When can we expect the Marvel’s Avengers game release date? Early 2017 saw quite the big announcement: Square Enix and Marvel joined together in a “multi-game partnership.” It’s an important move – despite the monumental success of the Marvel movies, videogames set within its heroic universe have never much stretched beyond cash-grab mobile tie-ins and a cheap MMO. This deal means numerous triple-A quality Marvel games from one of the world’s biggest publishers, the first of which is the Marvel’s Avengers game.
Working in collaboration with Crystal Dynamics are Eidos Montreal, who have left behind the Deus Ex series in order to work on the new Marvel games. The influence is clear in The Avengers game RPG elements, upgradable gear, and customisable playstyle.
Here’s everything we know about Marvel’s Avengers game including a release date, story details, and gameplay footage.
The Avengers game release date
The Marvel’s Avengers release date is September 4, 2020. The game was originally supposed to launch in May 2020, but publisher Square Enix confirmed the delay in a statement.
At launch, the game will include a variety of exciting features, and of course, a day one patch. According to this post from Square Enix, the game will have a “full-length campaign featuring an original Avengers narrative”. If you’ve pre-ordered the Deluxe Edition, Earth’s Mightiest Edition, or even the PlayStation Store Exclusive Digital Edition you’ll receive a 72-hour Early Access pass so you can get your hands on the game sooner. This means playing on September 1, rather than September 4. For PC and Stadia players, we get to play at 09:00 PDT / 12:00 EST / 17:00 BST and console gets a rolling Midnight release time.
Launch day comes with six playable heroes with 50+ skills and gear to unlock, 80+ War / Drop Zones multiplayer and AI missions and regularly updated challenges. The post also promises that future content, like Hawkeye, new story content, and regions to be added into the game with no additional cost.
WHY DIDN’T THIS ASSEMBLE SOONER?
With 14 hugely profitable films and six TV shows based on Marvel comics, it’s strange we’ve had to wait this long for a big-budget Avengers game. In the time since the first Iron Man movie, we’ve had no less than five huge games based on DC comics. Why haven’t Marvel followed suit?
There is a reason. After licensing some truly bad film tie-ins based on the first Captain America and Thor films, the comics giant decided to stop making games and find a new direction.
“The Avengers game will come when we have the right partner, that has the right vision, that has the time to develop a strong, competitive triple-A title and wants to do it right,” TQ Jefferson, Marvel’s head of games, explains in an interview with IGN back in 2014.
The first new game Marvel announced was the PS4-exclusive Spider-Man game, produced by Ratchet and Clank developers Insomniac. At the time of the 2016 E3 announcement, Marvel’s vice president of games Jay Ong reiterated the publisher’s commitment.
“The question is, ‘How we can get there?’,” Ong asks, referring to the search for triple-A quality. “The thing we landed on is to be really selective with who we partner with. Extremely selective. Right now I would say that out of every ten opportunities we look at, we maybe do one.”
One of those ten opportunities Marvel looked at was Square Enix. And so The Avengers game was born.
WHAT IS the AVENGERS game?
The Avengers Project is a super-human team initiative first developed by the Strategic Homeland Intervention… Ah, wait, not that one. Different file.
The game will focus around The Avengers; Marvel’s A-team of superheroes that protect the world from criminals, terrorism, and intergalactic threats. The below reveal trailer from last year’s E3 shows The Avengers swooping in to fight enemies wreaking havoc on the San Francisco bridge on a day celebrating The Avengers. It gives us a glimpse into the different Avengers’ fighting styles spliced with light-hearted and humorous dialogue we recognise from the films.
The Marvel’s Avengers game is a “third-person cover-based action adventure game” with “stealth, player weapons and tools, cover and melee-based mechanics.” The previously leaked 18 minute gameplay demo shows off the four Avengers’ abilities and moves from wielding Thor’s hammer, to zipping over enemies and raining down attacks as Iron Man. The gameplay shows the opening scene of the game, and with both singleplayer and four-player co-op options, players will be able to customise the Avengers as the game progresses.
WHICH CHARACTERS ARE IN the AVENGERS game?
The reveal trailer offers a glimpse of who we can expect to see in Marvel’s Avengers game including the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Black Widow, Ms Marvel, and Captain America.
These six characters make up the core team roster, and we’d never expect to see an Avengers game without them. We’ve also seen Ant-Man in two shorter trailers, as well as some of the villains we’ll encounter along the way like MODOK and Taskmaster. Here’s the current list of Avengers game characters, as well as a possible leaked list of future heroes.
WHAT IS THE AVENGERS game STORY?
Every shot in the initial trailer depicts some kind of tragedy. Cap’s shield is buried beneath chunks of rubble, presumably in a collapsed building where a severed power line is generating those raining sparks. Iron Man’s gauntlet is stripped of its hot rod-red paintwork, the repulsor light fading away in the rain. It appears that The Hulk has been locked up in some kind of facility. Clearly something bad has happened.
Indeed it has, the Marvel’s Avengers game overview sheds light on the story, as our heroes are blamed for an explosive disaster on the city and are forced to disband as the world’s heroes. Although the story will be separate to the Marvel cinematic universe, it does introduce Ms. Marvel as the key hero in the story to prove the Avengers’ innocence, with Crystal Dynamics’ expertise with strong female characters prevalent in the latest Ms. Marvel trailer.