Time was all the major summer sci-fi blockbusters and action movie releases all got an obligatory video game adaptation, on as many platforms as could be found in any household. But by 2012, and the premiere of The Avengers, it was a changing landscape.

The Avengers, or at least a video game project using that name, was looking like the last gasp of this era of expensive licenses, huge marketing and summer movie blockbusters — forces that all conspired to take down publisher THQ. As Unseen64 recounts in this video from DidYouKnowGaming, The Avengers was both a throwback to an older era of console games and still something new and different.

After a few rough drafts, THQ's Australian studio elected to make it a first-person, cooperative multiplayer title — quite a departure from the kind of ensemble-cast, third-person action-adventure game that had glutted the market, particularly movie tie-ins, at the time. And the video game would have used a story and cast of characters that stood apart from the 2012 film.

This video features loads of in-development footage and concept art, along with a detailed look at the game's basic roster of characters, plus those that would have been unlockable. Work on the project continued into 2011, when THQ began its slow decline toward bankruptcy and dissolution.

Ultimately this project cratered along with THQ, which liquidated in early 2013 under the weight of too many poor-selling licensed properties. THQ orphans such as the WWE franchise, South Park: The Stick of Truth and what became Evolve survived under new ownership, but The Avengers, tied as it was to a movie license and a specific time of release, never saw the light of day.