A long ass time ago we had a trailer drop for a mysterious ‘Avengers Project’ and let’s be honest we all kind of forgot about it, didn’t we? Well here we are in the lead up to E3, Square Enix have taken Sony’s time slot, and what’s it for..? Well none other than Marvel’s Avengers! But what could we possibly have in store? Well obviously I have some thoughts. Here are the 5 things I WANT from this game.
5) An appearance from the best Spidey
So I’m pretty certain that this game will incorporate Insomniac’s Spider Man in some way, but most likely not as a main character. I reckon he’ll be a brief side character or will be introduced late game as a playable character… Or it could be an after-credits tease where Pete looks up and Iron Man is flying past; can you bleeding imagine! It really seems silly not to do this as a nod towards a larger gaming universe (If this is the plan), because the potential for that is bananas – I mean you already have this take on the web head who’s loved by critics and fans alike, so why wouldn’t you put him in!
I am definitely looking forward to playing at Marvel Ultimate Alliance, but I want a different game to that, perhaps something a little more… Realistic? When it was announced that this would be coop I did think how will they achieve this; would this affect the gameplay? For example if it’s a 3rd person action game – like many of Square’s games – how easy would this be to work it as a coop game, unless it’s online only… Then you can all just play as your character and work with your buddies without the screen being too confuddled. I also want them to draw more from the MCU in terms of it’s ‘adaptation’ of story lines and working in very realistic superheroes, where as Ultimate Alliance tends to stick very closely to the comics… Or maybe I’m just pissed it’s a Switch exclusive.
There’s almost no doubt that New York will feature in this game (They could just steal from Insomniac’s awesome living city!) and I love this sort of ‘real location’ exploration and I hope to god that they do this with a tonne of locations and you’re not forced through them as a linear level; and one thing they do very well is massive open world locations that are deep and explorable. I want to be treading the halls of Asgard or battling on Titan and then have to run off to find various collectables and power ups. It’s a big ask I suppose to get so many deep locations but ’tis what I want!
Do you know what one of the biggest disappointments for hero games has been recently, DC Universe online, this is because they wanted to put so much into the game a lot of the design, gameplay and details was sacrificed (in my humble opinion anyway) so Marvel need to avoid this, now they should as they released an MMO on PC a few years ago and i’m pretty sure it didn’t do that well, so this should be a lesson. MMOs have their place in the world but they often sacrifice strong narrative which is what makes Marvel so great, which leads me to my final point…
Judging from the teaser this game will at least feature our big 3; Thor, Cap and Iron Man – Now we’re probably going to have a lot more characters than this but how great would it be if we had a story that focused on these guys, particularly Thor as I’ve been waiting my entire life to for a decent Thor game. It will most likely follow an Avengers arc, and they could cash in on the Thanos hype after the MCU and his big comic resurgence in recent years, but I really hope they take time to focus on individuals; have Tony check in with Pepper or have Cap have to go off and do a SHIELD mission, maybe you just hook up with the team when it’s needed and side missions are solo, or with a minor hero… Could be getting ahead of myself but im effing hyped!
I have many many more hopes, dreams and theories about this game but I’ll say this – I have probably never been more hyped for anything before, and this could end up to be a bad thing as I was over hyped for Kingdom Hearts 3 and that was a let down. I have some faith in Square Enix, and I will pretty much play anything Marvel, but their video game history isn’t without it’s flops… But this can’t be as bad as the SEGA games! I am so unbelievably looking forward to the announcement which is less than a week away, and I will be back to fanboy mode once more has been revealed…