Stern Pinball Announces VENOM PINBALL!
Image Gallery
Venom is the newest creation from Stern Pinball! Below is an in-depth overview of the machine, and a dive into the features and rules – check it out!
Overview
Who’s Who
- Lead Game Designer: Brian Eddy
- Software Engineer: Dwight Sullivan and Corey Stup
- Technical Lead Artist: Jeremy Packer (AKA Zombie Yeti)
- Lead Sound Engineer: Jerry Thompson
- Lead Animations: Paul Chamnankit
- Mechanical Engineers: Tom Kopera and Kevin Kolodziej
- Music Tracks: Mark Tremonti
Price and Production
Pro Model MSRP: $6,999
Premium Model MSRP: $9,699
Limited Edition Model MSRP: $12,999
Features
ALL MODELS
- Stern’s Venom pinball games will immerse players into the mayhem of this antihero’s Marvel Universe, featuring more than 20 characters including: Eddie Brock, Flash Thompson, Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker, Black Suit Spider-Man, Miles Morales, Riot, Agony, Lasher, Phage, Doppelganger, Venomized Hulk, Venomized Wolverine and Venomized Captain America. Venom’s arch enemy Carnage is collecting Codices to awaken Knull, the God of the symbiotes. Venom must stop Carnage by battling through his army of symbiotes and the Infected to prevent him from taking over the world.
- Canvassing the Venom pinball game experience is a collection of hand-drawn comic book style artwork by renowned artist, Jeremy Packer (AKA Zombie Yeti). Depending on which host you choose, players will hear a variety of different styles of music throughout gameplay, including over a dozen music tracks from GRAMMY Award-winning musician Mark Tremonti.
- Left Target
- Stacking locks on ramp feeds to inlanes
- Rykers Prison Left Orbit
- Alchemax Left Ramp
- Custom sculpted Carnage captive ball travels back into Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane
- Police Station Center Ramp
- Bell Tower target
- Life Foundation horseshoe
- Daily Bugle Scoop with VUK to right habitrail
- Argo-Lab right horseshoe
- The Vault Prison right orbit
- 2 Lanes to 2 Pop bumper nest
- Sneaky Hideout gobble hole
PREMIUM/LE MODELS
- 3 position 180 ramp with up-post at Life Foundation shot
- Pop-up ramp in Argo-Lab shoot
- Doppelganger swinging sculpt with 3 hanging targets
LE MODEL
- Production limited to 1,000 machines
- Certificate of Authenticity signed by Seth Davis
- Individually Autographed by designer Brian Eddy
- Venom vs. Carnage mirrored backglass
- Inner art blades
- Venom-inspired “goo” powder-coated armor
- Shaker motor
- Anti-reflection playfield glass
- Upgraded audio system
Rules & Code
NOTE: Subject to change.
Playing as Venom, gamers will select a host to bond with at the start of each game, altering the entire gaming experience both physically and digitally. Vertical pinball lock symbiote containment vessels located on both sides of the playfield lock and quickly release balls for constant frenetic action as players explore shots through the mechanically changing Agro-Lab and Life Foundation pathways. Players will bash an interactive, custom sculpted Carnage captive ball back into Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane. Additionally, a surprise Doppelganger attack can swing into action at a moment’s notice, unveiling three uplift targets wreaking chaos.
Excerpts of rules are from the Stern Insider Pinball Podcast panel discussion on the game.
Choose Your Host, Change The Game
In this game, you get to choose your host at the beginning, one of four different characters, and there’s more you can even unlock later. You can choose Eddie Brock, Flash Thompson, Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker and they become of course classic Venom, Agent Venom, Gwenom, and Black Suit Spider-Man. The playfield physically changes, shots change, rules change, and the music and sounds change. There’s different advantages between different hosts.
You can change your host at the beginning of every ball.
Every time you beat the final boss Knull, you can unlock one more host out of three; Hulk, Wolverine, and Captain America.
Character Bonuses
We have this grid of lights between the slings, and this is your path, when you choose Eddie you get the far left column, and when you choose Flash you get the second column, and when you choose Gwen you get the third column, and when you choose Peter you get the fourth column, and that leads you toward the final boss. That leads you toward fighting the minor bosses and then Grendel, which is a major boss and then the final boss is Knull. But if you change hosts along the way and you start filling in the grid in different patterns, as you complete different sections of that grid, you get different bonuses.
Level Up Characters
At all times, as you’re playing, you’re leveling up. Everything you do in the game gains you experience. Then at thresholds of experience, you go up levels, and then at higher levels, you do more damage when you’re in battle modes. When you’re facing minor bosses or other bosses, higher bosses, like the higher level you are, the more damage you’re doing with each hit, with each shot you make.
Co-op, Team Play, Impossible Play, and Monster Play
Another new thing that we added to this game, this game still has co-op. Co-op is a lot of fun, because as you’re filling in the grid, the people playing co-op discuss, well, which host should they pick now for this advantage or that advantage. I really like the flamethrower, so let’s go after that. It’s got co-op, it’s got team play, it’s got Impossible play, Monster play.
Speed Run
From your very first plunge, it starts counting up in thousands of a second and it keeps counting up until you beat Knull. If you’re logged in, it counts up across games. Eventually, when you do beat Knull because you’ve leveled up and it’s gotten easier for you, you’re now at level 30, level 40, level 50, you can beat Knull and then it will tell you how long it took you to beat Knull. Then that’s your speed run time. Then you can try and beat that. You can try and beat your speed run that you did before once again.
Team Ups
We’ve got Miles Morales in the game. He’s one of the guys you can team up with. You can team up with other characters like Sleeper and Hybrid.
