Throughout the past decade, the Avengers have become one of the biggest properties of all time. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is known the world over, so when it was announced that we would be getting a AAA game featuring Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, it didn’t come as much of a shock. When it was then announced that it would be as a live service game, featuring all the familiar trappings we’ve come accustomed to, it also wasn’t much of a surprise either, given that every major publisher is looking to cash in on the genre. While the main story campaign has some incredibly engaging moments, the technical foundation and lack of variety in its online modes leave a lot to be desired and makes for a less than worthy experience.
Marvel’s Avengers has had an interesting road to release. Its reveal was met with skepticism at it being a live service game, the character designs divided the fan base, and the whole debacle with Spider-Man being exclusive to PlayStation garnered the game a lot of frustration even before it released. When the closed and open beta dropped just a few weeks ago, the game was largely broken, clunky, and covered head to toe in glitches, bugs, crashes, and a PC build that was largely unplayable. While the finished game is far more functional, it’s still littered with numerous bugs, crashing at least once or twice a day for myself, and a game that is lacking in polish across the board. Now, that said, I’ve certainly found enjoyment across both its single-player campaign and its online offerings, but there are a lot of caveats that have to be addressed as the game is certainly lacking in its current form. Live service games are rarely at their best when they launch, sometimes requiring several months to iron out problems, and several years to find their footing.
Despite its live-service foundation, the game succeeds in telling a very captivating story in its single-player campaign. While a few missions allow for a brief stint of co-op, you won’t be able to play much more than just those few missions with friends until you’ve either pushed through the campaign or ignored the spoiler warning and simply leaped into its online modes. While the spoilers are wildly predictable, I still strongly suggest playing through the 10-12 hour campaign as it is easily the best and most fleshed-out mode of the two. Granted, there is a lot of fun to be had with its online modes, especially when you are playing with a group of friends, but the narrative the game gives us through its campaign is considerably more focused and engaging than the loose narrative scraps the game attempts to cobble together across its repetitive online missions.
When Square Enix announced that Kamala Khan, Ms. Marvel, a somewhat lesser-known but still important character from the comics was going to mainline the story as its central protagonist, I was rather impressed and quite honestly shocked that a AAA publisher would roll the dice on a Pakistani Muslim teenage girl being the focus of a big-budget Avengers game. Not only does it pay off, but the game and its story are drastically better for it. Kamala Khan represents the heart and soul of this story, a narrative that could have been far too generic otherwise. Kamala may not be a household name yet, but with her Disney+ series in the works, which will be tied to the MCU proper, her inclusion here is just a continuation of seeing a diverse cast of characters that are finally getting the representation they deserve, allowing kids of various cultures and races to see themselves front and center as part of these big blockbuster universes.
The game starts with Kamala Khan attending A-Day, a fan celebration where she is able to meet the Avengers in person, giving her a few moments where she’s able to interact and converse with her idols. The day is then cut drastically short due to an attack on the Golden Gate bridge that results in a devastating loss for the Avengers and countless lives across the city. It’s also here where many are infected through Terragen, transforming some of the population into Inhumans, Kamala herself Included. Sadly, the game, unfortunately, skips out on her discovering her powers, a scene that could have deepened our connection with her, giving us an idea about how she had come to grips with having powers like her heroes. Some five years later, Kamala has potentially tracked down the last known location of the Avengers and hacks into Tony Stark’s own private database, uncovering some information that puts her in the crosshairs of Advanced Idea Mechanics, a tech giant that has since replaced the Avengers in the public eye. The bulk of the story going forward is seeing the team reunite, attempting to find out what A.I.M is plotting, and the wonderfully handled origin of its leader, M.O.D.O.K.
