Hands-On: Marvel’s Avengers

Square Enix is partnering with Sony to bring Marvel’s Avengers on a roadshow over the next six months to release. A team that includes Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal and Crystal Northwest set to release on May 15th, 2020 across most platforms. The ambitious title surprisingly gave the public their first hands-on this week at NYCC. 

Marvel’s Avengers: Hands-On

Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Destiny’s Child

The demo begins at the beginning of the game during a tutorial mission. This is a playable version of the demo shown at E3 during Square’s presentation. You play as Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America and then Black Widow. The demo takes you through a bridge as you fight from one end to another against lower-level enemies. The action stops to explain the different types of attacks, blocks and evasion techniques. Once you reach the end of the bridge there will be a boss fight, ending the demo (left out for spoilers).

While the demo is short, you really get to experience the foundation of the game. The demo wants to show you that each character feels unique and, I have to agree. The best thing that I noticed about this game is how different the game feels playing as Hulk versus playing as Black Widow or Thor. Black Widow plays like a 3rd person shooter, Thor plays like God Of War, Iron Man and Captain America have completely different blocking and evading techniques. 

I noticed about 20-25 different costume slots for Iron Man. They showed some costumes for Hulk and Iron Man. I get the feeling they are really going to dig deep to impress some Marvel fans with the direction they take. This weekend at the show, they announced that Kamala Khan would be joining the playable cast of characters. From different teases, I think we can expect a robust lineup from notable names you could guess based on the MCU. However, I think where they will go into the vault is on the enemies. A lot of what they are trying to do here feels like Marvel’s Spider-Man on the PS4 meets Destiny, meets Ultimate Alliance. 

There are RPG mechanics that look like something pulled right out of Destiny. They didn’t go into heavy detail, just revealing a quick screenshot. Just imagine Iron Man in place of your Guardian at the load-out screen. Once you get moving the gameplay can feel like a next-gen take on Ultimate Alliance with a 3rd person camera. The RPG and evasion mechanics are way more in-depth but, punching through hordes of simple enemies felt familiar. The demo does have simple QTE mechanics that transition scenes from gameplay and vice-versa. That part of the demo felt very much on rails. I hope this does not impact the flow of the gameplay past the demo. That combined with the Uncharted-levels-of-linear map design make you hope the demo is just showing you what the game can be, not what it is. 

I wasn’t a fan of how each of the Avengers looked during the E3 demo. Looking back, I don’t really see any changes but, each character looked and felt rewarding. They did go into detail about how the multiplayer would work, there are two modes. The main story mode where you play as the story dictates, that is going to be a single-player mode. Then there is a Hero Mode, where you can team up for Co-Op with up to 3 friends and perform side quests. Similar to how the new Marvel Ultimate Alliance works or Borderlands, you pick your character as a class then level up with that character as you play, unlocking more for that character.   

Check back here for more news on Marvel’s Avengers and more updates from NYCC. Marvel’s Avengers arrives on Xbox, PS4, Stadia, and PC on May 15, 2020

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