Why We're Worried About Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy
While DC fans are scratching their heads at why King Shark's voice sounds familiar in "Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League," Marvel fans are gearing up for the release of "Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy." Launching Oct. 26, the game follows the rag-tag group of heroes across the galaxy as they fight to — you guessed it — save said galaxy.
The game is coming at the perfect time for "Guardians of the Galaxy" fans, too. With Volume 3 of the movies finally getting an official release date of May 5, 2023, this game gives fans something to do in the meantime.
But while there's a lot of hype surrounding the game, there are also a number of reasons for fans to be concerned about how it'll turn out. After all, "Marvel's Avengers" bombed in sales when it was released in 2020 and its playerbase all but fell off the face of the earth in 2021, so it is natural for fans to worry about how the next Marvel title published by Square Enix might fare. Although the trailer for the game looked markedly better than "Marvel's Avengers," there are still aspects of the game that have fans worried.
Character appearances in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy
Eidos Montreal released a video in August 2021 that gave gamers an in-depth look at the character designs for the game. While the designs themselves aren't necessarily bad, they didn't hit home for a lot of Marvel fans who are looking for comic or film accuracy.
In the video, one of the game developers explained how the team settled on the new designs for each character. While Rocket was a breeze for the developers to create, they felt that characters like Star-Lord, Drax, and Groot needed a bit more inspiration. This led to the team creating new backstories for many of them — a decision that didn't sit well with dedicated fans, who sounded off in the video's comments.
For example, Groot will look pretty different in the upcoming game — the team decided that, because the hero and Rocket are close friends, Rocket would probably mechanize Groot. This manifested in both visual and tactical changes to the characters, like adding tech to Groot allowing Rocket to use Groot as a standing turret.
A blog from PlayStation also detailed the new character designs, and one fan said that these designs alone are making them consider skipping the game. While the characters look somewhat similar to their popular MCU counterparts, it's clear that not everyone's on board with any changes to their beloved Guardians.
The lack of playable characters in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy
One of the main problems that fans have with "Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy" is the fact that the only playable character is Star-Lord. As explained by Eidos Montreal, this decision came about after deciding that players would need to balance decision-making with combat elements throughout the game. So while players can't switch characters in the middle of a fight, players will still be able to act as team leader and tell other Guardians what to do.
Unfortunately, this concept doesn't seem to appeal to a large number of players, and fans have frequently sounded off on Twitter to let the developer know that they'd like the option to play as other characters. After all, the Guardians are a group of interesting individuals with exciting and unique abilities. As one gamer put it, this would be like making a Fantastic Four game and limiting players to only being able to choose Reed Richards.
'DMCA-friendly' music in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy
It's no secret that Star-Lord is heavily-influenced by his love for '80s music — to the point where the soundtracks for the "Guardians of the Galaxy" films are a huge deal — and there will be licensed music in "Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy." For streamers, this feature poses a problem. DMCA strikes have long been an issue for Twitch streamers. Sharing any media featuring licensed music can lead to a warning or a suspension from the platform.
Unfortunately for streamers, just buying the game doesn't give you permission to broadcast the licensed music in it. Eidos Montreal thought about this ahead of time, and it came up with the solution by creating new, license-free music to use in the game with a simple setting change.
The new music gives streamers a chance to play the game for an audience (which may boost the game's popularity), but the fact remains that "Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy" will sound kind of weird on Twitch. And if you are relying on watching a Twitch streamer to experience the game, you're not getting the full effect through the DMCA-friendly tracks.
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy's hefty download size
There was a rumor going around that "Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy" would need 150GB of room on PC. This sounded astronomical, and many people weren't happy. However, while this rumor turned out to be false, the game is still pretty big.
The rumor came from requirements on the Steam page that were apparently posted before the game was completely finished (via Game Rant.) According to the offical Twitter acccount, the game was in the last steps of optimization. The game was actually condensed into around 80GB, which Steam updated.
While it's not as bad as 150GB, 80GB is still really high. Fans were quick to point the fact out in the replies on Twitter, with some calling for a version of the game for Google Stadia that takes 0GB since it would be streamed. There's no plans for the game to be released on Stadia, so fans will just have to bit the bullet and dedicate 80GB to the game.
People-pleasing your team in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy
Before review embargos lifted, a select few were able to play a bit of "Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy" prior to its launch. One of the game mechanics that has caused some division is the fact that players have to make sure Star-Lord keeps the other Guardians happy.
The decision to only let players take control of Star-Lord in order to actually lead the group was already a controversial one, and Paul Tassi from Forbes argued that leading the group isn't as great as it might sound.
In the middle of battle, players can call for the Guardians to huddle together if combat is going well. The other characters will say a few things, and players have to choose the correct motivational prompt in order to get extra combat bonuses. Tassi argued that this was occasionally frustrating and slowed down battles in a way that wasn't satisfying.
The people-pleasing doesn't stop outside the battlefield, either — decisions players make in the game will seemingly please one person on the team while simultaneously making another member upset. Balancing these decisions and keeping the team happy is part of the game, and while publications such as TheGamer have praised the mechanic, not everyone will enjoy this kind of team-building exercise.