The campaign, for as much as I’ve enjoyed it, does suffer from a few levels that sadly disappoint, not to mention that once you are done with the story, you’re not able to revisit it without starting a new game via a different profile. There are a few levels that don’t contribute to the narrative as well as others, such as an Iron Man level where you’re simply told to fly as fast as you can, ignoring all threats as you attempt to reach the end of the level. The game is largely at its best when it is more story-focused, with levels being considerably linear and more cinematic. The wide-open levels that are more reminiscent of its multiplayer are still enjoyable but don’t feel as good to complete on your own and while some of them can be played co-op, it’s a rather odd situation where some of the campaign missions are co-op and some are not. While the game starts off strong with Kamala, it surprisingly ends just as strong as well, with a final level and series of boss encounters that are absolutely enjoyable and impress all around. While the campaign does continue via its multiplayer modes, the narrative isn’t as strong and feels considerably thinner due to the nature of co-op live-service games.
Multiplayer is via the war table, a platform via two hub locations where you can plot out your missions. There are training programs, faction quests, character-specific stories, as well as all your daily missions you can play with friends. You have seven areas to explore, with most locations having several missions of their own, but you’ll often notice that while you may have 2 or 3 missions that take place in the same location with a unique story attached to them, most of these excursions are you simply being told to proceed to the targeted zone, kill some enemies, target some generators, or stand on some sensors for Jarvis to hack them. Now, these missions are a ton of fun with friends as is usually the case with most games but can feel empty and hollow when playing solo. There is still fun to be had sure, leveling up and working through your character’s challenge cards, but missions feel tired and repetitive after only a few jumps into the same map over and over again. There are some special missions like vaults and hives, and while vaults can be rather intense at their end, hives are 6-floor dungeons that have you simply performing every type of gameplay mechanic the game has already had you complete a dozen times already. In fact, most hives have “defeat all enemies” as their only objectives for all six floors, which always take place in the same rooms you’ve been in time and time again.
While you do have a few human enemies to tackle, most of your battles will be against the same five or six robots, with a variety of drones that have slightly different features between the few types. You can take on Taskmaster and Abomination here and there, but these bullet sponge bosses are just walking health bars that are just not fun to fight. The bosses that are fun are multi-layered battles against large mechs or ships that have you performing a series of different mechanics to take them down. The current enemy variety is not terribly impressive, so I hope that future content packs start adding in new threats that feel worthy of calling the Avengers into battle.
Each multiplayer mission can be host to 4 players, so you and 3 friends can pick a character and run or fly around the map collecting chests, freeing captured Inhumans, or taking on special enemies that you’ll occasionally find around the map, which are usually just the same mini-mech you’ll fight everywhere else. The stories for these missions again are wafer-thin, unfortunately, and it’s a shame the long load times in the QuinJet are not used to dive deeper into them. Now, and I could be wrong, but I am suspecting that the QuinJet isn’t meant to go into detail on the missions due to the faster load times on the next-gen consoles, making these plane rides just a few seconds as opposed to the several minutes they are now.
Should you have issues with matchmaking like myself and often just have one player join or in most cases unable to find anyone, you can bring AI teammates with you. While they are decent enough in a fight and can run over to revive you, there are some doors that need a strong character to bash them down, so if you are playing as Black Widow or Iron Man, you are out of luck and will likely have to forgo that chest or whatever else is behind that door as your AI will not bash the door down on their own. Had we been able to give commands or an “attack my target” feature, then maybe the AI could be useful, but currently, they are just only passable. The last thing I’ll mention on multiplayer is that it is a pain trying to figure out where your teammates are half the time. You can press UP on the d-pad to locate them or the “?” locations on the map, but the prompt goes away far too fast. Had we been able to toggle the prompt and leave it on, then It wouldn’t be an issue. I would even settle for a navigation bar at the top to at least give me the direction my teammates are in.
