Something amazing is coming to Marvel's Avengers. On Nov. 30, Spider-Man swings into the game, finally fulfilling a long-awaited pre-launch tease for the live service brawler. He's not coming alone, though. Alongside Spider-Man's addition is a new narrative Hero Event, "With Great Power," and the game's first Raid, "Discordant Sound," which sees the Avengers and the heroes of Wakanda face off against the master of sound, Klaw.
Ahead of the game's massive Patch 2.2 release, CBR sat down with lead hero designer Scott Walters, gameplay director Philippe Therien, and game systems director Mike McTyre. The three discussed the challenges associated with adapting Marvel's wall-crawler for a game with an ensemble cast and what it was like building the first Raid event around the stunning Wakandan storyline. The trio also detailed how the gear system is changing in the update.
Spider-Man has always been a huge property, but it's blown up everywhere in the past several years. Was there any particular version of Spider-Man you looked to when designing the Hero Event?
Scott Walters: We looked at quite a bit. We comb through the comics: we all have Marvel Unlimited, and Marvel will send over copies of the comics for us to read whenever we start a new hero. The designers and the narrative team really dug into the source material to pull things that were iconic, and things that we wanted to make sure were represented on screen. We look at everything in the media for Spider-Man, whether that's cartoons, movies, past games -- you name it. He's been around for a while, and our goal is always to find what makes a hero iconic and what players identify as quintessential Spider-Man. When they're playing the game, we want them to live the hero fantasy and feel like they are that hero.
Our version of Spider-Man's in his early 20s, and he's been doing the Spider-Man thing for a while. It's not an origin story or anything like that, but he's been doing it solo -- Peter Parker by day, Spider-Man whenever he can be. In the Hero Event, Spider-Man comes across some fishy business with AIM while he's interning at this company, but he hits a dead end. He's talked with Black Widow online for support in his AIM investigation before. So he decides to reach out to the Avengers to get a little support to dig into this thing because he recognizes that AIM is a threat. That's what our take on Spider-Man is and what we focused on.
Spider-Man's chief video game strategy for the past 20 years or so has been built around freeform exploration and open-world traversal. How hard was it to rework Spidey's gameplay so you can meet those expectations while still fitting him into the framework of Marvel's Avengers?
Walters: Traversal was definitely a challenge. We hadn't done swinging to that extent. We had a little bit of that with Ms. Marvel's stretchy arms and Black Widow's grappling hook, but those all required physical contact points; they were going to ledges or swinging from poles. Spider-Man is typically more freeform and can get around easier with his webs. We had to do some work on our tech side. There was a lot of tuning and animation work that went into getting that right. We had those discussions about whether we always stick the web to something.
We actually wound up leaning towards a happy balance. If we attach the web to something, that looks great, but as soon as we go into the Siberian wilderness or the future wastelands where there's nothing above him, Spider-Man's going to be grounded. So whenever there is a surface, we attach webs to it. Otherwise, we just let you swing and let those webs go off into the invisible nowhere. We wanted to make sure players have fun with Spider-Man, but we've got to make sure that Spider-Man fits within the scope of what Marvel's Avengers is. He can't launch himself at ridiculous speeds and leave everyone else in the dust, but that doesn't mean we can't make that feel just as good on the sticks. We gave him his own dedicated swing button because we didn't want to tie up the jump button. We wanted to make sure that it's very fluid, that it feels good and that players have the most control over it. I think the overall result turned out really well.
We've discussed in previous interviews how the game is designed where any squad composition is suitable for any scenario, but are there any characters, narratively or strategically, who you feel Spidey meshes well with?
Walters: Storywise, he has had interactions with Black Widow before the narrative. Kamala and Spider-Man, if you're familiar with their origin story, are very similar. They're young kids who gain their powers as teenagers and have to figure out what that means -- with great power comes great responsibility and helping out their neighborhood. That's something you can see in our narrative. Kamala is like the new kid on the block with the Avengers. She's been with them for a short while, and she reaches out to Spidey and says, "Hey, we're all friends here. You can join us; you don't have to be so guarded with your secret. You don't have to fly solo anymore. We're here to help."
