Marvel Heroes

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Marvel Heroes

Preview

Hands-on with Thor

Missions


The game features a standard loot system of greens and blues and so on, with some items being character specific. There are also plans for an auction house style system where you can sell off items to other players. The most exciting loot drops from bosses. We managed to defeat the Green Goblin in one of the public zones, and while nothing terribly exciting dropped that time, you can obtain new characters and costumes this way. Thankfully, any loot you see dropping is yours, none of the other players can pick up your stuff. Much like Diablo III, you can level up your vendors. This will grant you access to better crafting and item options later on.

We were playing a few missions in chapter four of the story. The narrative centers on Dr. Doom, who has stolen the Cosmic Cube (which people who are familiar with last year’s Avengers film will recognize as the Tesseract) for nefarious purposes. Both the heroes and the villains are after devices which will aid them both in various ways, so it is up to you and everyone else playing to thwart Dr. Doom’s plans. Brevik told me that the story would be around the same length as Diablo II. However since a lot of the game is randomly generated, and there are so many characters to choose from, it has a lot of replay value. When you complete a mission, it is marked as complete for that specific character. If you want to go back and play as someone else, it is possible to simply reset your story progress. I asked about endgame, and while there were no details forthcoming, I was assured that there were plans for extensive endgame content after completion of the main story.

Heroes


The game itself has been written by Brian Michael Bendis, a Marvel writer who has won multiple Eisner awards. Having a strong storyline was something that Brevik told me was top priority. Many of the characters are voiced by people who Marvel fans will recognize also. Occasionally characters will send quips back and forth depending on who they are around, which is a nice touch.

For those of you wondering, it is due to the Cosmic Cube that we are able to see multiple versions of the same character running around in the world. Rather than letting everyone create their own hero, Brevik and the developers wanted this to be the ultimate Marvel experience. Each character will have at least five costumes, so, since the maximum party size is five, you could technically run around with five Iron Men, albeit with each one looking slightly different. The game is free to play, but of course will feature microtransactions. You will be able to unlock new heroes, costumes and various helpful boosts through the store. There will be five characters available to everyone at launch, including Daredevil, Thing and Storm.

Beta


Marvel Heroes is definitely a game for Marvel fans, but it’s also a solid action RPG which many more will enjoy. Some people might bemoan the lack of character creation, but there is enough variety here to keep everyone entertained. The promise of new characters, costumes and endgame content will keep people interested enough to continue playing. There is no confirmed release date yet, but you can sign up for the beta.