This is arguably a make-or-break time for Square Enix’s Marvel’s Avengers. The game has had a rocky year since its launch last August. A lot of that can certainly be attributed to unfortunately having to adjust to making a game with constant updates in the wake of a pandemic but it arguably got off on a bad foot from the start and went long periods between significant content updates.
Later today, the (first? only?) expansion The War For Wakanda launches and brings with it a new major campaign, setting, new bosses, and a significant overhaul as well as the Black Panther as a major new playable character. I will discuss that more when I get some time with the expansion, hopefully have something up on it Thursday, but this isn’t really about today’s big update.
While the initial roster certainly wasn’t lacking, one of the major things people have been looking forward to and has taken a long time for Marvel’s Avengers is adding new heroes to play. Counting the addition of Black Panther today, there’s only been three new heroes added. Spider-Man is supposedly still coming this year, but then that’s only for PlayStation owners. Is this it? That could certainly depend on how this new expansion is received, but assuming Square Enix wants to keep adding content including more heroes, I came up with six comic book characters who have been Avengers at some point in their history (which is a good chunk of the Marvel roster to be fair) who I think would be pretty solid additions to the game (and yes there have been some possibly future heroes leaked by datamining but who knows if those plans are still in place at this point):
The Wasp
It does kinda suck that Hank Pym is a prominent character in Marvel’s Avengers but has been essentially stripped of his ability to be Ant-Man. There are story reasons sure, but also Ant-Man logistically as gameplay would be a nightmare to balance as someone who can both shrink very small and grow incredibly large. A good compromise could be Janet Van Dyne aka The Wasp. She is a popular character, a founding Avenger and I think you could incorporate her shrinking powers into combat in a cool but limited fashion that wouldn’t completely break the game. Also frankly there are currently no women characters in the game capable of flight so this could fix that issue as well.
Iron Fist
After the disastrous Netflix series, Danny Rand is in desperate need of some image rehab, and making him a cool character to play in Marvel’s Avengers could be the start. While every character in the game can certainly melee, none are the type of character that really specializes specifically in hand-to-hand combat (Widow is kind of close but also incorporates some gadgets and guns) so Iron Fist done properly could be a really different character that’s fun to play. I would also accept Shang Chi for movie synergy but I don’t really want off-brand Shang Chi so it might be best to do a different Marvel martial arts superhero.
Quicksilver
Marvel’s most prominent speedster and a longtime member of the Avengers could be a fantastic addition to the game. It would certainly be a challenge to make Pietro fast but not so much so that he just easily obliterates everyone around him. A way to do that would be that naturally he is a little faster than other heroes but can really only unleash those bursts of speed as Heroic Abilities. Either way, he’d be another unique character that if done right could be one of the most fun as well.
Nova
A big part of the post-campaign timeline in Marvel’s Avengers is the idea that at some point in the future, the alien race known as The Kree is going to attack Earth and isn’t going to go well for our heroes trying to defend it. The Kree are space aliens, the Nova Corps are basically the defenders of outer space, seems pretty natural to bring in a Marvel space hero and The Guardians of the Galaxy have their own game coming out in just a couple of months from the same publisher, so how about Nova himself?
I’d imagine he controls somewhat similar to Iron Man but would have very different abilities that would make the two characters much more distinct. Nova is a great long-running Marvel character that’s not been in many of the games so it’d just be great to have him pop up in Marvel’s Avengers and if they are going to expand on the Kree invasion post-game storyline he just makes a lot of sense as well.
Storm
Sure, we have the God of Thunder, and his lightning powers are pretty cool, but how about someone who can command weather itself? Storm is a great character, not often used in video games but her abilities allow for some pretty creative ways to have special abilities both offensive and defensive. She is best known as a prominent member and sometimes leader of the X-Men but she also has been a significant member of The Avengers and at least in comics has a pretty storied history with T’Challa as well, which with the big Wakanda expansion, could be played into if Storm is added at a later date.
Blade
Granted, with both Kate and Clint having swords, it might seem a bit redundant to have another hero whose main weapon is a sword added to the roster of Marvel’s Avengers. But Blade offers a lot more variety than just another dude who uses a sword. He is handy with quite a few weapons and could easily mix it up to be sort of a cross between the archer characters and Black Widow, but with some vampire abilities thrown in to really mix it up. I think out the characters on this list, Blade is the one that really has the best potential as far as being a great character to play as if done properly so he’s the one I want to be added most. I also think he could fit very well into adding to the “Future Imperfect” storyline, he’s a character that could easily still be around in an apocalyptic future Hawkeye knows and you could recruit from said future.
It will remain to be seen if beyond Spider-Man we see any more heroes added to the roster of Marvel’s Avengers but if Square Enix is really serious about trying to turn the game’s fortunes around they should have some sort of plan to regularly be dropping new heroes even if it’s like every three months or something. I have more stuff on Marvel’s Avengers planned in the near future including thoughts on War For Wakanda after I get to play through it so see ya real soon!
