Marvel's Blade

This article is about the upcoming video game. For other uses, see Blade (disambiguation).

Marvel's Blade
Artwork depicting Blade
Developer	Arkane Studios
Publisher	Bethesda Softworks
Directors	Dinga Bakaba Sebastien Mitton
Designer	Dana Nightingale
Artist	Sebastien Mitton
Engine	Void Engine
Release	TBA
Genre	Action-adventure
Mode	Single player

Marvel's Blade is an upcoming action-adventure game developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. Based on the Marvel Comics character Blade, it will feature an original narrative that draws from the character's comic book mythology, while additionally deriving from various appearances in other media. The story follows superhuman vampire hunter Eric Brooks, known among his peers as "Blade", as he attempts to stave off a vampiric invasion in Paris while struggling with his origins among both the undead and the living.

Arkane Studios entered development on their next game following the release of Deathloop (2021) in January 2022, subsequently pitching to Bethesda and being selected by Marvel Games to produce a video game around the character. The game was announced in December 2023 and went into full production by the following year.

Synopsis

Characters and setting

The game follows Eric Brooks / Blade, a dhampir known as "The Daywalker" who has sworn his life to the complete eradication of vampires in memory of his mother, who died at the hands of one on the day of his birth. A core theme is Blade's struggle to balance his humanity with his vampiric heritage, necessary to battle the undead but which also ostracizes him from human society. The game's narrative takes him to a quarantine zone in the middle of Paris, France that has become overrun by a colony of fearsome vampires, who have taken to preying on the human survivors while seeking to entrench themselves to invade the rest of the city.

Gameplay

Marvel's Blade is a narrative-driven, third-person action-adventure title, representing a departure from previous games developed by Arkane Studios which were usually played from a first-person perspective.

Development

Arkane Lyon, the French-based development division of Arkane Studios known for their work on the Dishonored series and Deathloop (2021), had begun preliminary work on their next project by January 2022, by which point Deathloop's campaign designer, Dana Nightingale, had been tapped to serve as their new game's campaign director. During this period, Arkane Lyon creative director Dinga Bakaba and art director Sebastien Mitton were offered the opportunity to collaborate with Marvel Games, as the firm had been in the midst of licensing out their characters to external developers in a commitment to renew their focus on AAA titles. The pair pitched their vision of a standalone game focusing on Blade, which was responded to enthusiastically by Marvel Games' vice president Bill Rosemann, claiming that "The Arkane touch fits Blade like his trademark trenchcoat." The prospects of the title similarly excited Bethesda Softworks' former vice president Pete Hines. Arkane's game marks the first title focused on the character since the video game tie-ins to the Blade films by New Line Cinema, as well as the character's first standalone appearance in an original video game not tied to other media.

Marvel's Blade was announced with a cinematic trailer during The Game Awards 2023 on December 7, 2023. Bakaba spoke on Blade's character and the resonance he instilled on him as someone who also shared his mixed background and that he was excited to place the character in his hometown of Paris as the game's setting, stating that he considered the studio's chance to interpret the material their own way a dream of his, as well as "a challenge that our team embraces with a passion." Co-creative and art director Sebastien Mitton remarked on approaching a character like Blade as an opportunity to push Arkane's art direction into "even more modern and bold territory". The game had entered full production at Arkane Lyon by late 2024 according to a financial briefing from the studio. In June 2026, Bethesda Game Studios executive producer Todd Howard offered an update to Entertainment Weekly, praising Arkane Studios' work on the game after being shown footage of it the prior month.

Release

An untitled licensed game from Bethesda Softworks was mentioned in the publisher's internal roadmap documents as slated for the 2024 fiscal year ending September 30, 2024. At this time, Bethesda had already been selected by Disney to publish Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (2024). As both games used respective licenses owned by Disney and developed by first-party studios part of Xbox, senior VP of Global Games and Interactive Experiences at Disney Sean Shoptaw stated that whether Marvel's Blade launched as exclusive to Windows and Xbox consoles like the Indiana Jones title was for Bethesda to decide.

In June 2026, it was reported by The Verge that ahead of the Xbox division's planned mass-layoffs following the fiscal year, Microsoft was weighing the closure of five studios under their umbrella, including Arkane which would coincide with the cancellation of Marvel's Blade. According to writer Tom Warren, the game had been internally delayed from a late 2026 launch window to the following year, and was running over budget. Microsoft was also said to be exploring options for spinning out Arkane Studios from Bethesda and Xbox.

External links

• Marvel's Blade at Marvel