'Marvel's Avengers' To Have Hawkeye As First Post-Launch Character

The first character that “Marvel’s Avengers” will introduce following their launch will be someone familiar to fans of both comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It will be Clint Barton a.k.a. Hawkeye.

During Crystal Dynamics’ second War Table stream for “Marvel’s Avengers” on July 29, the studio previewed the game’s upcoming beta while giving players a peek at “the world’s greatest marksman” in action.

Months after Crystal Dynamic teased a Hawkeye appearance on Twitter, Polygon notes that Clint Barton is finally confirmed as a playable character in “Marvel’s Avengers.” Hawkeye was memorably played by Jeremy Renner in the “Avengers” films from Marvel Studios and will return to play the role in a Disney+ series titled “Hawkeye.”

As one would expect from the Avengers’ resident archer, Hawkeye slings all kinds of arrows across the battlefield in “Marvel’s Avengers.” He uses a combination of melee and signature arrows and the Black Widow also mentions shock arrows so expect a variety of trick arrows from the character.

Crystal Dynamic also admitted that it had “taken some exciting ideas” from the comics source material as an inspiration for their portrayal of Hawkeye. Specifically, the studio cited writer Matt Fraction and artist David Aja’s “My Life as a Weapon” storyline as one of their templates of Barton.

Introduced as an anti-hero and reluctant villain in 1964’s “Tales of Suspense #57,” it didn’t take long for Hawkeye to reform and soon found himself among the ranks of the Avengers. Although there would be periods when he wasn’t on the team, there was also instance when Hawkeye served as chairman of both the Avengers and their California-based team, the West Coast Avengers.

Clint Barton has also adopted other superhero personas over the decade including the size-changing Goliath and the ninja-like Ronin. It remains to be seen if either iteration also makes an appearance in “Marvel’s Avengers.”

When Hawkeye launches later sometime after launch, he’ll come with his own campaign — part of what Crystal Dynamics calls the Avengers Initiative. Players can play this campaign in co-op or in single player.

Players can try out “Marvel’s Avengers,” although without Hawkeye, Captain America, and Thor, in the game’s beta. The “Marvel’s Avengers” beta starts first on PlayStation 4 on August 7 for players that pre-order the game says Polygon.

On August 14, players who pre-order on Windows PC and Xbox version can play the same beta, with an open beta for all PS4 players. The open beta for “Marvel’s Avengers” goes live for all platforms on August 21. The full game is slated to launch on September 4.