For the video games, see Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes and Lego Marvel Super Heroes. Lego Super Heroes is a theme and product range of the Lego construction toy, introduced in 2011. The line features both DC Comics and Marvel Comics characters. The DC Comics part of the line was launched first, being released in late 2011. The Marvel Comics part of the line was launched on April 10, 2012,[1] to be featured alongside the 2012 film The Avengers. The first wave of sets released included nine sets from the DC Universe line. The largest of the sets was "Arkham Asylum Breakout" which included 1619 pieces and eight minifigures. In addition to the first release, two polybag sets have been released under the DC Universe line, "Batman jetski" and "Batmobile" as promotions. Lego have also announced nine sets are to be released later in 2012 under the Marvel Universe line. Prior to the first wave of sets, Lego had given away five different minifigure promotional sets at comic conventions in the United States.
At the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con, a Green Lantern minifigure and a Batman minifigure were given away to raffle winners and at the 2011 New York Comic Con, the minifigures of Green Lantern, Batman and Superman were given away at the DC Comics booth.[3] In July 2012, 4 more exclusive figures were given at New York Comic Con to raffle winners - Shazam!, Phoenix, Bizarro and Symbiote Spider-Man. In July 2013, four more figures - Green Arrow, Black Man of Steel suit Superman, Spider-Woman and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 suit Spider-Man were released at NYCC. Lego have also released an accompanying magnet set under the Super Heroes theme. It is a three piece magnet set consisting of the Batman, Robin and The Joker minifigures each attached to a magnetized brick. In the latter part of 2015, it was confirmed that sets based on the 2016 film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice will be released. The Marvel Universe sets were first released in 2012 and that year consisted of four The Avengers sets and one X-Men set released in March, followed by one Ultimate Spider-Man set in August.
2013 saw a much smaller selection available, with two Ultimate Spider-Man sets released in January followed by three Iron Man 3 sets in March. All of the 2012 and 2013 sets have now been retired by LEGO. 2014 saw two waves of sets available. These were three Ultimate Spider-Man sets and two Avengers Assemble sets released in March, followed by three Guardians of the Galaxy sets and one X-Men set in June. 2015 again sees two waves of sets, with six Avengers: Age of Ultron sets that were released in March and was followed by two Ultimate Spider-Man sets and one set based on the Ant-Man film. In the latter part of 2015, it was confirmed that sets based on the 2016 film Captain America: Civil War will be released. All of the following product information is correct as of March 2015. Main article: Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes A video game based on the Lego DC Super Heroes half of the line, titled Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes was released in the summer of 2012 as a sequel to Lego Batman: The Video Game.
The game was released on personal computer, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo DS, Wii and Xbox 360. Main article: Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham A second video game based on the Lego DC Super Heroes line, titled Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham was released in November 2014 as a sequel to both Lego Batman: The Video Game and Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes. The game was released on iOS, personal computer, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Main article: Lego Marvel Super Heroes A video game based on the Lego Marvel Super Heroes line, titled Lego Marvel Super Heroes was released in October 2013. Originally, a Lego Avengers game was set to be made, but the developers felt that just being able to play as the Avengers was not enough, and thus decided to add other Marvel heroes.[17] The game was released on iOS, personal computer, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.
Main article: Lego Marvel's Avengers A second video game featuring the Lego Marvel Super Heroes line, titled Lego Marvel's Avengers is in development. It will follow the plots of the two Avengers movies, Marvel's The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron. The game is slated for a January 26, 2016 release. It will be released on personal computer, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.LEGO Marvel’s Avengers Handheld / Open World Hi there, for those who missed my last post – my name is Steve Thornton and I am the Game Director of the handheld version of LEGO Marvel’s Avengers. As Game Director, my job is to ensure we’re making the best game we can, and the easiest way for us to improve our games is to listen to our fans. We read every review, user comment, email and tweet we can get our hands on before, during and after development of a game, so that we know what our audience wants and how to give it to them. So we know something people have been asking for since as far back as LEGO Batman 2 is to have a free-roaming open world hub experience on handhelds.
