Disney scrapped an open-world Iron Man game in development at Just Cause studio

Roughly 10 years ago, there was an "absolutely amazing" Iron Man game in development at Avalanche Studios, the folks behind the Just Cause series, but it was ultimately canceled by Disney.

In a revealing new interview with MinnMax, Avalanche co-founder Christofer Sundberg breaks down a few tantalizing design choices the developers were working to implement. For one, it sounds like it would've been an open-world game, as Sundberg says you would've been able to "take off and fly anywhere" at will. 

Curiously, Sundberg also suggested that the whole flying around thing would've been second to the melee-focused combat. "Yeah, we had a flying character in the game, but a lot of the focus was on the melee fighting, like being able to punch other characters through walls, like Iron Man does with the repulsor and everything."

MinnMax host Ben Hanson asked if it the combat was anything like the acclaimed Batman: Arkham series, and Sundberg replied, "Almost, yeah."

Asked for specifics on what happened to the project, Sundberg said vaguely that it involved "company politics." He also explained that the project was a "total mess" by the end and that Disney kept tightening the development timeline. "We would have had to hire 70-80 people to the team that I would have had a responsibility to find a new project for," Sundberg said.

Sundberg reckons the project was in active development for about two years before Disney canceled it. "It was painful because so much time and energy had been spent on it, and it looked absolutely amazing," he recalled.

When Hanson suggested hopefully that things might line up for a continuation of the project at a later time, Sundberg only echoed his optimism. Until then, we can only dream of the open-world, ass-kicking Iron Man game that could've been.

Here are some of the best superhero games that are definitely real.