When Square Enix released the first trailer of its upcoming Avengers action-adventure game, the response was lukewarm at best. Although the prospect of a project which lets you play as Marvel’s biggest heroes sounds exciting in theory, in practice it’s kind of hard to pull off. Aside from the repetitive-looking gameplay, the sheer design of the characters – markedly different from the MCU versions which we’ve come to known and love – felt like poor imitations of the real deal.
Complaints aside, though, the game does appear to have many great things going for it. From what we’ve seen so far, players will be able to cruise through the skies whenever they play as Thor or Iron Man, and smash cars when they turn into Hulk. But there are a number of characters whose abilities the trailer did not have time to explore, and one of those is Steve Rogers.
Together with Black Widow, Captain America is likely to be closest thing you’ll have to your average video game avatar: a relatively strong, though not altogether invincible warrior who can bring the pain and absorb it, too. That said, there will be more to his bits than punching baddies and hitting targets with your shield-throw.
Indeed, according to Vince Napoli, the game’s lead combat designer – who, for the record, also oversaw the fighting mechanics for 2018’s delightfully violent God of War reboot – Cap will come with wall running and double-jumping abilities, too.
“Captain’s wall run is a set distance, but being able to chain them together by jumping back and forth, double jumping, pole swinging, etc. makes it really friendly,” Napoli told fans on a subreddit for the game just last week, “A well timed double jump off a wall run can also be used to re-trigger the wall run. His navigation is really flexible and active.”
Again, both mechanics are nothing new as far as video games go. But then again, when you’re having to juggle so many different characters with different move sets and power ups, a bit of good old familiarity might be necessary to keep players’ heads from spinning to the point they turn off their consoles.
Tell us, though, are you excited or skeptical about Square Enix’s Marvel’s Avengers game? Let us know in the comments!