The current cast of characters you can inhabit are Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, Thor, Ms. Marvel, and the Hulk. While there is a leaked list of potential additions coming to the roster such as Black Panther, Antman, Captain Marvel, and even Agents of Shield’s Quake, it’s very likely that all future additions are from the MCU or Disney+ shows designed to assist in advertising what Disney has coming out for release. With Marvel’s Avengers being the first realistic-looking game featuring well-known Marvel owned characters, apart from Insomniac’s Spider-Man, the comparisons to that of the MCU were always going to happen, regardless of any designs Square Enix would come up with. While I personally see more design work being pulled from the comics, which did inspire the films, I will say that this game’s Bruce Banner is the only member of the cast that is legitimately pulled from the films, but that is likely because every other Avenger has an iconic look or particular traits that stand out and there has never been a locked-on look for Bruce Banner across his decades of Marvel Comics. While there are clearly other aspects of the game that are inspired by the films, many of them are simple nods or reflections on how the movies themselves have fundamentally changed the comic books they are based on. Are the designs largely generic? Sure, but much of that has to do with making them look as realistic as possible and therefore denies them a traditional comic book style like that of the Ultimate Alliance games.
The selection of characters currently offers up a wide range of powers, diverse melee skills, and a variety of ranged attacks such as Black Widow’s pistols, Hulk tossing a giant slab of concrete, to Captain America throwing his mighty shield; bonus points if that theme song is now playing in your head, and if it is.. I’m sorry. Each character comes with a fairly substantial skill tree that has some customization nodes to swap around with, allowing you to create builds that focus on one or a few of their skills. When you reach level 50, which is the current max, you’ll have enough skill points to have unlocked everything, allowing the creation of builds to really function. Though, while you can make builds, there is no ability to swap from build to build, so you’ll either have to stick with something, or swap your skills around via the game’s very long load times.
While combat will roughly vary for each hero due to their available abilities and either being able to fly or zipline right into enemies, they all share a common foundation of having a basic attack, a charged heavy attack, a jump attack, and a ranged attack as well. But for every satisfying crunch of slamming the Hulk’s fists into one of the many robots you’ll face, you’ll suffer a homing attack that doesn’t care that you’ve moved or dodge out of the way. For every satisfying ricochet of Cap’s shield, you’ll get hit off-screen because the camera can’t make up its mind indoors. For every time you’ve unleashed Iron Man’s chest beam to trounce the last reserve of health of a boss, you’ll be hit over and over again by some enemy you didn’t see and be stunned locked because the recovery animation is just a frame too long. Don’t get me wrong, combat can be extremely fun and wildly engaging, but there are so many tiny little things that cause it to also be frustrating to no end.
As I’ve spent a couple of hours with each of the characters, I’ve found things that either greatly impressed me, or made me shake my head at some designs. Black Widow has a grappling hook to aid in reaching platforms that are above her, but she’ll struggle on jumping to non-flat ledges that are just a tiny bit too high. Her grappling hook is also the same button as her jump, so it’s very easy to accidentally use it when you simply are panic jumping away from combat, largely since the dodge can feel too slow in intense confrontations. While Iron Man and Thor can both fly, getting them to just take off and become mobile while airborne can take forever and the flying just feels lethargic, despite each of them having fun moves like Tony rapidly firing off repulsor blasts or Thor trapping enemies against a wall with his hammer. I personally love playing as Captain America as using his shield is ridiculous fun, as is raining down destruction with the Hulk, but I’ll admit his heavy attack just takes way too long to power up. Lastly, Kamala is overall, one of the more balanced fighters as she has a solid range attack and some close combat skills. She also has the ability to swing from platform to platform, but oddly enough during the campaign, especially in the fight aboard the Chimera, the game would barely recognize the A button prompt to have her latch onto the platform, resulting in death after death, having to relive loading screens over and over again.
Apart from your upgradable skills and abilities, you’ll be sinking a ton of time into outfitting your character in gear, even if the system itself feels lacking in every capacity. While gear items will have unique looks them to via their gear icon, they have about as much of a visible change on your character as body spray. You can equip four gear items to a character, each upgradeable to enhance or unlock perks per item. You can dismantle to earn more resources, but there is no dismantle all and it can take a bit too long to burn through all your excess items. You’ll also equip major and minor artifacts as another means to add more perks, bonuses, and abilities to your characters, swapping them out when you see the bigger numbers, which is usually the case with any game that has a power level associated with their gear items. Part of why Destiny has flourished for years is that each piece of gear you equip has a visible difference and has meaning, making the grind often worth it. Here, every gear drop is RNG, meaning you have no drive to push through missions for it, making the progression you make with your character feel visually lacking as nothing you equip has any purpose than just being good for you “right now”.
As is the case with live-service games, there are a variety of currencies that you’ll be earning, either a mid-tier type to purchase common items or higher-end currency for more premium ones. Thankfully, the premium currency can actually be earned fairly easily, through what are effectively battle passes per character. These “challenge cards” are unlocked for each of the starter characters, allowing you to freely complete tasks that unlock items as you go. Each character can have you earn upwards to around 2500 credits, which you can use to purchase exclusive outfits or save to unlock the challenge cards for each of the new characters that will have their cards locked behind a paywall. As you will earn additional credits by pushing through each pass, the whole system is built on unlocking items, albeit slowly, through gameplay, making it possible to unlock a wealth of premium content without spending any real money. It’s not the most perfect system by any means but is certainly better than how most publishers have handled their live-service approach to monetization. Now, all that said, I’ve unlocked over 30 outfits just by playing the game, decoding outfit patterns as I’ve found them, and even used the mid-tier currency to buy Thor a fancy new outfit, even if I wish his cape has some sort of texture.
Given the time and money put into Marvel’s Avengers, Square Enix has done a remarkable job at creating a visually pleasing experience; well, most of the time. The characters themselves look and sound great, packing in a ton of nice detail to each of their various costumes and a wide range of impressive animations as well. Environments are certainly more than decent, but playing through some of the levels so often, they start to lose their charm and so many areas just look the same across the large size maps with no real points of interest to stand out. I will say that I am not a fan of the graphical flickering the menu does, especially when you’re looking through your gear. I’ve also had texture pop-in, some textures just not load, weird glitches that will put two Hulk’s in the QuinJet, to characters not moving their mouths during cutscenes, to cutscenes themselves not even playing audio. Hell, I even had a cutscene just end randomly, resulting in me having to head to Youtube to actually watch it. This game has so many little problems that nearly every single mission or cutscene, or even just walking around the Chimera hub location will have one stand out. In fact, I have an NPC that has their hat/hair at their feet and it’s been like that for over a week now. Want to see? Take a look.
Marvel’s Avengers was never going to live up to the hype being a live-service game. The genre is trapped in the same systems and mechanics and recycled content that even sharing in some of those designs can spell doom for a game at launch. We’ve seen every publisher under the sun get into the live-service model and not a single one has seen instant success, often curating the game and its content over the course of years. While there is certainly some quick fun to have here, it won’t take you long to get somewhat bored of certain parts of the game and its core systems. What I find so disastrous is a lot of the problems this game has are those that Anthem shared in as well, with gear and activities just not living up to their potential. While it’s way too early to write off Avengers as “just another Anthem”, you have to remember that Avengers is a massive property and this game will sell millions upon millions of copies, ensuring that Square Enix digs in deep to address its current slew of problems and lack of variety in its content. With more characters, levels, and gameplay systems all being rolled out free of charge, this is a game that is going to grow into something either massively successful or another game that fails to keep its audience interested. Is Square Enix worthy to wield the power of the Avengers? well, only time will tell, but oddly enough after all my problems with the game, I still find myself hooked on its gameplay and strangely obsessed with pushing through the character cards.
Marvel’s Avengers: Deluxe Edition was purchased by the reviewer and played on an Xbox One X.
All screenshots were taken on an Xbox One X.