Flamethrower
The flamethrower, we brought that back. Brian and I, so this is early, early on, we’re throwing just ideas on the whiteboard. We’re like, how can we defeat Symbiotes? One of the ways is fire. We brought the Flamethrower from Mandalorian to this game, but I think we’ve turned it up a notch. Flamethrower is one of the things in the grid that you can get. The grid has like six different boxes that you can complete. One of them is the Flamethrower– and they’re all passive. If you have those things, you have them all the time. You don’t have to do anything. It doesn’t require any actions or learning on your part. Once you have a Flamethrower, until you lose it and then you have it forever. What the Flamethrower does, anytime you’re in a mode or a multiball and two shots are lit with one shot in between them, if you have a left ramp lit and the center ramp lit and there’s something in the middle, then if you have the flamethrower, that’s something in the middle will light up orange, yellow, orange, yellow, orange, yellow, red, orange, yellow, red, and if you shoot the one in the middle, you get all three shots. That’s the Flamethrower.
Bell Tower
It often adds time, it often adds playfield multipliers and stuff like that, and then there’s a Bell Tower Frenzy where if you shoot the center ramp, which is pretty easy to just repeat over and over and over again. If you shoot five center ramps in a row, then hit the Bell Tower, not only do you get a plus one playfield multiplier, you get Bell Tower frenzy, all switches score for a few seconds, which you can layer on top of anything. That’s another cool thing about the game. Layering and stacking isn’t a new thing, but this game really takes it to a new level.
Grendel Major Boss and Knull Final Battle Wizard Modes
Trailer & Feature Videos
Press Release
MARVEL AND STERN PINBALL COLLABORATE FOR NEW VENOM PINBALL GAMES DEBUTING AT SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON
CHICAGO, IL – July 18, 2023 – Stern Pinball, Inc. and Marvel are collaborating to debut an all-new line of pinball games featuring one of Marvel’s most enigmatic, complex, and iconic characters, Venom – who’s ready to wreak havoc. Venom pinball games are available in Pro, Premium, and Limited Edition (LE) models.
Venom, an alien symbiote that bonds with various hosts, including former Spider-Man antagonist Eddie Brock, first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man comic book series in the ’80s. The symbiote gives its host superhuman strength and agility, providing creative and versatile powers out of its material. With its unique and visually striking appearance, Venom quickly became one of Marvel’s most recognizable and popular characters. Venom has been an inspiration for numerous products including: action figures, apparel, collectibles, and now pinball – cementing its continual influence on popular culture in game rooms and entertainment locations worldwide.
Stern’s Venom pinball games will immerse players into the mayhem of this antihero’s Marvel Universe, featuring more than 20 characters including: Eddie Brock, Flash Thompson, Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker, Black Suit Spider-Man, Miles Morales, Riot, Agony, Lasher, Phage, Doppelganger, Venomized Hulk, Venomized Wolverine and Venomized Captain America. Venom’s arch enemy Carnage is collecting Codices to awaken Knull, the God of the symbiotes. Venom must stop Carnage by battling through his army of symbiotes and the Infected to prevent him from taking over the world.
Playing as Venom, gamers will select a host to bond with at the start of each game, altering the entire gaming experience both physically and digitally. Vertical pinball lock symbiote containment vessels located on both sides of the playfield lock and quickly release balls for constant frenetic action as players explore shots through the mechanically changing Agro-Lab and Life Foundation pathways. Players will bash an interactive, custom sculpted Carnage captive ball back into Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane. Additionally, a surprise Doppelganger attack can swing into action at a moment’s notice, unveiling three uplift targets wreaking chaos.
Canvassing the Venom pinball game experience is a collection of hand-drawn comic book style artwork by renowned artist, Jeremy Packer (AKA Zombie Yeti). Depending on which host you choose, players will hear a variety of different styles of music throughout gameplay, including over a dozen music tracks from GRAMMY Award-winning musician Mark Tremonti.
Venom pinball games include Stern’s award-winning Insider Connected™ system, which enables players to interact with the game and a global network of players in a variety of ways. Through Insider Connected, players will be able to save their game progress through connectivity persistence, allowing anyone to become a (anti)hero as you advance through the game to reach the final wizard mode at the end, no matter how many tries it might take.
In addition, Insider Connected allows players to track progress, earn new game-specific achievements, engage with the player community, and participate in promotions and Challenge Quests. Insider Connected also provides an operator-focused toolset to drive location play through Location Leaderboards, build player loyalty, analyze performance, make adjustments remotely, and maintain the games. Registration for Insider Connected is available at insider.sternpinball.com.
Limited to 1,000 games globally, the highly collectible Limited Edition model includes a Venom vs. Carnage inspired full-color mirrored backglass, full color high definition reflective foil decal cabinet artwork, custom high gloss Venom-inspired “goo” powder-coated pinball armor, a custom designer-autographed bottom arch, inside art blades, upgraded audio system, anti-reflection pinball playfield glass, shaker motor, a sequentially numbered plaque, and a Certificate of Authenticity signed by Stern President & CEO Seth Davis.
“Collaborating with Marvel has given us an opportunity to create this truly unique, engaging and dynamic pinball experience inspired by Venom,” said Seth Davis, President & CEO, Stern Pinball. “The artwork and animations pop. The music rocks. And we can’t wait for fans to sink their teeth into this game changing pinball experience and get connected today.”
Pricing and Availability:
Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (“MSRP”)*:
*MSRP for sales to USA end-users, before any VAT, GST, Sales Tax, Duties, or other taxes.
Pro Edition: $US 6,999
Premium Edition: $US 9,699
Limited Edition: $US 12,999
Venom pinball machines and accessories are available now through authorized Stern Pinball distributors and dealers around the world.
