Marvel and publisher Nuverse announced on Thursday its latest collectible card game Marvel Snap, coming to mobile devices later this year. It will be developed by Second Dinner, fairly new indie development studio led by Ben Brode, one of the leading minds who had worked on World of Warcraft card game Hearthstone. Marvel Snap will be built “mobile-first”, but shall have an early access version of it available to PC by the time it launches globally. Players can now sign up for Marvel Snap’s closed beta available to Android devices only.
Chief Development Officer Brode along with many others from the team introduced gameplay mechanics and plenty of aspects of Marvel Snap. The main selling point the team emphasized was that the matches cut straight to the point. An average game should last around 3 minutes, allowing players to play simultaneously rather than waiting for turns. In each round, players are limited to a 12-card deck. Similar to poker, players can raise the stakes and double down by “snapping”, thus the title of the game. Winning the snap grants the player more rewards in the form of Cosmic Cubes. The risk factor behind snapping makes for an engaging and thrilling edge to Marvel Snap. “The whole mind game aspect does spike my heart rate a little bit,” says Marketing Manager Molly Fender. “When you feel like you are going to win the game, you can double down and get more rewards back.”
At launch, Marvel Snap will include over 150 base cards made up of Marvel heroes and villains with unique abilities. Each character also comes with varying art styles created by different artists to add to a sense of collectibility. Different seasons should be expected to come with new cards. “It’s really important to us you’re not paying for power. The game is free-to-play and you can get every card in the game over time without paying anything,” explained Senior Director of Production Julia Humphreys.
Second Dinner was formed in 2019 after Brode and a handful of others left Blizzard. Jay Ong, EVP and Head of Marvel Games at Marvel Entertainment claimed that Brode’s team was exactly who they wanted making Marvel games. This will be Second Dinner’s first game they will have released.