Square Enix’s Avengers video game was divisive, which is to say that some people thought it was bad and other people thought it was at least okay, but the publisher fought hard to get those Marvel rights. It’s not just going to sit back and hope that the general gaming community becomes a little more forgiving, it’s going to make another damn Marvel game. Today, during Square Enix’s E3 presentation, we got our first look at that damn Marvel game: a heavily movie-inspired take on Guardians Of The Galaxy.
Unlike Avengers, which was mostly built around four-player co-op and never-endings loops of collecting incrementally better gear, Guardians Of The Galaxy is apparently a single-player game where you exclusively control Star-Lord and are accompanied by computer-controlled companions—specifically the Guardians team from the movies. And by “the Guardians team from the movies,” we don’t just mean Drax, Groot, Gamora, and Rocket (even Mantis). We literally mean that they seem a whole lot like the team from the movies, but changed juuuuust enough so that Marvel Studios doesn’t have to sign over any Chris Pratt likeness rights. Star-Lord seems the worst off, with Jake Paul hair and an aggressively over-designed leather jacket (spikes and buttons and shoulder pads and his name on the back!), but Groot and Rocket are both covered in random bullshit just to ensure that they look close to the ones you know and love from the movies but slightly different.
The video game part of it all seems interesting, at least, with each of the Guardians popping off flashy powers while Star-Lord zips around with his rocket boots. There’s also a scene with a dialogue option in the footage shown, which is a common thing in video games, but it seems like a potentially interesting twist for what could otherwise be a straightforward action game. Plus, it’s coming pretty soon, on October 26 of this year. Can’t argue with that, especially when a lot of the E3 reveals so far have been for 2022 and later.