Marvel's Avengers has been steadily releasing extra content since its release in 2020, with Crystal Dynamics gifting fans of the game new costumes, stories, heroes, villains and an abundance of updates.
It’s been a stacked couple of months for the game, but now Crystal Dynamics have reached the end of their roadmap and fans are finally able to get their hands on the much anticipated War for Wakanda expansion.
We paid a visit to the offices of publisher Square Enix to go hands-on with an early preview build of War for Wakanda to see what’s new and what gamers can expect when the full expansion is released on August 17th.
War for Wakanda will focus on the newest playable hero Black Panther as he combats threats from Ulysses Klaue and the new Klaw Faction.
Ulysses Klaue uses sonic technology to mine for Vibranium, but a byproduct of his process is that it corrupts some of the Vibranium, turning it volatile. Some of his mercs now use this volatile substance in their weaponry.
The nature of the build meant I could only play the first two levels with a maxed out T'Challa allowing me to access his entire skill tree and moveset.
Firstly the new Jungle Biome looks great and really captures the natural beauty that Wakanda is known for in the films and comics.
Even though it was only an early playthrough Crystal Dynamics have done a stellar job to include so many historical and cultural motifs that add to the overall authenticity.
Gameplay remains the same, where players will be able to string together cool looking combos, mixed with the epic heroics.
Playing as T'Challa was really smooth, all of his actions reminded me of the movie. Speaking to the developers I found out they used Chadwick Boseman’s stuntman for motion capture which is amazing and shows their dedication to give the fans an authentic experience.
War for Wakanda seems like it will have a bigger focus on more complex puzzles than the base game. The few puzzles that I did tackle were really well designed and helped to mix things up from the constant brawling.
What really stood out for me was the banter between T'Challa and Okoye, it was like having a constant hype man and confidant at the same time.
We sat down with Crystal Dynamics developers Hannah MacLeod and Scott Walters to find out more about War for Wakanda.
Why was Wakanda and Black Panther chosen for the expansion over other heroes from the Marvel Universe?
Hannah MacLeod: "Black Panther is one of the most popular heroes right now - he's kind of become an icon in pop culture. I think all of us really, really wanted him.
"He was very much at the top of our list of heroes we wanted to add to the roster, and he has just left this indelible mark on superherodom.
"I think a lot of Avengers has been about accepting who you are and finding a place where you fit in and Black Panther has kind of been that for a lot of people, who have finally are able to see someone like themselves as a superhero. It just seemed like a really great fit."
Was there any stand out (comics, cartoons, movies) source material that was used as references to help design Wakanda and the character build of Black Panther?
Hannah: "From a story standpoint, one of the comics that really ended up being remarkable and it was great that we ended up getting to work with the writer was the rise of the Black Panther miniseries written by Evan Narcisse.
"It goes deeply into T'Challa’s backstory and how his family has grown. It sort of gave us these tentpole moments into T'Challa’s life that we knew we had to have our own spin on in order for T'Challa to become the character he is in our game."
Scott Walters: "For what we looked at combat wise, when we pulled from everything, we used old comics, new comics, movies, basically, we went through and just started scanning through and finding anything that showed up multiple times was very iconic and stand out from a combat perspective."
Black Panther moves and feels really great, what went into the character design process to achieve that authenticity?
Scott: " I mean, yeah, it was definitely getting a lot of reference for the way he fights, the way he moves and capturing lots of stuff with the stunt double.
"Then we made sure that we adhere to that when we were animating him and designing the moves and making it feel really unique and key to what Black Panther does."
The background music is amazing, what went into the design process to give it that authentic feel?
Hannah: "I didn't work on the music, but I worked with the audio team pretty closely. They definitely knew going in that we wanted Wakanda to have its own unique sound.
"Not just because of the iconic sounds from the movies, but also because of the fact that Vibranium is all about sound and vibration. There's a hum to Wakanda that I think they really wanted to focus on.
"They clearly understood that Wakanda needed to be an iconic sound just because it's core to Wakanda as a country and it's core to our villain as a character. They had so much fun with it, they really went all out. I really love the music."
The puzzles seem to be slightly more complex in this expansion, was this due to it being set in Wakanda or can we expect more of this in the future?
Hannah: "It definitely partly has to do with the specifics of Wakanda for sure. Because Wakanda is a technological utopia that's kind of protected itself for 10,000 years.
"So we knew that there would be a lot of ways that they would deter invaders and things like that.
"The puzzles really lent itself to Wakanda as a country and it also really lends itself to T'Challa as a character, he's very much a prepared for anything kind of guy.
"I'm not saying that we are never going to do puzzles again, because it's a great mechanic. But part of the reason that we did infuse some more puzzles into the Wakanda was because of those two story reasons."
How do you think the overall experience of this expansion differs to the previous levels?
Scott: "Wakanda is a very unique space. It's got a lot more mystery to it. Like, the idea is that Wakanda has been a secret utopian society that's been set apart.
"So when you get in there, there's a lot of stuff to explore, and it has its own unique feel and look to it.
"I think, you know, we set up the combat in spaces that like play differently. In one of the earlier missions, you have to defend servers."
Other than a new character and story campaign, what else should the fans look forward to experiencing in this expansion?
Hannah: "We have a new outpost, it is probably one of my favourite spaces we've ever created for the game.
"I had less to do with it than our narrative designer Tiano and writer Jess Kraus, they really made that space interesting. There's so much to listen in on and look at, the outpost is really cool. And I hope players spend a lot of time just looking around."
Scott: "We've also done some quality of life improvements to the UI for managing your gear, your takedowns, your emotes, getting all of that stuff sort of centralised.
"So as soon as you open up the menu, you'll get access to that. The idea was to try and get everything closer to being in one spot.
"So players that wanted to jump in and change things around didn't have to jump through a ton of menus. So we've done some improvements on that end as well"
Is the narrative based on any existing Marvel storylines? If not, how will it expand the Marvel lore?
Hannah: "The actual plot points are original, we wanted to make sure that the motivations for each of the characters were grounded in their comic book counterparts.
"That's part of the reason why we brought in Evan Narcisse as narrative consultant to figure out the why for each of the characters, why they're doing what they do."
What can we expect from the future Marvel's Avengers?
Hannah: "We definitely always have plans for the future. We're really excited about launching Wakanda which was the last thing on our roadmap that we sent out about five months ago.
"Obviously, we have Spider-Man coming up. But there's also always events down the pipe. We've had some really fun events like the Red Room takeover that we're looking into doing more things like that."
Based on what I played, War for Wakanda is set to be a great expansion for Marvel’s Avengers that's not only authentic, but looks to improve several quality of life features.
Marvel’s Avengers is coming out August 17th.
