Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra Trailer Teams Captain America and Black Panther

Video Games

Marvel video games are going back in time. Today, Marvel and Skydance New Media released a trailer for an upcoming game called… brace yourself for this one… Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra, based on (or “inspired by”) a comic book limited series called Captain America/Black Panther: Flags of our Fathers. The story, which was written by Amy Henning and Marc Bernardin, features Captain America and Black Panther – who, at this time, is T’Challa’s grandfather, Azzuri – encountering each other in Paris during World War II as they take on Hydra. The game makes use of the Unreal Engine 5 for its graphics and will be released sometime in 2025. While no platforms have been mentioned, it will likely be available on most next-gen consoles: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. You can see the trailer below:

That is one clunky, awkward title. Why not just name it after the comic? Regardless, the trailer for Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra looks good. The graphics are fantastic, and I can see why they were talking up the Unreal Engine 5; people commenting under the video on YouTube said many will mistake it for a movie, and they’re probably right. Captain America’s costume is the MCU one down to the last detail; while I’d have liked one from the comics with the external wings, it’s lightyears better than that riot cop getup he wore in Marvel’s Avengers. Black Panther looks great, too, and the idea of them teaming up in World War II is a good one. I also love the voice-acting; Drew Moerlein sounds just like Steve Rogers should sound. People are commenting on the fact that, aside from Cap, all the main characters are black, and I get it, but it’s not so out of place. Black Panther’s assistant would naturally be black, and there were black soldiers in World War II. The problem is that nowadays, people always suspect the motives behind these things are less than innocent, and I don’t blame them because, unfortunately, they usually aren’t. They could even be right; we won’t know till someone plays the game. However, this one was co-written by Amy Henning, a well-respected video game writer who was responsible for the stories in the first three Uncharted games. I’m not familiar with Marc Bernardin outside of his Kevin Smith podcasts, so I don’t know what his writing is like. Plus, the trailer is just cinematics; we don’t know what the gameplay will be like. But it’s a pretty cool trailer, nonetheless.