KUALA LUMPUR: After months of dropping teasers, fans of superhero-themed ‘Marvel Future Fight’ mobile gaming will soon be able to play new and original characters in the Marvel Universe.
The newest team, which will add to a roster of more than 180 characters in the mobile game, is expected to appeal to Malaysian gamers as it will feature the first superhero from Malaysia called ‘Sun Bird’.
Sun Bird is one of four members of Warriors of the Sky team exclusively created for the game developed by Netmarble Corporation, a mobile-gaming company based in South Korea.
The new characters were created by Marvel Games production director Danny Koo, who was born in Malaysia.
“Warriors of the Sky is actually a new Marvel original team inspired by Asian mythology creatures,” said Koo during a live stream published on Marvel Future Fight’s official Facebook and YouTube account today.
Other members of the team that would be available after the latest update to the game, which is expected to be downloadable on Jan 8, are War Tiger from Thailand, Blue Dragon from Vietnam, and Shadow Shell from Taiwan.
“This is very much ingrained in Asian mythological stories. To the North (of the region), we have the hybrid of a snake wrapped around a turtle (Shadow Shell), we have the fiery bird (Sun Bird) to the South, we have the War Tiger in the East and to the West is the Blue Dragon.
“These (the new characters) are also inspired by the four different foods that I like… I love Vietnamese and Thai foods, I love Taiwanese dumplings. And I was born in Malaysia and Malaysian food is fantastic,” Koo added.
Explaining the origin story of Sun Bird, which Koo described as a ‘fun one’, the male superhero armed with two keris was initially a pirate roaming around the Straits of Melaka and attacked Dutch merchant ships for the loot to support his families as well as friends in the 1600s.
One day, Sun Bird’s crew led a mutiny against him, and used his keris to stab him in the back during the incident. The attack left Sun Bird bleeding to death.
“But his blood actually awakened the (spirit of the) two keris, which is a traditional weapon in Malaysia, that subsequently revived him. It actually awakened the spirit of the Sun Bird,” he said.
In the game, Sun Bird with his groovy hair-style, has five skills namely double kris ‘keris’ dash, burning blade, pirate rush, red implosion and wings of the sun bird.
In addition, special to the Warriors of the Sky team, each of the characters will get a sixth skill, which will see them summoning a celestial creature ‘Sky Kyrin’
Players, however, need to obtain all four characters of Warriors of the Sky in order to unlock their sixth skill. It was revealed during the live stream that Sun Bird’s sixth skill is searing flame.