Marvel’s Avengers Videogame Announced for May, Captain America Dies?

By: Dylan Lepore | @dylanslegos

Endgame wasn't the end for The Avengers yet, with Crystal Dynamics studio premiering a trailer for their new videogame Marvel's Avengers during this past E3.

The trailer goes from the Golden Gate Bridge blowing up, Captain America dying, Iron Man in space, and a ton of new and old marvel villains. A link to the video is below:

What is Marvel's Avengers?

IGN sat down with Crystal Dynamics creative director and writer Shaun Escayg and lead combat designer Vincent Napoli to learn more about the game that seems to still be on earlier to mid-development.

In a comment about what kind of game is Marvel's Avengers is, Escayg said, "I think it's something new. So, it is an epic action-adventure. It is narrative driven. There is a single player campaign that sets up the world, set up the state of the Avengers. So, it's very story driven. But where it gets a bit of a hybrid is during the, say, set up of the campaign. Once you go through the campaign, you will have options in this linear story where you can then go off and do missions. And by doing those missions, unlock players, your favorite superhero. Unlock different powers. Master different abilities. Then come back to the main thread if you wanted to."

They go on stating that the game isn't centered around a single character and since they are the Avengers, they must work together as one.

“From a gameplay perspective, it's hard to also give it a single definition. I would say it's gameplay is ... It's Avengers gameplay,” Napoli added. “We look at each of the characters and we're like, ‘These characters can't be slotted into one category or another.’ We look at each of the characters and say, ‘What do we need to do to build the character the way you would expect to play them? The way we want to see them played.’ Wrap the mechanics around that. So, it's a hybrid ranged melee, action, RPG. Everything combined. The goal is you need to feel like you're playing the Avengers. These characters need to come to life and everything else is built around that.”

Captain America's Death

Everyone thought that Captain America was going to die in Avengers Endgame, but they were wrong, so ... they killed him in this one! He dies when a space ship near the Golden Gate Bridge blows up, but why?

“Well, Cap went down with the ship. The Avengers’ leader is Cap. The guy who always is logical, who always is able to bring this dysfunctional family together. Without him, how do they cope? … This is part of the set up, part of the conflict. It's, to me, the most exciting part of the story. What do the Avengers do without their beloved Captain?” Escayg said.

However, Escayg does hint at Cap, possibly coming back. For me, I think he just might be undercover, and it was his plan all along. He is just too smart, even with a friend like Tony Stark.

“You'll understand more once you play the game,” Escayg teased. “The Marvel universe is huge. Will it resolve in this game? Who knows. Is this something else? Who knows. The things that we draw from, it's so big. We can pull from multiverses at this point. It's a great question. You're going to have to play it to see it.”

Relations to the Cinematic Universe

As true Marvel fans know they're multiple heroes in the Avengers with different teams, but Marvel's Avengers went with the cast of heroes that we now know from Marvel's Cinematic Universe. The question that was asked was, is this a coincidence?

"Actually, I don't even think we thought of it that way,” said Escayg. "When we came at this, we're just like, 'What's the most original story we can tell?' Literally. West Coast Avengers... is a comic that we started with. Just getting a premise of how can we tell this, how we can pull out our favorite parts of the Avengers and see where we can create one, the most conflict; two, give us the creative canvas we need to make this the most exciting game possible. So, we didn't really approach it from the movies. We didn't. We actually approached it more from the comics."

Being Online and Microtransactions

Fortunately, it was reported that the game does not have to be always online to play it. The only time it needs to be online is when the player is playing multiplayer missions.

Escayg said, “There will be custom outfits that you can purchase in microtransactions.” Then Napoli added, “There are other aesthetic ways to customize your player card and your player experience, but there is nothing that affects the gameplay.”

Release Date

Marvel's Avengers has a planned release date of May 15, 2020.