New concept art from a long-dead Punisher video game has recently surfaced online, showing off particularly gritty designs for many of Marvel's iconic street-level heroes, anti-heroes and villains.Senior Concept Artist Todd Marshall tweeted a set of character designs for Daredevil, Deadpool, Elektra, Punisher, Bullseye and Kingpin that show off the characters in a rough, gritty art style perfectly suited for the mean New York streets. Marshall later confirmed with ComicBookMovie that the artwork is indeed from the canceled Punisher 2 video game, telling the outlet, "Ah, those old things!! Yeah, please don’t take those too seriously. They were just VERY early, exploratory, fun and loose concepts for a Punisher 2 game that never took off."
Marvel's popular anti-hero made his video game debut back in 1990 with The Punisher for the Nintendo Entertainment System, alongside a separate title on the DOS and Amiga computer systems. But perhaps the character's most memorable early appearance was in the 1993 Capcom arcade game, a side-scrolling beat-em-up that featured both Punisher and Nick Fury as playable characters. 2004 saw The Punisher, a movie tie-in game on PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC based on the film of the same name. The third-person shooter included voicework from actor Thomas Jane who played Frank Castle/The Punisher's live-action counterpart. The game received generally moderate reception from critics, some of whom found its excessive gore and violence wasn't enough to make up for repetitive and linear gameplay.
The canceled Punisher 2 would've been a sequel to the 2004 game, as developer Volition Inc. (THQ) was attached to both projects. Marshall has shared more of his designs from the unreleased game in the past, revealing concept art for Black Widow, Nick Fury, Typhoid Mary and S.H.I.E.L.D agents.
Following The Punisher 2's cancellation, the most recent standalone Punisher game is 2009's The Punisher: No Mercy, a first-person shooter exclusive to the PlayStation 3 that was received with a mostly poor critical reception. The Punisher's latest appearance can currently be found on the roster of the Switch exclusive Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order via the Marvel Knights: Curse of the Vampire DLC.
There are no current plans for The Punisher to appear in his own game. While Marvel does seem to be interested in expanding its offerings in the space with such releases as Marvel's Spider-Man from developer Insomniac Games and its upcoming sequel alongside Edios-Montreal's The Guardians of the Galaxy, Punisher fans will likely have to hold off until the recently teased Wolverine game for their violent Marvel fix.
Source: Todd Marshall via Twitter & ComicBookMovie