Marvel To Self-Publish Punisher PSN Arena Shooter

Arena multiplayer shooters may not be en vogue like they were around the turn of the century. But Marvel hopes to kick some life into the genre with the upcoming PlayStation 3 exclusive The Punisher: No Mercy, based on the heavily-armed Marvel Comics character and distributed solely through Sony's PlayStation Network downloadable service. The game is being developed using Unreal Engine 3 by Budapest-based Zen Studios, which claims prior downloadable game development experience by way of the Xbox Live Arcade titles Pinball FX and Rocky and Bullwinkle. Since there is no retail publisher attached to this title, it appears that No Mercy represents Marvel's video game publishing debut. Marvel has traditionally licensed its properties to third party publisher; Activision in particular has been a prolific publisher of games featuring Spider-Man, X-Men, and other Marvel characters, and holds multiple property licenses through 2017. In another first, Zen Studios managing director Zsolt Kigyossy points out that this will be Marvel's inaugural foray into the first-person perspective on consoles. While arena multiplayer FPS action seems to be the main focus, Zen is also developing a single-player component featuring art (inlaid above) by Marvel's Mike Deodato. According to Kigyossy, speaking in an official PlayStation Blog post, the "No Mercy" subtitle was chosen due to the "merciless" quality of the game.