I wonder if this will be a stealth 4th edition for the system.
They've said that it'll be entirely based on the existing 3rd ed system. Hopefully they'll tidy up some sore points, like the overpricedness of Shrinking, the messiness of Affliction, and the lack of anything resembling 2e's Independent modifier, which sorely limits the flexibility of the point-buy power building system. But i wouldn't bet on it. It sounded like they were just going to do a straight system lift and drop.
I was surprised, and to be honest, a bit disappointed to hear about this, to be honest. I don't know much about Valiant, but I have no interest in the sort of grimmer-and-gritter supers type genre that was being talked up by GR in the various announcements, and it does seem very niche and lacking in broader appeal beyond a few hardcore comic fans. I mean, I love M&M and I'll buy almost anything that comes out for the system, but there's nothing for me here. I wonder if GR made any sort of attempt to get the Marvel licence at all? It would seem to make sense, given their experience with licenced properties and M&Ms status as one of the big superhero games, but Marvel went with something completely brand new from Matt Forbeck instead (maybe they wanted to do it all in-house rather than licence out?) Or maybe GRs history with making a DC game counted against them there?
But honestly, I've been a little concerned about how M&M in particular and GR in general are going for a long time. There's been quite the revolving door of people running the line, there's been very few new products in recent years, the third-party publisher scene for the system is pretty much dead except for one mob pushing out pdfs containing statblocks for Marvel expys, the patreon is just access to periodical dev chats etc now rather than any game material, and GR had to run a kickstarter a little while back in order to afford to be able to reprint the core rulebook, which only achieved limited success. And a lot of their business model seems to be heavily based around licenced games that have a very limited shelf life once the property they're based on takes a back seat in people's minds. Game of Thrones, the Expanse, Fifth Season, Dragon Age etc etc have taken up a lot of their attention.
Still, they're still in business after 20 years, so they're obviously doing something right. They're nothing like the industry presence they were in the d20 era though, they're distinctly minor players now.
