Well, that was shocking. Cryptic, Marvel Entertainment and Microsoft Game Studios today announced that Cryptic has been tapped to develop Marvel’s upcoming MMO, Marvel Universe Online, which will be released for the Xbox 360(!!) and Windows Vista, presumably next year. This is a shock because it was only a short time ago that Marvel Entertainment (and DC Comics) had Cryptic and NCsoft in their sights, accusing both of allowing users to infringe on their respective copyrights, by allowing users of NCsoft MMO City of Heroes to create characters resembling well-known Marvel and DC brands. I’m sure somewhere in South Korea, an NCsoft executive is throwing things at the poor intern who has to break this piece of bad news. How this will affect NCsoft is unknown yet, but, I can only imagine that with the release of Marvel Online Universe, NCsoft had better be planning a way around the potential fallout, as City of Heroes and City of Villains players abandon ship to play as Marvel-created super heroes. Though, whether players will actually get to play as Wolverine or Spider-Man remains to be seen.

Read more: Marvel and Microsoft announce Cryptic as Marvel Universe Online developer | Cryptic’s open letter to their fans