Over the last decade, Activision Marvel games from Deadpool to Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and Ultimate Alliance have been systematically delisted from digital stores without warning, leaving an entire library of classic, beloved superhero games doomed to obscurity.
Bizarrely, a bunch of these games got backend Steam updates over the past week which added new screenshots to their storefronts. This follows reports that Microsoft, having acquired Activision Blizzard King, is now in talks with Marvel to renew licenses so that it can bring back these lost gems.
It certainly looks like something is going on behind-the-scenes to rectify a huge loss of Marvel media. But if it’s all smoke and no fire, don’t worry. You can still play these games even though they’re no longer available to purchase.
The Internet Archive Has Preserved These Delisted Classics
If you haven’t heard of the Internet Archive, imagine a gigantic digital library/museum preserving the internet itself. You can view old versions of webpages via the Wayback Machine, watch classic and rare movies, or even loan books like an actual library. It’s an invaluable tool that many academics and journalists rely on, but something that often flies under the radar is the ways in which it helps video game preservation.
The prototypes of canceled games like Daredevil: The Man Without Fear, or rarities like the Silent Hill 2 PC edition, can be downloaded directly from the website. It is a haven for the delisted and forgotten, and that includes these Activision-published Marvel classics.
Both Ultimate Alliance games can be found here, and the Deadpool game here. As it is a free, public website hosting a wealth of media, downloads aren’t exactly the fastest, but if you’ve been hankering to try some old Marvel games, this is the best way to do it right now.
If you go looking on the site for other Marvel games, just be sure to check the reviews. These are submitted by users, not the Internet Archive itself, so it’s always worth being careful.
It might take some tinkering to get them in working order (controller support is all over the place in Ultimate Alliance), but that’s unfortunately the price to pay with games losing official support and being stripped from platforms like Steam.
There are a surprising number of delisted Steam games that are only playable if you have the original disc, which tends to drive prices up. And since disc drives are an increasing rarity on PC anyway, it’s a problem that’s spiraling — so much of the medium could simply evaporate, leaving the scraps to collectors.
Storefronts like GOG are trying to future-proof new games by selling them DRM-free, while also bringing back classics like the original Resident Evil trilogy. It’s amazing to see these efforts to ensure that the medium doesn’t pull the ladder up behind itself, but there’s still a huge number of titles that are simply unavailable and likely won’t be relisted unless fickle license agreements are struck.
GTA: San Andreas, Driver San Francisco, Ninja Blade, even the original
Dark Souls
are all unavailable on PC now.
These old Marvel games are so important to the history of the medium, and they should be valued as such. You wouldn’t have the amazing webslinging of the Insomniac Spider-Man games without titles like Shattered Dimensions — hell, the new Wolverine even has dismemberment inspired by the X-Men: Origins tie-in. Thankfully, the Internet Archive is providing a way to access these lost games, preserving a history that was so suddenly stripped away.
As the Internet Archive is nonprofit, you can donate to help keep it running here.
Marvel
The biggest name in superheroes and comic books, Marvel Entertainment has been owned by The Walt Disney Company since 2009. Its characters include Spider-Man, The Avengers, and the X-Men, while many of the movies that make up the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) are among the highest-grossing films in history.