbulent future
The fan account Marvel 1943 Rise Of Hydra Countdown claimed yesterday afternoon that the game had been canceled. A claim that producer Lu Gigliotti had to come out and deny on Skydance’s Slack, stating that, after speaking with the development leads, “they asked me to convey this to you personally: there is no truth to those claims“.
Development on Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra began in 2019 when Amy Hennig, writer of Uncharted and The Last of Us, arrived at the newly established studio Skydance New Media. It was first announced in 2019 and revealed in 2024, with a release date planned for Christmas 2025. Although we’ve already gone well past the planned date, we haven’t heard anything about the game, which has led many people to think that the game may have development problems or even that it has been canceled. Especially because of the recent merger of Skydance and Warner Bros. and the recent layoff, just two days ago, of 30 people at Paramount Games due to this same merger.
In any case, the game apparently is still in development and its release plan is for 2027 or later. After shifting from a Netflix project to a PC and console release, it’s a game heavily narrative-driven with very little interactivity, playable with a single button. Something we’ll have to see how it ultimately translates when it comes to playing it. But according to sources cited by Kotaku, “the game is already almost finished”, so perhaps it won’t be long before we hear more about it.
