Marvel’s Avengers forthcoming free War for Wakanda DLC marks a significant step towards giving Square Enix’s game the substance that it lacked at launch.
The recent Olympics spotlighted the issue of elite athletes struggling to live up to elevated expectations. That’s an issue which, strangely, can afflict videogames, and Marvel’s Avengers is a case in point. It launched in September 2020 to a flurry of hype which was understandable. Behind it is the much-admired developer; Crystal Dynamics of Tomb Raider fame, and it featured some of the best-loved characters from the Marvel Universe.
However, it swiftly became obvious that it was a good game, rather than the great one that everyone was expecting. Fun though it may have been to play, it felt insubstantial and half-finished. Its single-player story arc was disappointingly short and, at launch, its endgame – rendered ever more crucial by a short story mode – was underpopulated and repetitive.
To its credit, Crystal Dynamics and publisher Square Enix have persisted with their flagship Marvel-licensed intellectual property, adding new characters via free downloadable content (DLC) drops and fleshing out the endgame somewhat. On August 17, perhaps the most significant such expansion will arrive: entitled War for Wakanda, adding Black Panther to the game’s roster of playable characters.
Welcome to Wakanda
We were able to visit Square Enix’s London headquarters for a hands-on preview of War for Wakanda on the PlayStation 5. First up was a brief address by Scot Amos, Head of Studios at Crystal Dynamics. Amos described War for Wakanda as: “The most content we’ve added since launch,” bringing a new Black Panther single-player storyline thread (taking the overall length of the game’s story up to “25 hours” divided between eight characters). Amos was keen to point out that it brings the very different environment of Wakanda to the game, along with new enemies in both single and multiplayer, along with new drop-zones.
Black Panther’s story
We started off by playing through the first two levels of Black Panther’s story thread, constituting between 60 and 90 minutes of gameplay, with perhaps another 90 minutes that we didn’t get to play. Initially, two elements stood out: Wakanda’s lush jungle environment, beautifully crafted for the game, and Black Panther himself, who was something of a pleasure to control.
Story-wise, the main theme revolved around corrupted Vibranium, which had recently begun to appear throughout Wakanda and which Black Panther had been delegated to find, investigate and destroy. His story arc opened with an origins-style cut-scene, before plonking you in the jungle. Before long, we had encountered some mercenaries, apparently in the employ of Ulysses Klaue, War for Wakanda’s primary arch-villain.
A decent all-rounder
Fittingly enough, Black Panther felt like a nicely balanced all-round character to play as, with plenty of manoeuvrability (his running double-jump, for example, covers a hell a lot of ground horizontally) with decent, if not devastating light and heavy melee attacks (he’s pretty muscly but no Hulk) and a throwing-knife ranged attack that snapped nicely but didn’t cause a vast amount of damage in its base state, although it was instantly handy for puzzle-solving.
Black Panther’s special moves consist of a sort of Vibranium-powered blast which staggers nearby enemies and renders them vulnerable to a flurry of combos, a spear which he can direct at a single enemy to cause a lot of damage and for his ultimate move, triggered by hitting both bumpers, he spawns a beautifully animated actual black panther which rampages around the arena. Those moves aren’t necessarily as devastating as the ones possessed by the more tank-like superheroes in Marvel’s Avengers, but they are still handy. He also has a great gymnastic take-down in which he wraps his legs around an enemy’s neck.
Combat and puzzling
In the initial part of Black Panther’s story which we played, there was a balance between puzzle-solving and combat. All of which was played out in beautifully crafted surroundings: the game’s rendition of Wakanda is fine to behold and the level design, in keeping with the rest of the game, is hugely impressive.
Initial enemies were pretty bog-standard, but we soon encountered some more challenging ones, including more powerful mercenaries called Bruisers, equipped with glowing red, corrupted Vibranium-powered axes, which could also make use of an overcharge-move (helpfully telegraphed with a reddish glow) to temporarily raise their attacks, and some could trigger a corrupted Vibranium-powered shield, which temporarily rendered them near-immune to attacks, as well as a sonic blast which could stagger you. Plus we encountered giant robotic spiders which swarmed around Black Panther; it didn’t take much to destroy each one, but there were invariably a lot of them to deal with.
