In 2019, Marvel's The Avengers series is easily the biggest franchise out there, with Avengers: Endgame even becoming the highest-grossing film of all time. Due to this success, Avengers will be released in 2020 to cash in on the video game market as well. However, people forget that we could’ve gotten an Avengers game way back in 2012.

RELATED: Marvel: Everything We Know About The Avengers Video Game From E3 2019

THQ Inc. was working on a title to coincide with the release of MCU’s The Avengers movie at the time, but the project was shelved due to the closure of the gaming studio. Now, it’s interesting to realize that the latest Avengers game isn’t even the first to be made. With that in mind, here are 10 facts from the cancelled game you should know.

10 It Had Brawler Style Action

This might make most fans sigh in relief for the game to be cancelled, since games based on movies inevitably become brawlers where all you have to do is button mash. We’ve seen this in many franchise games like Transformers and Harry Potter before, and The Avengers would’ve most likely followed suit.

RELATED: 10 WWE Video Games That We Completely Forgot About

There wasn’t much elaboration over just what kind of brawling we would be engaging in, but you don’t have to think that far ahead when you consider that your options were Thor, Hulk, Captain America, and Iron, who are all characters known from smashing things into smithereens.

9 It Was In First-Person

Now this was something people would’ve been taken with surprise by, as it is unprecedented for a game based on a movie (okay, maybe James Bond excluded) to be in the first-person. Superhero games in particular are always third-person for the destruction to be truly felt, which makes this an interesting take.

The intention behind this style of gameplay was to put the player in the shoes of the superhero, thereby making them feel as if they were the characters themselves. This would definitely have made flying sequences with Iron Man a treat to play.

8 The Story Wasn't Connected To The MCU

Another habit of film-based video games is to have the same story we see in the movies to be shown in game form, but The Avengers was going to avert this. It was definitely a big move on the studio’s part to go this route, considering Prince of Persia: The Fallen Sands had then recently failed with this practice.

In any case, the game was supposed to expand the idea of the Marvel heroes for the casual audience, since watching The Avengers in the MCU and then playing a game with a separate story would’ve stirred interest in the comics as well.

7 Co-Op Mode Was The Main Part Of The Game

Making the fact that the game was a first-person even stark was that it The Avengers was going to be heavily reliant on being a multiplayer feature. Here, up to four players would’ve been able to join and team up, obviously in the hopes that the players would think they had become the Avengers themselves.

RELATED: The 5 Best (And 5 Most Disappointing) Games Of The PS3 & 360 Generation

However, there would definitely have been drawbacks here, seeing as a first-person with multiple split screens sounds like a total nightmare. However it was supposed to be, we won’t be experiences the co-op, that’s for sure.

6 Every Character Had A Distinct Style

You might be inclined to think that, being a brawler, the game would’ve felt interchangeable with any character you chose, but that wasn’t the intention the developers had at all. Instead, every character would’ve been distinct in handling.

It doesn’t take much to imagine either, as Thor probably would’ve been a blend of flying and using lightning; Captain America would’ve been reliant on using the shield; Iron Man on perfecting his gadgetry; of course, the Hulk would’ve been the simplest as you’d only have had to smash everything in sight.

5 Additional Abilities Had To Be Unlocked

Then again, there’s not much chance the developers would’ve made everything so easy for you, and there was going to be the presence of experience points. These were added in to ensure that players got to perfecting their superhero by leveling them up at appropriate points.

RELATED: 10 WWE Video Game Storylines Better Than Real Storylines

This way, gamers would need to collect experience according to their level and only be able to unlock additional abilities by progressing further in the game. In case you’re not following, then just think of the new Assassin’s Creed games to understand how this was supposed to work.

4 Villains Yet To Appear In The MCU Were In This Game

It was only in Avengers: Age of Ultron that we got the titular villain in the MCU, but The Avengers game was positioned to familiarize the audience three years earlier with the supervillain. Sure, the game wasn’t in the MCU, but this would still have been the first time most of the fanbase would’ve seen the character in mainstream.

Along with Ultron, there were also supposed to be Skrulls within the game; we know that they didn’t appear in the MCU until 2018’s Captain Marvel. Had The Avengers been made, then perhaps film audiences would’ve been knowledgeable about these villains much earlier.

3 Black Widow And Hawkeye Were Unlockable Characters

No matter how much Marvel might want to tout that Hawkeye and Black Widow are just as important as the other members of the original Avengers in the MCU, the fact of the matter is they really are not as popular as the other four.

This was probably why Hawkeye and Black Widow wouldn’t have been readily available at the start of The Avengers, with their role only arriving late in the game. While they were supposed to be playable as well, the player would have had to unlock these characters to make them available for selection.

2 It Was Also Meant For Release On The Wii U

Nintendo has tried its best to bury the abomination of a console that was the Wii U, but they had tried hard to make it mainstream popular back in 2012 when The Avengers was supposed to be released on this console.

This was a huge deal since Nintendo consoles generally never get big-time releases, and at the time the eight generation of consoles hadn’t really started yet. This would’ve made The Avengers the first mainstream offering for the next generation of home consoles.

1 Marvel Refused To Fund The Game

The Avengers was being developed by THQ’s developers in Australia, but its financial difficulties meant paying the Australian employees with rising Australian Dollar costs led to THQ shutting production of the game.

This was following the last-ditch effort of the developers to get the game made by appealing to Marvel itself for funding, but sadly the pitch to the company was rejected and the game was abandoned since there was no more money to be paid to the hard working employees. In the end, it wasn’t the lack of quality that killed this game, but the lack of funds.

NEXT: Tekken: Every Game In The Series, Ranked