Marvel Avengers First Hour Problem

When the intro misses the mark & what we can learn from it

In our era of content abundance, creatives have a big problem: they only play good games.

I'm a big advocate of studying how great titles work in order to learn their tricks and sharpen our craft, but a bad game can teach you just as much. What went wrong? Why is it missing the mark?

I recently grabbed Marvel Avengers, a game under fire since its announcement for attempting to turn a beloved franchise into a “Game as a Service”, which in their case meant bizarre RPG mechanics, tons of DLC cosmetics and endless repetitive missions. Gamers are suspicious of this type of game, but if the core gameplay & the fantasy are solid, they'll gladly accept to sink hundreds of hours into them. So what happened?

In this issue of The Arcade Artificer, I'm taking things differently. First, you will read the detailed account of what went through my mind during the first hour of the campaign. Then, I'll recap the key issues and quickly touch on what comes after the intro, which helps us see how the problems of Marvel Avengers extend far beyond corporate greed.

The First Hour in Details

False Start (5 minutes in)

Like any decent AAA, the game opens with its settings menu and tons of accessibility features, which is fantastic for those who need them. Too bad the main menu, on the other hand, isn't all that accessible. I'm unsure what “Operations” means, so I click the “Play Now” button.

After a 5-minutes loading screen, I get a cinematic montage which drops tons of story exposition on me. What is that? A band-aid to help non-Marvel fans catch up on the universe? It drags on & on, seemingly recounting major story beats, and that makes me doubt my choice.

When the cinematics ends, this screen warns me that I'm in post-game mode and that it spoils the campaign. Huh, thanks, but too late? Why didn't you show that in the main menu?

Proper Start (11 minutes in)

Ok, no big deal, we're in a classic case of “the UX gets messy after three years of post-launch updates.”: back to the main menu, I found the main campaign by scrolling through the “Operations”.

In the (actual) intro cinematic, we meet Kamala & her dad: she's a young fan of the Avengers who got selected to participate in a fan fiction contest and was invited to meet her idols in the festival they hold on their base of operation. She's afraid of being ridiculed, so her dad gives her a motivational speech to comfort her. It feels somewhat artificial, to the point I'm wondering if the dad is about to die to give her superhero backstory (if you don't know, Kamala will become Ms Marvel).

Gameplay! (16 minutes in)

I now get to control Kamala, and my first impression of the gameplay is good. It's not Naughty-Dog-level good, but the camera & movement feel polished.

Not even twenty seconds after being taught how to run, I get a tutorial about… photo mode. That's an uncommon learning order, but it's consistent with the context of this intro sequence, I guess.

The lady at the entrance gave me my first proper objective: collect five comic books through the festival to gain access to the VIP balcony. Hmmmm, ok, it feels forced again, but it's not the dumbest tutorial quest I've ever seen in a game.

The small festival area offers some mini-games where I can earn comics as a reward: they serve as shooting & QTE tutorials. A popup also explains how the comics give stat boost: again, I wonder if this is the right moment to teach me about that; I'm trying to get immersed into a universe and don't need a first exposure to the RPG layer.

Exposition dump (25 minutes in)

Then, the game remembers you've paid for an Avengers experience and decides to introduce the heroes you love. Kamala first meets Thor, who acts like an arrogant jerk (because she was checking an Iron Man toy).

Then Captain America witnesses Kamala standing her ground against some bullies and comes to praise her courage. Black Widow shows up and asks him, "Who's the kid?” to which he doesn't reply (to my great disappointment…) “What a dumb question, she's obviously one of the invited kids to our frigging festival, and her name is written on her badge”.

At this point, I realize that the writers are rushing to showcase as much of Kamala's personality as possible and give her scenes to interact with the superheroes, but it feels more like hospital kids meeting Make-A-Wish cosplayers.

And it gets even worse when Kamala sneaks backstage to collect the last comic book and -of course- overhears a totally secret conversation between Bruce Banner/Hulk and two scientists who fear their new great technology isn't ready just yet. Just to double up, the designers throw at you a second scene seconds later where a journalist asks Nick Fury about the safety of this new secret technology. Oh, I wonder what'll happen next.

It's happening? (36 minutes in)

I finally get to the VIP Area, a small & lame balcony where we can't even sit (but at least the view is good). Blah blah blah press conference about the super technology, blah blah blah Iron Man shows up and interrupts like a jerk too, and…. finally, some action! An explosion happens on the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, which might finally free me from this long & flat opening sequence.

First hero impressions (42 minutes in)

Quick cinematic, and I then get to control Thor: the combat gameplay is solid, with satisfying animations and great VFX. Grunts rush towards me, and I dispatch them with ease. Don't feel any tension or sense of danger so far, but it doesn't seem to be the point of the encounter anyway.

However, two minutes later, I'm surprised when the game allows me to use my “Heroic” ability already: too soon? It's not exactly a tutorial since the game doesn't tell you how that works (cooldown?), but it's more of a showcase of a cool effect.

Iron Man time (47 minutes in)

Before I have time to get used to Thor gameplay, the game switches to Iron Man, flying and shooting bad guys above the bridge. The heroes keep talking while fighting, which normally annoys me, but I guess it's consistent with the Avengers franchise.

The game continues to move relentlessly, adding new enemy archetypes and mechanics constantly… which I forget as soon as the next one arrives. It's the opposite of Batman Arkham, which would let you get used to dealing with certain enemies before introducing new counters & abilities to renew the challenge.

