Footage from the cancelled first-person Avengers game surfaces

To coincide with the first Avengers film, THQ was working on a first-person co-op romp inspired by the Secret Invasion crossover event. Due to THQ's financial trouble and eventual closure, however, the game never saw the light of day, but now footage from an early build has surfaced.

The early build was found on a harddrive acquired by Obscure Gamers, the videogame preservation community, with Andrew Borman, digital games curator at the Museum of Play, uploading the footage this week. It features the classic team-up of Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk and Thor beating the crap out of the pesky shapeshifting skrulls.

While the hero character models look finished, almost everything else looks very early days. Enemy models, power-ups and the map itself are largely absent textures, making it look like everyone's hanging out in the X-Men's Danger Room but on the lowest graphics settings.

Despite it being an early build, there's already a news tracker advertising PvP DLC and skins, which looks very out of place in a game that was clearly far from completion. That said, a scrap between Thor and Hulk sounds like something I would have liked to see. The PvP makes sense given the setting, too, as the skrulls invaded Earth by disguising themselves as heroes. Sadly it wasn't meant to be.

This year we're due another Avengers game, this time from Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics. It's a third-person affair, but it will again feature RPG-like systems and up to four-player co-op.

Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog.