Marvel’s Avengers has an endgame and it’s not the one you think of. There will be no Shenanigans from Infinity Gauntlet as Black Widow throwing herself off a cliff – and instead of Iron Man sacrificing himself for the greater good, we may return Captain America from the dead.
The endgame for Marvel’s Avengers is technically non-existent, as it’s a live service game featuring a content and patch pipeline that spans years into the future, promising the addition of superheroes over Hawkeye and the PS4 exclusive Spider-Man. But according to Crystal Dynamics, if you play the Beta of Marvel’s Avengers, you only get a taste menu of the smorgasbord waiting for you in full fat game.
I sat down with creative director Shaun Escayg and head of fighter Vince Napoli to chat about the beta and future of Crystal Dynamic’s takeover of the most famous band of heroes, and discovered that there’s much more to it than meets the eye – wait, wrong universe.
System of a beta
It’s not easy to encapsulate a game like Marvel’s Avengers in a consuming beta that spans a short time. For one thing, there are the gear and upgrade systems, which seem to be as full and multifaceted as Destiny 2s, with skill trees that look like that old, gnarled oak tree in your backyard and items that are detailed burglaries are designed to make you feel bad / maximize yourself in the negative zone. Since the beta is very much focused on multiplayer PvE experiences, those systems are front and center of the jump, which can be shocking for people like me who prefer to put their head down and barrel through it.
And those systems are not necessarily the ones you have to interact with throughout the entire game – not through much of the campaign, at least. “In the main game, the gear is a really slow burn in the sense that we do not require or really even expect you to keep the whole campaign fully engaged,” explains Napoli. “We would like it to be there as a luxury, but if you do not really want to keep it busy, or you want, ‘This is not this is not my style of play, I just want to go to the story and explore the story , ‘then the game is designed not to require that.’
However, Crystal Dynamics expects (or wants) you to eventually start working with these systems. The further you dig into Marvel’s Avengers, the more challenging it will become, pushing you to start exploring and investing in the details of the game’s underlying lottery and upgrade systems.
Mid-game is where we expect players to contribute about 60%, or we expect them to configure some of the skill but not really min-maxing items or still worry about attributes – so that will we vote, “Napoli assures me, and it’s worth noting that elements of progression have been artificially accelerated for the beta to help players navigate through all the content in a short span of time. “Then, of course, we expect, at the end game, that you keep busy with it all, so that we adapt the enemies to it. It’s a much slower approach in the real game.”
According to Escayg, the dual gameplay styles available in Marvel’s Avengers are a deliberate merger. “There are the players who just want to learn about Kamala, and feel powerful, get the experience of the playable movie version,” he explains, adding, “Then there is the player who is a complexist who wants to get through everything, collect at the collectibles, collaborate, develop skill trees, execute and compete. ”
Plant a seed, grow a skill tree
Speaking of skill trees, the ones in Marvel’s Avengers are designed to give players the option to create different versions of the same heroes. That’s why they’re so tense and connected, because your version of Thor may end up very different from my version of Thor – who in my mind wears absolutely booty shorts.
Those intricate skill trees and unlocks are also the reason why many of the characters feel a bit the same at first. “We went back and forth a lot, especially when you play the campaign and you realize that you’re actually jumping fast and fast from characters,” Napoli explains. “We had to strike that balance, where the premise is equal enough that you can pick it up and play, and if you’re the player who wants to skip tutorials and not read them again, if you’re like ‘I’ I’m tired to tell you what to do, I just want to go and throw things, ‘you can get there.’
I wonder if the skill trees mean these characters will evolve more as you go. “Definitely. There’s no way we could make a game with so much depth that we do not want that to happen,” Napoli assures me. “That’s what the skill tree allows us to do. If you go further and further, you’ll start with some nice awake environments – even control scheme wise … you’ll be like ‘The way I use this button is completely different and it “does not look like the way I use this other character now. Now I fly, and do air maneuvers and shoot, and all this other stuff that is not even close as Thor can fly and do things.”
So, while you might feel like Black Widow, Kamala Khan, and even Iron Man feel a bit the same-y after that beta, which unlocks available skills limited to the first page of what appears to be three, you may not so feel after going for several hours in the full game. Cleary the beta is part of a game, and Crystal Dynamics has deliberately kept forces and capacities to amaze us at launch.
Avengers, compiled
The aforementioned skill trees will also open the floor for you to create some unusual cooperative moments between heroes – moments that may seem unavailable from the start. During the beta, there were not many opportunities to trigger movements with more heroes reminiscent of Marvel movie moments such as the Black Widow / Okoye / Scarlet Witch Wakanda Fight of Avengers: Infinity War. But those moments will be there in the game, just waiting for you to trigger them.
“That there is cooperative enemy material that is hot, let’s say it’s heavy in the sense that it’s a required group action and there are button assignments,” explains Napoli. “And to be honest, I’m not sure if you’ll face those enemies in beta. But that’s one aspect of team games.” I wonder if there are multiple player moments that are more organic, allowing you to fire Iron Man’s repulsors from Thor’s hammer or, you know, Cap’s shield (because he sure is net dea).
“There are subtle, sandbox-y moments like using a heroin and hitting another character who is accidentally overpowered by lightning,” Napoli assures me. “We decided to let the mechanics work in a way that is much more sandbox-y and much more fluid, instead of trying to deliver them all as this kind of bombastic, but more limited, cinematic – because we have enough of those for the campaign. ”
According to Napoli, the way you choose to traverse each hero’s skill tree will affect these organic interactions, giving you more opportunities to do some Marvel magic … “There are a bunch of those moves that actually are hidden in the skill trees, “explains Napoli. “You’ll see, ‘Oh, actually, if I get this skill and then I shoot this one and I have this particular ability on the shield skill tree of my non-dead character, then I’m able to reflect a tree and to strike enemies with it. ‘”
And remember, the chances of putting off some cool hero-rippling effects will grow with the Marvel’s Avengers roster, which will continue to add to heroes after launch. When discussing the confirmed recording of Spider-Man at last, Napoli reminds me that Crystal Dynamics “had a complete roster in advance of all the heroes we’re going to unleash, plans for years in advance, and certainly all those we’re currently running” before the web pendulum was added mid-development.
Well, there you have it, people. The beta of The Marvel’s Avengers is simply the gaming equivalent of a brewery’s taste flight, and Captain America is absolutely not dead.