This is obviously a huge technological challenge for a handheld game, and it’s something we have been working up to for years; experimenting with bigger and better hub areas, third person cameras and creative ways to stream in content for players. I’m incredibly pleased to announce that for the first time ever, we have a full free-roaming open world hub city on handheld; a full 1:1 scale rendition of the console Manhattan city hub is playable on both Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita, with no breaks, cuts or loading screens. Although capturing the console scale was important to us, we knew we couldn’t sacrifice life or activity, so the handheld city is also fully populated with traffic and pedestrian systems, props and Free Play content. In fact, there are over 100 Free Play objects in the city, connected to 15 handheld exclusive “hub challenges” – a few of which I will reveal in this post, the rest you’ll have to discover for yourself in the mean streets of Manhattan.
Hub Challenge #2 – Vintage Set Avid Avengers fans might remember that in the movies Agent Phil Coulson collected vintage Captain America trading cards. By looking closely at the films and official material, our artists were able to fully recreate the actual design of these cards in classic comedy LEGO style and they now act as a cool new collectable in our game, scattered across Manhattan. Collecting one immediately spins it into view, adds it to a gallery menu, and rewards you with a voice clip from Clark Gregg aka Agent Coulson himself. Hub Challenge #7 – Character Building Something that’s extremely exciting is a handheld exclusive Free Play storyline starring some very popular (and very current) comicbook characters. At first they seem like a set of seemingly unrelated side stories starring characters like Daredevil, Dr Strange and Moon Knight, but it soon becomes clear there is a greater conspiracy afoot in the city, and a villainous mastermind the heroes will have to unite against.
Hub Challenge #8 – Hydraways There are hidden Hydra hideouts or “Hydraways” all over Manhattan. Once you get hold of Red Skull’s iconic HYDRA Coupe from Captain America: The First Avenger, you can release a special radar pulse that reveals these Hydraways, and exposes the back-up memory terminals of that dastardly HYDRA scientist, Arnim Zola. Once the Hydraway is revealed, his tape decks are ripe for the smashing. Listening to fans, we also know that although gamers value exclusive content, they also want the console and handheld experiences to become ever closer and offer the same feel and features. On this project we’ve worked closer with the console team than ever before, to ensure that the core features that define the LEGO Marvel’s Avengers experience are fully present on handheld. Many of these are traversal mechanics for blasting, boosting and leaping your way through the open world hub, including not only the Iron Man flight system and Quicksilver super speed, but the awesome Hyper Jump and Super Climb mechanics that bigger characters like Hulk can use to charge jump through the streets and smash up the side of skyscrapers.
We spent a long time tweaking and balancing these mechanics to ensure they had the right weight and responsiveness, and they feel genuinely great to use. As well as the characters traversal mechanics, we also have a full vehicle driving system, and players will be able to grab any vehicle they see on the street (you’re on important world-saving heroic business after all) but also use the vehicle spawn anywhere button to drop a car, bike, truck or tank on the nearest street, or find helipads on nearby rooftops to spawn copters, chariots and jets. New vehicles to spawn will be unlocked by completing story levels and challenges, many of which have special weapons and abilities, such as a nitrous boost. But the Manhattan hub isn’t only used for Free Play. During the main game, the hub is used as a way to connect the ongoing storyline of the MCU levels with exclusive hub missions. Covering the behind-the-scenes moments that didn’t make it on screen in the movies, the hub missions are designed to feel like playable deleted scenes from the MCU.
For example, an early mission covers Nick Fury being called to the P.E.G.A.S.U.S. base where the Tesseract is behaving strangely, covering his rendezvous at a hidden SHIELD base in Manhattan, and a drive in his decked out SHIELD SUV from Winter Soldier. Another covers Maria Hill rallying the SHIELD agents who retired after the HYDRA scandal back to action, so that they can pilot the mothballed Helicarrier to Sokovia. But as ever, we have injected a dose of LEGO fun, with Nick Fury having to help Agent Sitwell choose a wig for a date before he can borrow the base access chair, and Maria Hill disappointed to discover that if she’s going to get the old band back together, she’ll need to shake the ex-agents out of their newly found mundane jobs. I could go on forever about the hub content, but I don’t want to spoil all the surprises in store. As I said at the start of this post, I’m incredibly impressed by what the team has accomplished this time. The design and art teams went above and beyond, pushing for a bigger and better city for players to explore, and somehow the tech and code teams squeezed it down onto the handheld screen with no cuts, breaks, bad lag or loading screens.