'Marvel's Avengers': Everything We Know About Square Enix's Take On Marvel's Super Team

Square Enix closed out Monday’s E3 conferences, taking the traditionally Sony slot after the company announced it was skipping E3. And while the quality of the show will, of course, be subjective, the show definitely closed out with a bang.

Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics finally offered gamers a proper look at its long-teased game, “Marvel’s Avengers.” And Crystal Dynamics wasn’t shy about the game’s details.

Like 2018’s “Spider-Man” from Insomniac, the game will tell its own original story about Marvel’s super-team. The game will open in San Francisco on “A-Day,” as the team and city celebrate the opening of the Avengers’ West Coast headquarters. Festivities are interrupted by an attack from forces looking to capture the team’s new “terrigen reactor.” Things take a turn when the team’s helicarrier is destroyed, along with the reactor, and the battle ends in catastrophe. It will then jump five years to show Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, and Black Widow trying to cope with the devastation and apparent death of Captain America as more evil forces begin to emerge.

In terms of gameplay, “Avengers” will take a page out of “Marvel Ultimate Alliance” with a campaign playable in single-player or four-player online co-op. This will allow four friends to team up online to combat villains and save the world playing as the heroes they want from the Marvel universe. But unlike “Ultimate Alliance,” “Avengers” will play as a more traditional over-the-shoulder third-person action game, similar to Crystal’s “Tomb Raider” games. The heroes will also be customizable, though Crystal was a bit coy with those details.

Crystal also revealed that “Avengers” will be spanning several years through a “growing roster of heroes,” new locations and ever-escalating threats to fight. They did quell fears, revealing all the heroes and regions added will come at “no additional cost.”

“We won’t have random loot boxes or pay-to-win scenarios,” Crystal Dynamic’s Meagan Marie said.

The first tease of this came in the form of Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man, who was shown in a cutscene shrinking a spider-tank.

Gamers will be able to fly, cast lightning, and smash when “Marvel’s Avengers” releases on May 15, 2020, on Xbox One, PS4, PC, and Google Stadia.