Today at E3 Square Enix announced Guardians of the Galaxy, a new game based on the popular Marvel team featured in movies and comics. It’s being developed by Eidos Montreal. It’s out on October 26, 2021.
The game features a new original story featuring Marvel’s cosmic misfits. At the start of the game, they have only been together for a year. Players will take on the role of Peter Quill, also known as Star-Lord.
During the event, Square Enix also showed off gameplay, which featured dialogue choices and the crew bickering over things. Both trailers also featured some classic tunes. If you enjoyed the Guardians of the Galaxy films, this seems very heavily based on the tone of those flicks.
At one point, Star-Lord was able to use his trusty Walkman to launch a special attack, while in the background Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation” played. While the game looks like fun, some performance issues during the combat were hard to ignore. (Though this is footage of a game that’s still in development so things can and hopefully will improve.)
Guardians of the Galaxy has been in development since at least 2017. Back then, sources told Kotaku that the game was being developed by Eidos Montreal, while the team was also working on Shadow of the Tomb Raider and helping Crystal Dynamics with its Avengers game. Before Shadow of The Tomb Raider, Eidos Montreal had worked on two Deus Ex games, 2011's Human Revolution and its 2016 sequel, Mankind Divided. After lackluster sales, the future of that series isn’t clear. Instead, following the release of Avengers in 2020, it’s time for the Guardians to swing into action.
Guardians of the Galaxy is the second Marvel game from Square Enix and is part of a deal the Japanese publisher made with Marvel in January 2017. That deal was described as a multi-year, multi-game partnership. Hopefully, Guardians is a better experience than the last Square Enix-published Marvel game.
Read More: Hawkeye Can’t Save Marvel’s Avengers
Since releasing in September 2020, The Avengers has suffered from a lack of content and updates that have left dedicated players disappointed and frustrated. Even when the game is updated, it’s often changing things for the worse. As an example, back in March, developer Crystal Dynamics announced changes to the way the game’s XP system worked, which would make the already-grindy game even more of a grind. Expensive cosmetics and months without new characters haven’t helped keep players happy or convinced new folks to start playing the superhero-themed live game.
But hope springs eternal, so perhaps the developers’ challenging experiences with Marvel’s Avengers will help them avoid similar pitfalls with Guardians of the Galaxy. And if nothing else, the new game has Groot. Hard to hate that little fella.
Guardians of the Galaxy releases on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC on October 26, 2021.
Update: June 15 - 1:00 p.m. ET: It will also be released on Switch on the same day via a streaming version of the game, as announced during Nintendo’s E3 2021 showcase.