After an almost unreasonable amount of pre-E3 hype, Square Enix finally showed off Marvel’s Avengers in action during the LA expo, and the reaction was… mixed, to say the least.
Following a brief trailer that showed Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in action, it still wasn’t entirely clear what kind of game it was going to be. We were told that there would be a full length story, and that the game would feature multiplayer co-op with up to three friends, but it wasn’t obvious exactly how the two would go hand in hand.
As it turns out, they won’t. Marvel’s Avengers will have a narrative driven single-player campaign that’s entirely separate to the multiplayer component. That’s according to developer Crystal Dynamics, who clarified the two modes in an interview with IGN.
Crystal Dynamics lead combat designer Vincent Napoli and lead creative director Shaun Escayg explained that you’ll play through scripted story missions that are similar in structure to Uncharted or Tomb Raider. As you play these missions, you’ll do so as whichever Avenger the story requires you to be at that time.
Once you’ve completely a story mission, you can then revisit it as the Avenger of your choice. Beating story missions will also unlock extra side missions that offer multiplayer options and objectives that can be played through with friends – though you can also tackle these optional missions on your own, if you want.
While it’s nice to hear that multiplayer and single-player won’t get in the way of each other, we still don’t really know what to expect from how exactly the game’s co-op elements will come into play. While we did see a brief closed doors look at solo play in action during E3, multiplayer is clearly something Square isn’t quite ready to get into yet.
There’s no need to panic yet, of course. Marvel’s Avengers doesn’t release until May 15, 2020, so there’s plenty of time for Crystal Dynamics and Square to do a deeper dive on the game’s multiplayer component when the time is right.
Until then, we’ll just have to speculate on whether or not Marvel’s Spider-Man is set in the same universe as this new Avengers title. A cheeky line of dialogue from last year’s PS4 exclusive certainly suggests it could be.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.