The Marvel's Avengers footage we were promised a month ago is out now, and it's pretty weird if you ask me. It's a pretty lengthy look at gameplay, and that looks mostly fine—but the voiceover work is, charitably, a bit of a rough listen.
Fresh from Gamescom, what you are about to see is gameplay footage from Square Enix's Avengers game. A select few got to see this stuff at San Diego Comic-Con earlier this year, and some footage of Thor bashing guys with Mjolnir wound up leaked from that event.
That's all present in this extended gameplay clip, and to be fair, that specific bit looks like a ton of fun. But is it me, or does this whole thing seem extremely… off?
Clearly, the voiceover work is what's most immediately off-putting. The Avengers have been associated with the actors who play them for more than 10 years, and hearing Iron Man sound like someone who isn't Robert Downey Jr. is deeply strange.
But there's more to it than that making this clip feel weird. The audio mix seems botched, because whenever Iron Man speaks, it sounds like it's a voice coming from somewhere other than in the game, like he's a streamer commenting on video game footage for a Twitch audience.
Then there's the issue of QTEs—are we seriously still doing those in this year of our lord 2019?
All that said, there's plenty to love in the trailer too. Bruce Banner leaping out of a helicopter only to grab a guy by the leg to use to beat up other guys? That's fantastic. Thor's hitting homeruns with bad guys' faces looks fun as hell. And I'm even down for Black Widow mixing akimbo pistols with kung-fu.
Marvel's Avengers is due to launch May 15, 2020.
