Word of Marvel’s next try at a massively multiplayer online game (having tried before in a game that would eventually become Champions Online) started last week when they launched an official twitter feed and tumblr account [Read: Marvel Teases Details Of New MMO On Twitter & Tumblr]. Throughout the week, they have been dropping hints as to who would be writing the game, and it should come as no surprise that the game’s producers have tasked Marvel’s biggest writer. It was announced on Thursday at an event in San Francisco that Brian Michael Bendis, writer of The Avengers, Moon Knight, and Ultimate Spider-Man, would be writing the game. That was not the biggest announcement of the event though. No, the big news would be that the Marvel MMO will not only be a free to play game, but will also allow you to play as your favorite Marvel super.

Bendis revealed that the game will allow players to take the roles of their favorite characters including Spider-Man, Thor, Iron Man, and even Squirrel Girl, among many many others. This alone will already set it apart from DC Universe Online, which relies on characters to make their own characters and only allows users to play the big DC characters in very limited areas. Bendis also revealed that the main villain of the game will be Dr. Doom.

The game will be created by Gazillion Entertainment, which already handles the Marvel Super Hero Squad MMO. The game will be available only on the PC at first, although according to Jeff Lind, studio director for Secret Identity (the studio building the game), the possibility of the game showing up on other platforms has yet to be decided. The fact that the game will be free to play should appeal to those who were turned off by the subscription model of DCUO. There was no firm release date given for when we might actually see the game, but it was revealed that the game has been in development for more than a year.

I played some of DCUO and while I found it enjoyable, there wasn’t enough game for me to stay interested for very long, and I couldn’t justify paying the monthly fee for it. With the Marvel MMO being free to play, I could be more likely to play for a longer period of time and being able to play as my favorite character is even more incentive. In my experience most “free to play” online games have some form of micro transactions that add to the bottom line of the company releasing the game, so I’ll be curious to see if something like that turns up in this game. I’ll also be looking forward to a more firm release date and perhaps most importantly, how the game actually looks. No screen shots of the game were released at the event so your guess is as good as mine as to how this game will look.

So, are you excited to see this game? Let us know what your thoughts on the game are.

[Source: Marvel | CBR]