Marvel's Avengers War For Wakanda | Preview
An ambitious project, designed to evolve, month after month, through a series of free updates that expand the story and increase the number of playable characters. A project that, however, has anchored for several reasons, slowing down the massive initial roadmap and offering very little additional content to players in the last eleven months. War For Wakanda, however, should be the turning point, a full-bodied free expansion that aims to restart the project and keep the promises made to players on August 14, 2020.
War For Wakanda it will be released on August 17th, totally free, and as can be deduced from the name it will introduce nothing less than Black Panther in the roster of Marvel's Avengers. King T’Challa, however, will not arrive alone; for its debut in the recent production of Square Enix, the developers have made a substantial update that will introduce the largest number of new content since the launch of the game.
In addition, of course, to Black Panther, and the various cosmetic elements dedicated to him in the in-game store, War For Wakanda introduces a new campaign set in a new biome: the Wakanda jungle. To access it, simply select it, once available, from the Avengers Initiative and immerse yourself in this new story line created for Marvel's Avengers. We have not been told much about the duration of this campaign but the developers have repeatedly remarked that the number of hours of story-driven content of Marvel's Avengers stands, also considering War For Wakanda, on 25 hours of play.
The presentation we witnessed showed us the first two missions of the War For Wakanda story line and a small taste of one of the new Outposts that will be released with the expansion. The narrative does not differ much from what has already been seen, on several occasions, in comics or film transpositions: a long time ago, a meteorite crashed into Wakanda. The local tribes discover that the material of which it is composed is a metal with supernatural qualities that they will rename Vibranium.
Thanks to this discovery, Wakanda begins a rapid process of evolution that will soon make them pass from a group of tribes primitive to one of the most technologically advanced nations on the face of the planet earth. The Wakandians, however, at the same time maintain their spirituality, venerating their divinities and making the figure of Black Panther, the king of Wakanda, evolve in step with their technology; a figure of superhuman strength to protect his kingdom before anything else.
To keep the Vibranium safe, following the events of the main story of Marvel's Avengers, Black Panther decides to hide Wakanda from the world , convinced that the Avengers were now a thing of the past. A complex, painful and futile decision as Ulysses Klaue, one of the new villains introduced in War For Wakanda, intends to steal the Vibranium and has deployed his armed forces with the intent of invading the kingdom of T'Challa.
A well-known and strange incipit, at least for fans of the house of ideas, which however manages in a few minutes to contextualize the belated introduction of a character of the caliber of Black Panther. The first mission of War For Wakanda immediately launches the player into the heart of the action, impersonating T'Challa you launch yourself into the dense jungle that surrounds Wakanda in search of the outposts of Klaue's armed forces.
The combat system associated with Black Panther is very hectic and nervous. T’Challa is a character designed for short range, agile, fast and capable of making quick combos to a handful of secondary attacks that cover medium range. An apparent great alternative for anyone who has enjoyed Captain America's moveset, as well as further confirmation of how the developers are able to show their best qualities when they have to deal with more physical characters.
In terms of gameplay, we do not differ much from the formula already seen in the main story of Marvel's Avengers, even if we appreciated the greater presence of short phases "tending to platforming" to slightly vary the redundancy given by the "fight-continue-fight" formula. War For Wakanda, however, remains anchored to a constant clash with everything in front of us, pausing from time to time to find some collectibles to explain the background of the game world.
The new types of enemies offer the classic "breath of fresh air" in terms of style, although in purely terms of gameplay they do not offer ideas that are too different from what we have seen for a year now. The general feeling that permeated us during the presentation is the same as when we first used Captain America in the main story, that is to ask ourselves what the developers could have proposed if they had focused on a single character in an exclusively single player context. .
The first two missions of War For Wakanda shown to us during the presentation, were not limited to presenting the Black Panther combat system but also did their utmost to give us a full-bodied taste of the royal palace located in Wakanda. A huge interactive hub, with attention to every detail and which, we assume, will be the point of arrival and departure between the missions that make up this new expansion.
Artistically speaking, War For Wakanda maintains the hybrid style between comics and cinema, proposed by Marvel's Avengers. The Black Panther outfit convinces, a mixture of tradition and technology that winks at both Marvel universes, the physiognomy of T’Challa's face is also well done; does not try in any way to pay tribute to the late Boseman and is inspired by the younger version of the character seen in recent print productions.
The iconic Shuri, on the other hand, harks back more to the film version of the character as well as the Dora Milaje show up in a similar guise to the one seen in the MCU. Nothing to complain, however, on the graphic sector that offers a decidedly convincing glance with landscapes rich in details, lighting capable of emphasizing the excellent surfaces and a variety of settings that bodes well for the final result of this expansion. br>
To complete the package proposed by War For Wakanda we find, as we mentioned earlier, all the kit made up of aesthetic elements, a branch of the unique skills of Black Panther and multiplayer missions, also playable in single, set in Wakanda. The first outpost shown us did not give us overly positive feelings, showing us the same structure already seen in Marvel's Avengers, which would need a general rethink to make the game less redundant and tedious over distance.
wait until August 17th to be able to test War For Wakanda firsthand and understand if Crystal Dynamics has succeeded in the difficult task of finding the right direction for its Marvel's Avengers, finally managing to channel its immense yet unexpressed potential.
