Though Marvel has been making a big name for itself in the console games space with fairly recent hits like Guardians of the Galaxy and Insomniac’s Spider-Man saga, the comics publisher still has a foot in the mobile game market. It’s Second Dinner’s Marvel Snap that’s currently won over the hearts of fans following its release on phones and PC (via Early Access) back in October, and seems poised to be one of the brand’s strongest releases with future content updates.
As part of Snap’s recent “Hype the Hero” event, Second Dinner and publisher Nuverse collaborated with animation studio The Line to release a music video for Martin Garrix and JVKE’s new single, “Hero.” Animated music videos for popular games aren’t anything new; you may not play League of Legends, but its yearly Worlds tournaments have music videos that are truly something and helped inform the Arcane Netflix series. But Marvel Snap doesn’t use the video as a way to show off some card-dealing action. Cards are featured in the video, but the music video is instead used as a highlight reel of the publisher’s most well-known romantic entanglements as JVKE contemplates answering a text from his ex.
Cheesy as it sounds on paper, the execution of it works surprisingly well. Each relationship has a different art style — Daredevil and Elektra are done in 8-bit similar to an old school video game, Spider-Man and Mary Jane are in a chibi style, and so on — and they all feel like they fit the particular couple featured. It even uses to a segment to give a brief shoutout to Angela and her wife Sera, a pairing that hasn’t been seen in the comics in some time. For as much turbulence as Marvel likes to put its couples through from time to time, watching some of those love stories play out to describe an actual relationship in a two-minute music video is oddly effective. And it doesn’t hurt that the single itself is good, as far as pop songs of this type are concerned.
Between this and the animated shorts for Marvel’s Midnight Suns, it’s nice to see the company branch out and do more with the medium. Maybe future collaborations like these could be done for the more Marvel games coming down the line?
Want more Gizmodo news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water.
Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the U.S., but will be updated with local Australian dates as soon as we know more.