Moving to Hulk (50 minutes in)

The Iron Man segment also ends with a tutorial on his Heroic power, which again feels undeserved.

Then comes Hulk with a short sequence where you run accross the destroyed bridge. The whole scene is chaotic, and the cinematics casually insert shots of endangered civilians between two funny dialogue lines, but the game still doesn't want to take its time. Run, punch, heroic power, move on.

Captain America in Danger (53 minutes in)

Switching to Cap provides a nice change of pace as he's still inside the vessel, and enemies attack him in a smaller arena, making the combat feel different and more strategic: I have to play smart & avoid the attacks from the newly introduced archetype.

The downside of including an actually engaging gameplay sequence is that I barely listened to what the characters were saying over the radio, but then comes a cinematic with a clear message: a bomb-loaded truck is rushing to the city, and we need to stop it! I'm unsure how they can get anywhere with such a destroyed bridge, but it's Black Widow time anyway.

Chasing Taskmaster (the bad guy driving the truck) is another well-executed sequence, mixing cinematics with explosive gameplay … but the thrill comes suddenly to a halt when the actual boss fight begins. I have to avoid his flying attacks & shoot back, but the window of opportunity is so small that it takes a lot of back & forth until I'm allowed to move to the second phase.

The second phase is classic combat, showing again that when the game slows down, the mechanics can be deep & challenging. Chaining attacks, blocks, rolls & other abilities makes for a satisfying flow when it ticks. I'm still unsure why the game insists on throwing even more tutorials at me; it even pauses the combat to show a popup at some point: just like the story, I have the feeling they want to dump all the exposition and be done with it.

End of the introduction (1 hour & 5 minutes in)

The first hour ends with a cinematic where we learn that the bomb truck was only a diversion; the real danger was the weird force field emanating from the bay that caught the vessel. It makes the dangerous new secret technology explode, and the shockwave impacts the whole city, causing random people to develop superpower abilities.

During the credits, we learn that politicians turn against the heroes for “parading their untested technology” (I mean, sure, but are we going to ignore the whole terror attack?). With Captain America likely dead, the Avengers disband, and the backstage scientist seen earlier has kinda replaced them with his company AIM by promising to “bring science to the world & fix the mess caused by the heroes”. Why isn't he accused of reckless behaviour, too? How is that more efficient/less dangerous than superheroes who have done enough good deeds in the past to the point people are fans of them?

So, What Went Wrong?

With this detailed breakdown, I hope to have shown that the problems of the introduction of Marvel Avengers have nothing to do with its ‘game as a service’ orientation: those “annoyances” show up later in the campaign. Besides the minor hipcups, there are two main reasons to explain why the introduction is so underwhelming: the convoluted story concept and the unimaginative gameplay sequences.

First, picking Kamala as the protagonist could work on paper, but only if the studio figured out a better context than this festival to introduce her. Kamala's biggest personality trait is her unconditional admiration for the Avengers, and seeing her lack of self-confidence about the fan fiction contest isn't enough to help us connect more with her. It feels too distant & artificial, something we're told rather than something we see in action. As soon as the explosion happens, we forget about her anyway, and it feels like our time was wasted (despite the fact she's the main character of the whole campaign!).

The “Avengers plot” is also complicated, and, as a result, there is a lot of exposition dump throughout the introduction. The game has to explain why the Avengers fell out of grace, how the scientists of AIM rose to prominence and why new superheroes emerge everywhere. This is a compressed first act rather than a prologue, and it feels indigestible. I'm not saying it's impossible to present all of this, but doing so (while introducing Kamala) meant, in this case, that scenes had to be stitched together unnaturally. It doesn't make for an entertaining experience.

This brings us to the second big issue: how this story is conveyed through pretext objectives. There's nothing wrong about cinematics delivering unexpected twists, but as a rule of thumb, to make players feel something, it's better to make them play the thing!

Kamala is obsessed with the Avengers? She could illegally infiltrate the Chimera rather than being a perfect girl who collects comics in an Avengers festival. And while we're at it, something weird happens when she gets close to the technology, hinting at the fact that it might give people superpowers. “Show, don't tell.”

The same goes for the heroes: you could easily imagine a sequence where you have to protect the technology from hordes of enemies but eventually fail, then Captain America heroically sacrifices himself to give a chance to the rest of the crew. That'd be an excellent way to make you play those key events rather than take all your attention to the bridge: ironically, this distracts the heroes and the player.

In a nutshell, this introduction is subpar because of design problems, not because of the game concept & Destiny inspiration. The team is clearly talented, can craft outstanding sequences, and has solid combat gameplay. It doesn't pay off in the first hour of the game for a reason (that might be outside of their control).

Aftermath

After writing this, I continued playing the campaign, which isn't perfect but still enjoyable. We follow Kamala/Ms Marvel, who tries to reunite the Avengers again & prove their innocence. The story eventually solves the events of the intro, but nothing that makes you go “Oh I understand now, they couldn't do this sequence any other way”.

The gameplay sequences are well-crafted, and the combat continues to shine. The RPG looting mechanics are indeed annoying & out-of-place, so we feel the identity crisis of a game that couldn't choose between Destiny & Uncharted. I didn't try the coop missions & DLC.

One last thing I noticed during the campaign is how they repeat some tutorials again, but this time allowing the player to digest the mechanics. Why put everything in the introduction, then? Did they initially intend to use the campaign as a lengthy introduction to the coop missions, then feared that the players who skip the story wouldn't understand the game?

One thing is sure: this game had a massive potential, and it unfortunately doesn't fulfil it.

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