Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy - Review
Just look at them go! Gamora, Kammy, Groot, Peter, Rocket and Drax. Screenshot: Eidos Montréal & Square Enix.
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (GotG) is a pretty good game. Also pretty messy though, which feels very on brand for the Guardians. And they mess up constantly in the game, too, which again, on brand. Developed by Eidos Montréal and published by Square Enix, GotG is the second entry into the publishing agreement with Marvel Entertainment, announced in 2017. The first entry did not do too well.
Marvel’s Avengers, co-developed by Chrystal Dynamics of Tomb Raider-fame and Eidos Montréal, is, nicely put, not great. Uninspired gameplay, as well as horrible monetization and unlock practices, doomed the game pretty much from the start. Since its release in 2020, the stream for new content has been continuous, as is usual for a live-service game. But sales and player numbers have stayed below expectations, as even Square Enix recently admitted in an earnings call.
Marvel’s Avengers also kinda doomed the Guardians. Leaked in 2017 and formally announced in 2021, hype for the Guardians of the Galaxy was absent despite the best efforts of the marketing campaign.
I saw the reveal trailer as part of this year’s E3 and thought “Meh.” It looked generic, the jokes did not really land and I am pretty burned out on Marvel content thanks to the entire movie and TV franchise. The only positive thing I noticed was that reveal and release were so close together (less than 5 months). I basically forgot the game existed until the reviews started to come out. After reading a few, I bought the game and had a pretty good time playing it. Which felt like a surprise?
PSA after playing the game: the trailers are doing a horrible job selling the game. Only the launch trailer manages to capture a fraction of the chaos and charm the game has and it barely features any dialogue. Which turns out, is one of the main draws of the game. I could listen to the Guardians chatter away for hours.
They talk all the time. On the ship, during combat, walking down a corridor, running away from intergalactic space debris - somebody always has something to say. The amount of dialogue is astounding, and even though not every line is a hit, they help make the entire crew endearing.
It also helps to differentiate the line up from their movie counterparts: Peter Quill, the player character and current leader of the Guardians in the movies and comic books, actually feels like the connecting glue between the members, while Groot (the walking tree, if you are not familiar) acts like the voice of reason among them. Several times during the story, Groot chimes in and everybody takes his ideas seriously, despite the fact that all his dialogue consists of “I am Groot” (crew member Rocket serves as his interpreter and commentator).
Drax the Destroyer serves as comic relief due to his nature of taking everything extremely literal, but is valued for his strength and tenacity. Gamora, “the deadliest woman in the galaxy”, grows more involved as the game goes on, displaying a devil-may-care attitude that inspires the others. And then there’s Rocket (he looks like a racoon, but he is going to chew you out if you call him that). The abrasive engineer and tinkerer complains about everything and anything, usually getting the crew into deeper trouble due to his short temper. But he also has a heart of gold, and as the Guardians grow together, he is willing to take major risks on behalf of the crew.
More so than in the movies, the Guardians really feel like a found family. Several missions of the game focus on helping out one of the Guardians with a personal issue. As Peter puts it, “because that’s what friends do'', even while Rocket complains (Rocket runs his mouth, but he is also the first to jump into a deep dark hole to help out with a problem). Throughout the twists and turns of the story, and there are so many, the Guardians stay a cohesive unit, always true to their very flawed selves despite the craziness all around them.
Peter, encountering a math problem. Screenshot: Eidos Montréal & Square Enix.
Unfortunately, even though the narrative keeps escalating with every one of the game’s fifteen chapters, the combat is a bit of a mixed bag. You play Peter Quill and he is very boring until he unlocks a few special abilities. With him, you command the other Guardians to do special attacks that deal different types of damage. Rocket is great for crowd control, Gamora does massive damage. You get the gist. Apart from one finishing move, the Guardians act independently, which feels like a missed opportunity in light of the connectedness of the crew during non-combat sections. The combat scenarios you encounter are nothing to get excited about either. The game usually just throws different combinations of enemies with different abilities at you that force you to use your full arsenal, but get boring quickly. Some boss fights are slightly more inspired, but again, nothing to write home about. It is serviceable.
I can say the same thing about the level design. The levels are there and look very pretty (honestly, the graphics are great, more on that later), but they are not particularly fun to traverse through. They are mostly just very linear. On occasion, there is a branching path and you can tell that you are going to find treasure because the crew complains about you taking a detour. Sometimes there is a puzzle. The dialogue of the Guardians about the puzzle is generally much better than the puzzles themselves. I sometimes wondered why they even bothered with them, apart from stretching the time it would take you to get to your next objective. If the Guardians would not word-vomit the entire time, the levels would be dreadful to get through. Which might be the point: the levels are pretty nondescript so you can focus on the dialogue.
But at least it is pretty. The game forgoes the typical “different shades of earth”-trope for alien planets and really delivers imaginative visuals on that front. Red tendrils filling up a cave with prominent bisexual lighting. A hostile looking snow planet (it rivals Ilum from Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order or the peak in God of War (2018) in snowiness and I love it) boasts impressive vistas. A very golden space ship that feels distinct from the very blue space station you explore earlier in the game inspires awe for the 20 seconds its in the game. The art design is on point. You can also collect costumes for the Guardians throughout the game, which are impeccably designed and appear well credited to the original creators from the comic books. Combat is flashy and it at least does not look as boring as it is. Also, the animations are smooth and some of the facial expressions really cracked me up.
Red tendrils and weird orange orbs are not the weirdest you see on the alien planets. Screenshot: Eidos Montréal & Square Enix.
Speaking of cracking up: the game is funny. One reason why the trailers did not really work: the humour is more situational and character based rather than relying on one-liners. One ongoing joke in one of the chapters includes everybody recording so called “dog report items”. They are for the Knowhere security chief, former soviet cosmonaut and Golden Retriever, Cosmo. Drax, ever so diligently, goes into minute details every time. As things escalate, even Gamora starts chiming in, as Groot desperately tries to contact Cosmo to actually deliver the report. It is great. Not every joke lands - the one-liners are truly hit or miss. But the inherent jokey nature of the team and their reactions to everything really shine. I had to pause the game a few times because I was laughing too hard.
Also, Cosmo is the best boi.
And in addition, you are the source of some of that laughter. The game sometimes gives you narrative choices, mostly regarding dialogue. Are you going to let Groot or Rocket play a scary monster? Are you going to insult or be nice to the enemy? Are you going to hide the purple space lama or expensive tools from the space police? Not every choice lands and sometimes it is not a choice between paths but rather one that could instantly ends the game. But it mostly works and the creativity in execution is great.
Moreover, the game appears to be very true to the randomness of the comic books. The few panels and stories I am familiar with, are pretty out there in terms of creativity and subject matter (apparently, Drax is an expert saxophonist, which..checks out). And the game plays this very close to its heart. The places you end up in during the story start absurd and escalate to pretty surreal, and your response will be more “that’s cool” rather than “what is happening?”. It is all very fitting and endearing. Again, kudos to the team for their creativity and tying everything together so well.
One of my recurring refrains has been“not everything lands”. And truly, the game is a bit of a mixed bag. But it mostly works! Which as I mentioned in my introduction, really feels on brand for the Guardians of the Galaxy. The amount of times they mess up is astounding. They even acknowledge it in the game. But they always pull through somehow, in style and a bad joke at hand.
The game was advertised with the tag line “you got this…probably”. And yeah, they kinda got it, messy as it is. You will end the game loving this rag tag group of idiots. And Kammy, the purple space lama. Do not forget about Kammy.
