Fans finally got a solid first look at Square Enix’s upcoming Marvel’s Avengers during E3 earlier this month, and though at first glance it seemed to have a very mixed reaction, the team assures Marvel enthusiasts that there is much more than what meets the eye.
Game Director Shaun Escayg recently sat down with the team over at GamesBeat to talk about the more harrowing details of their vision, citing that Marvel’s Avengers is a fatalistic tale meant to show the darker side of humanity and the root of all conflict. “A lot of the story is about the human element of these heroes,” said the director. “How do they deal with guilt? How do they deal with loss? Can they put their differences aside? Bruce Banner is one of my favorite characters because he’s always in conflict with who he is. He’s a scientist, very intelligent, and very docile in a way. Then all of a sudden he has this part of himself that’s enraged, that can destroy anything with a flick of his hand. Is he dangerous? Is he really a hero? He’s battled that his whole life.
“Then you have someone like Iron Man who’s also very smart, very dependent on technology, very much about saving and protecting the world using technology, but he’s also very arrogant. He takes chances where other Avengers won’t. There’s conflict because of that.
“It’s all about the conflict, right? What happened on A-Day? Who was at fault? Black Widow was in charge of the bridge. Did she fail? Should we have gone back and helped Cap? These are the human things that we wrestle with as well, and that’s what grounds this and makes this different from any other Avengers story. Also, it affects some of our heroes in other ways. I can’t give away details, but they’re affected by their mental state.”
Fans of the comics and the MCU alike can relate to these themes, they’ve always been prevalent throughout the franchise’s history, so to see Square take that source material to heart and weave it into the very fabric of their upcoming game bodes well for how Marvel’s Avengers will cater to both long-time fans and newcomers alike.
The adventure begins with Marvel’s Avengers on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC on May 15, 2020.
