Mohamed Hassan 
The reveal of Marvel’s Blade was one of the biggest and most welcome surprises of 2023, but that doesn’t mean its release date is any time soon.
The surprise collaboration between Bethesda Softworks and Marvel was revealed at The Game Awards 2023. Arkane Lyon, the studio best known for the games Dishonored 2 and Deathloop, will be helming its development. Little is known about the game at the moment, except that it will be a single-player experience set in Paris with a mature rating.
Anticipation is growing for the game, especially with Sony also gearing up for a number of Marvel-related titles over the coming years. Unfortunately, it seems like anticipation may have a long time left to grow before a potential pay-off.
When is Marvel’s Blade coming out?
Marvel’s Blade will reportedly come out in 2027. The news comes from Jeff Grubb on the Xbox Era podcast, where they discussed the prospective release date for Marvel’s Blade.
“Arkane’s Blade. If you’re looking to know when I can play that, then, right now internally, they’re expecting that to be sold on store shelves and digitally in the year 2027,” Grubb said before stressing that fans shouldn’t expect the game before then.
This release year, if true, would mark a departure from Arkane’s typical release schedule. Its previous games typically arrive one to two years after their announcement. The long development time suggests that Marvel’s Blade is set to be the studio’s most ambitious title to date.
Bethesda has confirmed the game will have a third-person perspective, rather than Arkane’s typical first-person perspective. This shift hearkens to Marvel’s Spider-Man and the upcoming Marvel’s Wolverine, which are set to be centerpiece franchises for PlayStation moving forward. Microsoft is undoubtedly hoping that Blade will be able to compete with them.
Marvel’s Blade gameplay details
Marvel’s Blade is set to be a third-person action game following Marvel’s iconic vampire slayer, but little is known beyond that.
Blade has an array of superhuman abilities. He is part-vampire and has the extreme physical prowess that comes with that, alongside the ability to grow wings. He’s also a skilled swordsman and gunslinger, and is proficient with a variety of close-range and long-range weapons, including daggers, knives, and rifles. Marvel’s Blade had a few pieces of concept art revealed online, which hint at the game having open environments.
Arkane’s established flexibility in offering both melee and ranged combat in Dishonored and Deathloop provides a foundation for Marvel’s Blade, and the game will be in the same engine as past Arkane Lyon games. It’s easy to imagine the game being anything from an open-world action RPG like The Witcher to a more traditional action game experience like Devil May Cry.
Is Marvel’s Blade an Xbox exclusive?
It is unknown whether Marvel’s Blade will be an Xbox exclusive, but it is a possibility.
Although Arkane Lyon is a Microsoft-owned developer, the absence of the Microsoft logo in the announcement trailer has fueled uncertainty about the game being an Xbox exclusive. Bethesda has been dodgy on the matter. The company is also working on a confirmed Xbox-exclusive Indiana Jones game, which is another franchise licensed from under the Disney umbrella.
The uncertainty comes as Microsoft faces another round of challenges regarding its acquisitions from the FTC. The companies may be reluctant to confirm a high-profile exclusive at a sensitive time, or they may not want to commit to the platforms of a game that may wind up on next-gen consoles.
