Almost a year after its release, Square Enix’s Avengers game has added Black Panther (voiced by Christopher Judge), and the kingdom of Wakanda. Spoilers after the jump.
1. The Most Standalone Expansion
Despite being Avengers’ largest expansion yet (with new side missions, enemy types, and a royal palace outpost, as well as Wakandan designs for every previous gameplay element), War for Wakanda is probably the least essential addition to the overarching narrative of the game thus far: sure, the Avengers are here to ask for T’Challa’s help, and AIM hires Ulysses Klaue (Steve Blum) to steal Wakanda’s vibranium, but it’s not like he needed that excuse.
The DLC sees T’Challa struggling to balance his duties as king and Black Panther, and eventually realizing that Shuri (Erica Luttrell) is mature enough now to sit on the throne as Queen Regent, while he joins the Avengers during their fight across the globe. It’s a story about him reconciling with the Avengers after abandoning them five years ago, and consequently feels like a Black Panther game within an Avengers one, which is good, especially as it banishes the thought of another DLC with a mismatched hero/villain conflict like Hawkeye vs. the Maestro.
2. Monica?
We have to back up though regarding AIM’s Scientist Supreme, Monica Rappaccini: a Villain Sector level with her wielding the Cosmic Cube was added to the game over the summer, which concluded with Old Man Hawkeye dragging her down… somewhere, trapping them both in the Cube (which is now in the possession of Hank Pym, and his A.I., Roy.) However, Monica is overheard here telling off Klaue for destroying a Wakandan heritage site, and narrative designer Hannah MacLeod confirmed the DLCs take place immediately after each other, so what gives? Either Monica’s boss battle was after this DLC as well, and T’Challa was offscreen using the royal bathroom, or she has more clones than I thought — so which is it?
3. A Husky T’Challa
Christopher Judge is an incredibly charismatic actor, but he feels very subdued as T’Challa, with an almost raspy vocal characterization. What’s strange is that this is not his first time with voice acting or video games, having played Magneto in X-Men: Evolution, and Kratos in the last God of War: it’s possible he was concentrating on the accent so much, that it stifled the natural gravitas of his voice.
This whispery take would’ve fit better if the game’s T’Challa more strongly resembled the cold and distant version from Christopher Priest and co.’s 1998-2003 run, but the emphasis on Shuri and other sympathetic elements means you can’t help but compare him to the late Chadwick Boseman’s kindhearted take, who had such a strong yet soothing voice. Judge would probably agree he could never be Boseman, but his voice is not a patch on James C. Mathis III’s performance in the Avengers cartoons either.
4. The Real Klaw
Klaue here is a good exercise in reinterpreting a comic book villain who’s become well known to audiences after a widely seen portrayal in the MCU, changing what was retained in the films, and bringing in what was left out. He’s younger than his comics counterpart, with his father being given the history with King T’Chaka, presumably so he has a more personal motivation than being a colonial scumbag.
Unlike the film version, who died before any vibranium accident could happen, the game’s Klaue is mutated into the red-and-purple sound monster from the comics, and the translation of that is excellent, looking like he’s been flayed and then calcified into the mineral. I’ve never disliked how the Black Panther movie used Klaue, since it’s not often you see one villain kill another to strengthen his claim to the throne, but it’s a shame we never got to see that “Klaw” on the big screen, and I’m grateful we have this version too.
5. Wall Running is Still Awful
I almost didn’t get to see Klaw myself however, as the final mission has two bafflingly bad platforming sections, which were obnoxiously frustrating, even after a good night’s sleep (I was so concerned I would be unable to finish the story that I initially watched the ending on YouTube.) T’Challa has to cross a couple of radioactive areas in the mines to reach his nemesis, which require wall running, a clunky and terrible part of the gameplay design: it was always a crapshoot whether he would start the running animation, stick to the wall, fall off of it, or just get downed by the radiation, and on top of all that, there were little to no checkpoints in these sections, sending you not one, or two, but sometimes four steps back.
Continued belowCould I have restarted the mission with a flying character like Thor? Sure, but I shouldn’t have to, this was meant to be Black Panther’s DLC. Look, you have a number of options Crystal Dynamics: you can ditch wall running and give the non-fliers and rope users better jumping ranges; give us more checkpoints; or you can let us skip difficult sections altogether (like Red Dead Redemption, or L.A. Noire, games that are over a decade old now.) This isn’t a platformer, it’s a brawler, and I don’t have time to replay the Reassemble campaign repeatedly to “git gud” at the sloppy wall running mechanics (if you even can.) One thing’s for sure: I won’t be replaying this chapter.
Bonus Thoughts:
– Longtime Captain America foe Crossbones is introduced here as Klaue’s lieutenant, meaning a character who was best known in the comics for being Red Skull’s enforcer, has now spawned two distinct variants who aren’t associated with the old Nazi (HYDRA membership in the MCU aside.) It’s weird, given the history behind his name, although granted, invading Wakanda is pretty imperialistic behavior.
– After everyone else was largely quiet in Clint Barton’s DLC, it’s great that the whole cast is back: I especially enjoyed overhearing Ms. Marvel tell Clint that the way he feels out-of-place in Wakanda is what being a minority feels like, and how for every stare, there’s a thousand smiles welcoming you for being different — that certainly feels like a personal piece of insight from narrative consultant Evan Narcisse (who also wrote “Rise of the Black Panther”).
– It’s a lot easier to find audio recordings in the expansion, and the user interface has been redesigned to organize much of the information into sub-menus: can’t say I’m too keen on that though, I was fine sliding through every page instead of clicking back and forth between where I wanted to look.
– T’Challa’s spiritual advisor/teleporter Zawavari (Dave Fennoy) can be overheard communing with Doctor Strange, Wong, Scarlet Witch, Doctor Voodoo, and Loki (“Lie-Smith”): obviously this shouldn’t be taken as foreshadowing they’re coming to the game, but it’s nice to know the magic users were peering in, so to speak.
– Speaking of Zawavari, it’s a bit weird he invokes the Orisha, given they’re West African deities, but then Wakanda’s always come across as a mishmash of all African cultures (and even Indian ones), not just East Africa. (For the record, they’d be more likely to speak Swahili than Xhosa in the films.)
– When T’Challa pets Lucky on the helicarrier, he really goes for it, hugging that dog: who knew the Black Panther was such a dog person?
– It’s a shame T’Challa keeps his mask on in cutscenes if you equip a different suit than the default one.
Well folks, that is currently it for now, aside from Spider-Man’s addition to the PlayStation version sometime later this year. Hopefully Crystal Dynamics will announce the birth of Ultron, and Captain Marvel’s arrival soon: it’ll certainly be more fun to fly as her than wall run as T’Challa.