Gameplay-wise, Spider-Man is designed to be an excellent support role. He's really crowd control focused with his webs and ability to lock enemies down. He's a great addition to any team. I think anyone who can get enemies into a group and do a bunch of damage is excellent, and he's got a lot of good ways to do that.
In the cinematics we previewed, Spider-Man is speaking with Liz Allan, but she also mentions Mark Raxton, who becomes Molten Man in the comics. How significant a role do those two play in the story?
Walters: Peter Parker is investigating AIM because of their interactions with Allan Chemical, where he was interning with Liz Allan. He digs a little too deep and gets fired and but doesn't want to drop it. So as Spider-Man, he enlists the help of the Avengers to get through that roadblock. You'll talk to both Liz Allan and Mark Raxton throughout the investigation, and they'll help drive the Spider-Man narrative. They're definitely supporting roles to help guide the story along. However, all the gameplay happens in existing content. You can go into pretty much any existing Avengers Initiative content to defeat AIM and collect the resources for those investigations. The cinematics and story content will feature those characters in supporting roles.
It was clarified in a recent blog post that "Spider-Man: With Great Power" is a new content type, a Hero Event, rather than an Operation like past hero releases. Is this the new standard for adding heroes to the game, or is it a way to add characters who may not have as significant an impact on the ongoing AIM narrative?
Philippe Therien: With Spider-Man, we're trying something a little bit different. It's definitely a mission that takes place within the existing content, so it's different than what we've done in the past with "War for Wakanda" or the Kate Bishop pack. The big Content drop for this patch is the"Discordant Sound" Raid, and that's what we're focusing on right now. In terms of whether we will do a Hero Event again, we always look to players to tell us how they feel about the content that we're putting out. We'll certainly pay close attention to how they react to this release.
Speaking of "Discordant Sound," this is a huge new addition to the game. Why did you choose to focus on Klaw for the game's first Raid?
Therien: Klaw's a fascinating villain with a lot of interesting powers that we introduced in the "War for Wakanda" campaign. This has been the plan since the beginning, to have Klaw show up in the campaign, get defeated but not quite completely, and then have a Raid where he's at the full height of his power. Klaw absorbing energy and getting to a point where he becomes almost uncontrollable is a massive threat that we're really excited to have the Avengers face off against. We're also leveraging a lot of comic book DNA from Klaw. You'll see him manipulating sound and creating sound constructs. He's creating a new enemy type for the Raid, Echoes, which the players will fight. Really, he's just a cool villain. He's also a giant monster, which we've been wanting to have the Avengers fight for a long time.
From what we saw of the Raid, it looks absolutely brutal. How hard was it to find that sweet spot between a challenging difficulty and something that won't turn away players?
Therien: It's extremely challenging. You want to find the balance between having a satisfying challenge that players feel good about overcoming and not making it so obscure that nobody can complete it without watching a YouTube playthrough. On the flip side, if players play the Raid and think, "Well, that wasn't so bad." We've got the Elite Raid, where it will get a little bit worse. In the past, we've had just a power level increase to make the enemies a little bit tougher, but it didn't quite meet the challenges that people wanted. With the Elite version of the Raid, we actually have mechanical differences. If you played a normal Raid and you think, "Hey, we're great at this, we own this, we could do this really quickly now" -- take on the Elite version. The mechanics are a little bit different, and the bosses don't behave exactly the same way. It's definitely a level difference, not just a power increase.
Once you've got a well-oiled, experienced team together, how long do you think it will take to complete the Raid?
Therien: It's hard to put an exact time on it. Different players are going to have different experiences. I can tell you that it's considerably longer than a Super Adaptoid Omega Level Threat. Players will take longer to get through it, especially the first time when they're figuring out all the encounters and understanding the puzzles. It's consistent with Raids in other games in that it's a significant time investment, but you can get better at doing it. The big thing is that you start to understand the mechanics and the fights, and you collaborate well with your team. There are shortcuts and things you can short circuit to help you get through faster. Once you get really good at it, and especially when you increase the power level, the Raid becomes quicker to do. Still, you can expect to invest more time in it at the beginning.