Initially, the puzzles mainly concerned traversal, but they became more sophisticated when Black Panther opened up an ancient, mystical cave complex leading through the mountain to Wakanda’s Golden City. Cave paintings provided a wealth of Black Panther lore, and to make our way through the cave complex, we had to negotiate a couple of pattern-matching puzzles, either by chucking throwing-knives at the appropriate wall panels, or carefully stepping on the correct floor panels.
Golden City under attack
When we emerged at the other side of the mountain, we got our first glimpse of Wakanda’s Golden City, like everything else in War for Wakanda rendered beautifully. But the Golden City was under attack from the forces of the evil Ulysses Klaue, powered by the corrupted Vibranium which was causing such a problem in Wakanda and beyond.
After taking out some minor enemies, we made our way to a tank-like sonic weapon which was firing away at the Golden City’s forcefield. It was guarded by a mini-boss: Crossbones, who has appeared in various MCU films. In order to take out the sonic weapon, we had to chip away at Crossbones; whenever we damaged him sufficiently, he would briefly retreat into a shielded state, during which we could damage the sonic weapon.
Inside the Golden City
Having dispatched Crossbones and his weapon, next stop was the Golden City itself, containing a hub which would be familiar to anyone who has played Marvel’s Avengers, with a War Room and the like. Although décor-wise, there was no mistaking it for anywhere other than Wakanda. Reverting to Captain America – a number of Avengers had turned up to help the Wakandans repel Klaue’s assault and to find out more about the corrupt Vibranium, which had started appearing elsewhere in the game-world — we were set a couple of missions involving exploration and meeting people, including a mystic, Princess Shuri and King T’Challa.
Black Panther in a maxed-out state
Finally, we had a chance to experience Black Panther in his maxed-out state, with all his combos unlocked, attributes cranked up and with the highest-level gear that he could wear. In this state, we were able to test him out in the hub’s HARM Rooms, which was a pretty satisfying experience.
It confirmed our previous impressions that Black Panther is a useful character in Marvel’s Avengers, who should end up being pretty popular. While his attacks aren’t as devastating as those of, say, Hulk, or as flashy as those of Tony Stark, he’s a great all-rounder who can still deal significant levels of damage while remaining extremely agile.
Fully upgraded, Black Panther’s throwing-knives attack became significantly more useful, as it meant he could deliver flurries of knives causing a lot more damage than the base attack – especially useful, for example, against mech-like mini-boss enemies that discouraged getting too close by employing flame-throwers. In his maxed-out state, Black Panther also acquired useful sprint-and-heavy-attack moves, and the usefulness of his sonic blast-style staggering move came to the fore.
Wakanda: a seductive reason to return to Marvel’s Avengers
You could argue – and many did – that when it was released, Marvel’s Avengers was one of those live-service games which felt as though it was only half-finished in its initial state. If you adhere to that sort of thinking – and Crystal Dynamics has already worked pretty hard to flesh out the game’s essentially sound bones – then the War for Wakanda marks a significant step forward.
First, it takes Marvel’s Avengers to a place that any fan of the MCU would always want to explore: the mysterious but seductive Wakanda. Second, it adds a really useful new superhero in the form of Black Panther. Third, it takes the game’s overall storyline into much more substantial territory. And fourth, it oozes class, with great level design and fabulous graphics (particularly impressive on the PlayStation 5 version which we played).
Most importantly, War for Wakanda is a free download, so it offers a compelling excuse to return to a game which you may well have moved on from, especially if you bought Marvel’s Avengers at launch. Download War for Wakanda, head back into Marvel’s Avengers and you’ll find, at last, that it has much of the substance that it originally lacked. Add that to its underlying classiness which was never in question, and you have a game which should be able to recapture your attention and in its much more finished-feeling state, will almost certainly provide more fun than you would expect.
