Gazillion details Marvel Universe at press event; confirms free-to-play and Brian Michael Bendis as writer

Gazillion held a press event in San Francisco yesterday, which dished loads of details regarding its Marvel Universe MMO, plus confirming the fact it will be free-to-play.

According to PC Gamer which was present for the event, and according to the site you will be able to play as any Marvel character from the comics. What this mean, is there will probably be a gazillion (pun intended) Spiderman characters running about the game world, which is something the development team, Secret Identity, believes will cause “lots of problems and lots of opportunities.”

Some of the Marvel characters shown were Captain America, Iron Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Thor, Spiderman, Nova, and Squirrel Girl, and Doctor Doom will be the game's main villain when the game launches.

Comic writer Brian Michael Bendis (Ultimate Spider-Man, Daredevil, Alias) is behind the plot and writing for the game and has promised “no corner of the Marvel Universe will be left unturned,” over the course of the MMO as you play through existing stories present in the comic books. This is good news, because it means it is not an alternate timeline, but the actual Marvel cannon - something a lot of folks were worried about at one point and time.

Gazillion said the game will be adult-oriented, and are vying for the core gamer audience first, but promise it will be accessible to more than just the core.

The game is likely to come to consoles but will see a PC release first. The Gazillion reps could not decide if console versions were TBD or TBA.

Marvel Universe is still a ways out, according to the developers, and an open beta for the game is speculated to hit in mid-to-late 2012.