Marvels Avengers Is Okay

Late in summer 2020, the hype train for Marvel’s Avengers was running at full speed. The company was slow dripping information in a lead up to a couple open beta weekends. I started to get the super hero vibe and decided to jump back into the arcady Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, on Nintendo switch, to get ready for the newest AAA experience.

That hype train came to a screeching halt when the Windows open beta weekend arrived. I installed the game on my PC and was greeted with a number of crashes, janky performance, and a game that just didn’t feel all that great. I played through the beta until I got control of Ms. Marvel. I simply wasn’t enjoying my time, and was not at all invested in what I was playing. I returned to the arcadey but satisfying Ultimate Alliance 3 and pushed Crystal Dynamic’s newest title out of my mind.

Fast forward a few weeks and there I was, playing Avengers’ early access on Stadia. The fact that a game can be bought on impulse and played a second later on Stadia is both dangerous and fantastic. The game starts you off with the choice between starting the single player campaign, or jumping straight into the multiplayer. I chose to start with the single player campaign, which took me around twenty hours to complete.

While I know this is a common feeling held by many players, the campaign is surprisingly good. The game starts you off as a young Kamala Khan attending a doomed Avengers event in San Francisco. The first few missions get you completely invested in Kamala’s story and character, but the wheels come off a bit as you get deeper into the game. The story wraps up the main campaign arc well, culminating with a couple set piece battles.

The wheels really come off a few hours in, when you are just starting to recruit the other Avengers. Up until this point the story has been a linear and streamlined experience. Out of left field the game throws this weird games as a service set of bland missions in your face. Later in the campaign, you are actually required to do additional GaaS missions to get past an artificial content gate. This really hurt the pacing of an otherwise excellent single player experience.

The gameplay felt better this time too. While I doubt anything had fundamentally changed from the open beta, the extended introductions to how the game’s mechanics work really improved my enjoyment of the combat. The game still does feel a bit janky while traversing the work, especially with characters like Black Widow or Ms. Marvel with their grappling-hook like mobility. Of all the characters, Kamala felt the best to play. She has a good mix of offensive and supportive abilities, and her intrinsic ability works well. My least favourite was Iron Man. The flying controls don’t feel right, and aiming, at least on Stadia, doesn’t feel right.

The performance on Stadia was a bit of a mixed bag at launch. The first few hours of the game ran great, but once you unlock the helicarrier performance would often tank, making the game extremely framey. The HARM missions also had noticeably bad performance at launch. However, with the game’s current patch, most performance issues seem to be resolved.

The elephant in the room is the game’s multiplayer and broken matchmaking. During the single player campaign you can get paired up with other players to take on the story missions. I was lucky enough to have this happen a few times, and the game was a huge amount of fun with other player controlled Avengers. After completing the campaign I started on a bit of the multiplayer, but finding a group of players can take too long. There are also limits to the player gear-level gap, which further ruin the matchmaking experience. A few times the game paired me with a high level Avenger that actually couldn’t do content with me. Crystal Dynamics needs to make some changes to this restriction. Crossplay wouldn’t hurt either as the player base continues to decline.

Marvel’s Avengers is an enjoyable single player campaign that is only bogged down by its multiplayer sink. The game looks great, has a story that you can get invested in, and is really fun to play with other players. I am looking forward to the upcoming character additions, and will be returning to play through those character arcs. Crystal Dynamics has improved the game a lot since launch, but still has lots to do in regards to the game’s poor matchmaking.