'America's hero, dancing around in red white and blue underwear': Black Panther trash-talks the Cap in the first trailer for Amy Hennig's WW2 Marvel game

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Earlier today Skydance New Media shared a new look at the upcoming Second World War-era Marvel game starring Captain America and Black Panther with a story trailer that finally reveals its official title—Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra.

Unveiled during Epic's State of Unreal address at GDC, the trailer showcases a time when Cap and the Panther weren't pals—in fact, they weren't even aware of each other's existence. 

"I'm more concerned with the six-foot cat man who's got claws that can cut through vibranium alloy," the Captain worries at one point in the trailer, while Black Panther's partner Nanali—a Wakandan spy in occupied Paris—refers to Steve Rogers as "the American boy."

Naturally, as is the way with comic book heroes stepping on each other's toes, conflict ensues. Will they eventually learn to set aside their differences to work together in the never-ending fight against evil? Who can say!

There's no gameplay to be seen in the video, but Skydance New Media creative director and co-president Amy Hennig, best known as the former creative director of Naughty Dog's Uncharted series, said during the State of Unreal presentation that the clips in the trailer are all taken directly from the game.

"This isn't some custom demo that we made just for this show," Hennig said. "That's our game. All the sequences you just saw in that trailer are all pulled right out of our game, running real-time in Unreal Engine 5. No smoke and mirrors."

Starting at the 20:50 mark of the presentation, Hennig and Epic Games chief technology officer Kim Libreri showed off another brief spot of in-game action to demonstrate the Unreal Engine 5's capabilities, which gives us the Panther's brutal zing: "I know who you are, Captain—America's hero, dancing around in red white and blue underwear. That shield that you hide behind does not belong to you! You are unworthy of it!" 

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Oooooh. If there's one thing we know about Cap, those are fightin' words.

We also got a release target today, although it's vague and still quite distant: Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra is expected to be out sometime in 2025.

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.