Again, I know the game is designed where any squad of heroes is viable, but are there any particular heroes or roles that are beneficial to the Raid?
Therien: All the characters are valuable in the Raid: what's important is that players talk to each other. In the past, we've let the players go through the content with whatever build they're comfortable with, and it all tends to work pretty well. That's still true to an extent with the Raid, but there are places where if you have to hold back a lot of enemies, you'll want a really resistant character or someone that has a lot of support abilities. There are places where you have to get someplace quickly and come back, so a high agility, super-fast character with defensive abilities is ideal. Some areas require you to destroy things quickly or do a lot of damage in a short time window, so you'll want your high damage characters. If you take that to the extreme, it's role-based encounters. You may be like, "Hey, I'm going to be the tank, so you guys are high damage characters, and this other person will be the healer." That actually works quite well in the Raid, and you can be very, very successful.
You can still complete the Raid without assigning roles. It's more complicated, which reinforces what we said earlier. Communication is critical when you're playing end game content like this: you need to talk to each other. It helps even if just one person takes a leadership role and assigns people to different places.
There is a narrative running through the Raid that we saw, with Klaw taking control of the Vibranium Mound. Is this the last we'll see of Klaw?
Therien: Sometimes, things make a return, but as far as we've gotten, this will be Klaw's real, definitive end. You will get to defeat him. We're super excited about getting to team up with the Wakanda heroes to tell that story too. You'll fight alongside Okoye and team up with Shuri to find ways to defeat Klaw. Zawavari even makes an appearance. It's pretty amazing feats of magic, which I'm super excited about.
We did notice Zawavari, who felt more like a cameo in "War for Wakanda." However, it looks like he might be pretty important to "Discordant Sound." How big a role does he play in the Raid?
Therien: He has a key role to play, but it's really hard to talk about it without giving it away, and I really don't want to spoil it. Zawavari showing up is one of my favorite moments in the Raid, and I'm looking forward to people seeing it. He does play a key role. Really, without any of the Wakanda heroes, the Raid wouldn't be possible. "Discordant Sound" is not the Avengers saving Wakanda. It's Wakanda and the Avengers teaming up to defeat a threat that's bigger than any of them could handle by themselves. It's a really high-stakes encounter where all of the strongest heroes from the Avengers and Wakanda team up to do something amazing.
There are some pretty massive gear changes coming along with this patch as well. What went into those changes?
Mike McTyre: First and foremost, we have new gear that players will be able to get in the Klaw Raid and the elite Klaw Raid. It's some of the best gear in the game, which is really exciting. We also have a whole bunch of other improvements beyond just some bug fixes. We've looked at other gear and some of the perks, and we're looking for opportunities to make it more valuable to players and give them more options. There are definitely some improvements going into the update, but a big focus was the Klaw Raid. It will be a challenge for players to defeat this content, so we wanted to make sure the rewards are good.
Players asked us to give them a challenge that really makes them need teamwork as the Avengers would. We want to make sure we're rewarding players for all the effort they're putting into this, and part of that is the amazing new gear and the power level increase. With those hand in hand, we wanted to expand player options, not narrow them. With the current gear system, you're static in your progression, but we have lots of players. Millions of new players are coming in with Game Pass, and a ton of players have been with us from the beginning. Many of these players have been earning their gear at Mega Hives, Tachyon Rifts, Family Reunion. They're making builds, making loadouts, customizing their characters, figuring out the play styles they really enjoy. We didn't want to take those options away. We reworked the gear system so that you can get new gear with new perks, new abilities, and new ways to play with your favorite superheroes. But you can also upgrade your older gear and take it with you. If you still have those sets, they're valid. We want to make sure you have more options as you progress through the game.
Are there any notable new perks that you're particularly excited about or that fans should look forward to?
McTyre: There's a lot of really great perks coming. I don't necessarily want to spoil them all: we want to save something for the exploration, so none that I want to announce right now. I want players to have that excitement in discovering the new additions as they go into this content.
Avengers players can push the mute button on Klaw when Marvel's Avengers Patch 2.2 releases Nov. 30 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC and Google Stadia. PlayStation players will be able to swing into action as Spider-Man on Nov. 30 as well.