EA's Iron Man will be open-world game, job ad suggests

Marvel / EA

The Marvel’s Iron Man game in development at EA’s Motive will be an open-world experience, a job listing for a senior technical artist at the studio indicates.

“Motive Studios is looking for a Senior Technical Artist to help oversee the rendering related aspects of an open world action adventure AAA title,” the job ad states. “This position requires high-level artistic sensibilities and strong technical skills; the ability to work with the art and rendering teams to drive the development of new engine features and to guide the content creation to maximize what is available. The candidate must be passionate about making great games, be a strong problem-solver and an effective communicator.”

Seeing as how Iron Man is able to freely fly around thanks to his suit, an open-world concept is probably the best solution for the game.

Iron Man was confirmed to be in pre-production as of October 2023 with studio head Patrick Klaus stating: “We’re still early in pre-production and taking our time to make sure we set the best possible foundation for development. But already, we’re finding so many opportunities to explore story, design and gameplay with Iron Man, and it’s exciting to see the fantasy start coming alive.”

Motive is using Unreal Engine 5 as opposed to EA’s Frostbyte Engine to create the superhero action-adventure – to which we can now add “open-world” as another classifier. Founded in 2015, the company first worked on EA’s Star Wars Battlefront 2 and then created Star Wars Squadrons. After a mystery project was canceled, it was put on the acclaimed Dead Space Remake and began work on Iron Man. 

Recent confusion about a Dead Space 2 Remake being in the works at Motive was dispelled following the announcement that key staff from the Dead Space team would form the core of Motive’s new Battlefield task force.

It’s not just Iron Man that’s confirmed to be an open-world game: Marvel’s Black Panther, which is in development at Cliffhanger Games, seems to follow the same formula. Another job ad has the critical hint: “Reporting to the Design Manager, the Sr. Technical Designer Sandbox  will be instrumental in designing and populating encounters, systems, and gameplay within a dynamic and evolving open world,” the listing explains. “Drawing upon a deep understanding of technical design principles and a passion for creating immersive sandbox experiences, this role demands close collaboration with design teams, AI engineering, and technical art departments to bring our game world to life.”

That means both of the Marvel titles currently in production at EA’s studios will be open-world games.