Over the past couple of weekends, Marvel’s Avengers was playable as a downloadable beta for players that have pre-ordered the game or on PlayStation. Before the beta becomes open for everyone this weekend, here’s what you should know before jumping hands-on into Marvel’s Avengers.
Avengers assembled.
A-Day Mission and Playable Characters
The beta begins with a cinematic encounter in San Francisco, the same one we saw when Square Enix first showed off the game. This section serves as a high-octane tutorial of sorts where you take control of each of the main Avengers. You don’t get a complete picture of the potential of each though, since the level is over before you get a good amount of time to explore each hero’s gameplay differences. From this section, I enjoyed playing as arguably the least “super” heroes the most, Captain America and Black Widow. These two, in part thanks to their lesser power levels compared to Hulk and Thor especially made the game feel the right amount of impact. Thor and Hulk, always competing for the title of strongest Avenger are both powerhouses, but still, feel less satisfying to play. The level is incredibly linear, especially in Hulk’s section. Leaping through the air would feel incredible if it wasn’t carrying you through such specific platforming spots without room for experimenting.
Iron Man's suits are the most unique skins.
Captain America was quite fun, throwing his shield and bouncing it between hordes of enemies felt great, and Black Widow’s aerial attacks, punchy pistols, and electric baton shine in a boss battle against the devious Task Master that starts strong but ends in fairly typical mashing of the square, square, triangle buttons over and over. Last up is Iron Man, who didn’t blow me away at first as the game puts Tony in an on-rails section. When you got full control though, alternating between shooting repulsors, punching enemies, and flying around was fun! Iron Man is a character that benefits most from wide-open spaces. Kamala Khan, AKA Ms. Marvel becomes playable later on and is already a fan favorite. Her ability to morph her body into stretchy or larger shapes to explore or fight looks and feels great. With so many characters being put into one game, even though there are ones that are fun to play as for sure, no one hero gets enough room to feel truly realized. A game like Spider-Man is going to feel better every time since you just play as him and can experiment with all of his possible moves and skills. Here it feels like the Avengers are all one small part, which works for a team-based game like this but feels like something is missing at the moment.
The game shines in co-op, when everyone is using their own powers.
Performance and Next-Gen
The game is already confirmed to be coming out on PS5 and Xbox Series X as well as the current-gen systems. Even though this is an unfinished beta, it feels like the game is going to benefit from the power of next-gen consoles. The performance on my PS4 Pro wasn’t great, and for a game based around fast-paced action, it does have quite a big effect on the experience playing the game right now. My PS4 doesn’t like it when Hulk is on screen doing his thing, smashing everything in his way.
The game is going to be much better on PS5 and Xbox Series X.
RPG Elements
After the first mission, things open up a bit and allow you to take on side missions with the characters and begin to level them up. You can play virtual reality combat challenges in the H.A.R.M. room, or take the fight out into the world in the Warzone missions. The Avengers collect loot and level up their powers by finding chests and completing challenges. The loot you find doesn’t change how you look, just your stats. I love being able to keep stats and looks separate, but I know some players would rather have their accomplishments visible on their character. Each hero has a sort of, Battle Pass-like upgrade tree for unlocking new costumes and items as well. It encourages you to play with each Avenger to unlock new looks, which from the small taste we can see in the beta all look much better than their default costumes.
Kamala Khan might be the most fun hero to play as.
The menus and UI can get quite confusing, even for players who are used to games like Destiny. There are a bunch of stats and resources to manage, and for a game where you just want to jump in and have fun playing as superheroes, I can’t help but feel like a simpler story-driven experience might have been better. The game wants you to replay missions over and over, like Destiny, to level up and earn gear, but when some characters are more fun to play as than others, we’ll have to wait and see if it will stay fun to play for a long time. Everyone will have a chance to dig into the game this weekend starting August 21st to see what they think. As a game, it has some issues so far for sure but for many Marvel fans, I could see it being something they’d want to come back to just to be in the world with these characters. The full game is coming out on September 4th.
You fight many of the same enemy robots and soldiers.
Share Your Thoughts
What do you think of Avengers? Are you going to join the open beta this weekend? Let us know below!
By: Noah Friscopp
