Marvel’s Avengers was competent, but ultimately an incredibly boring game. The character designs, cast choices, gameplay, and story were all functional yet utterly unexciting and felt as though each piece was constructed to be as forgettable as possible. Avengers spent the last year trying to correct its other shortcomings, but there is only so much that can be done with such a bland foundation. War for Wakanda, its third story-based expansion, doesn’t use the power of the panther god Bast to magically smooth over the game’s rough edges, but it is the strongest part of the continually evolving experience.
It’s also the biggest. War for Wakanda adds the titular biome, a four-hour story campaign, and a new playable hero, Black Panther. It’s truly impressive, especially given how it is all free for all owners of the game.
But a nonexistent price doesn’t make it the best part of the entire Avengers game; it’s the best because of the setting and Black Panther. Wakanda is a beautiful locale as its fusion of green jungles and afrofuturistic cities make for a great contrast. There aren’t many places like Wakanda, especially in video games since the medium almost never utilizes that aesthetic. Wandering around the illustrious royal palace and strolling through the outdoor ceremonial structures is much more exciting than the uninspired AIM buildings or American cities in the core game.
Wakanda and Black Panther are inseparable and T’Challa holds up his end of the DLC, too. He plays like a mix of Captain America and Hulk, with the basic free-flowing melee combat of the former and some of the grappling power of the latter. As seen in the 2018 film, his ability to absorb and deflect blows with his suit gives him a slightly unique spin since it allows him to keep up his offense without stopping to block like Cap. Choosing when and how to expend the energy gives Black Panther more creative freedom than the other heroes and when combined with his grappling abilities and aerial juggles, makes him a little deeper than the rest of the roster, as well.
He’s also more visually appealing than much of that roster because of his suit. It’s a fairly standard Black Panther suit, but it excels because it covers his entire body. Many of Marvel’s Avengers’ characters falter because of the incredibly generic human faces. It’s why the reveal of the main cast was so deflating; they all looked like porn parodies of their Marvel Cinematic Universe counterparts. T’Challa, being suited from head to clawed toe, doesn’t fall into such a trap and is better as a result.
Both Wakanda and Black Panther come together for the War for Wakanda storyline which sees the Avengers and T’Challa team up in order to stop AIM in the African country. AIM has enlisted the help of Ulysses Klaue, a criminal hellbent on plundering Wakanda for its mythical vibranium.
AIM is the connective tissue to the overarching story of the eventual Kree invasion and while that link is appreciated, most of the story focuses on the immediate plot of Klaue’s desecration of the sacred Wakandan lands. T’Challa is a noble protagonist, one that balances diplomacy, strength, and playfulness, traits that all make him a decent anchor for the simple tale.
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However, War for Wakanda doesn’t dig deeper into many of the aspects that make Black Panther interesting and much of that has to do with the game it is trapped in. Outside of the surface-level read of colonialism — Klaue invading Wakanda for resources — there’s not much else substance to read into as the game hurriedly pushes players forward and stop the next tank or band of mercenaries. T’Challa also doesn’t get to grow or change as he’s being shuffled from zone to zone. Except for the slightly rushed but great final boss, it’s almost all purely mechanical and straightforward: do this, go here, blow up the thing, defend these areas.
This even applies to the more positive aspects of the expansion since all of them have a caveat attached to them. Black Panther’s rushdown melee combat is more involved than the other characters, but it is still very repetitive with encounters full of too many damage sponge enemies. Wakanda is a fantastic setting, but players don’t have many reasons to explore the nooks and crannies in the many linear pathways. T’Challa is a decent lead, but the cooperative nature of the game doesn’t leave much room for growth or quieter character moments. The story moves well and is easy to follow, but it’s not as deep as it could be, especially as the aforementioned colonialism that’s baked into the premise is hardly expanded upon.
Marvel’s Avengers is still clearly a game at war with itself. It wants to be a classic Crystal Dynamics-developed, story-based experience with some of the most recognizable fictional heroes on the planet yet can’t shake its forced games-as-a-service roots that turn it into something less refined. That foundation holds back every aspect of the title so even if all of that is at its best in War for Wakanda, there’s a big asterisk next to it where “great” is a relative term.
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