As Marvel’s Avengers looks to be much more than just a third-person action game, with its focus on loot and collecting gear and these new Warzones mode, it makes sense to look at one of the game’s contemporaries, Destiny 2, and what ideas from that game Marvel’s Avengers may be able to borrow for Warzones.
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The Destiny franchise is perhaps best known for its excellent 6-player raids such as the forthcoming Garden of Salvation raid. For many players, raids are the pinnacle activity of the franchise and one of the things that Destiny does best. In fact, since its developer Bungie helped define how a raid (something that used to be exclusive to MMORPGs like World of Warcraft) can work in an action first-person shooter, many other action games have also added raids, including The Division 2 and the upcoming Ghost Recon Breakpoint.
Because of Destiny’s success with raids, and how Marvel’s Avengers could be the next Destiny if it gets things right, here are some things that Marvel’s Avengers should borrow for Warzones:
5. A Sense of Wonder
One of the best things about Destiny 2’s raids is the sense of wonder that defines the activity. From the mysterious labyrinths of The Vault of Glass to the opulent world-eating ship that is The Leviathan, Destiny’s raids always have a sense of wonder in their setting. With Marvel’s Avengers, Warzones presents a great opportunity to create an incredible setting in which to place its action. If these do function as one-off co-op missions as Crystal Dynamics has described, they would benefit from sending players into a new and special setting. And with the incredible history of the Marvel franchise to pull from, there are all sorts of fantastic places Earth’s Mightiest Heroes could end up.
4. Big Bosses
Some of Destiny’s raids’ biggest successes have been presenting players with larger-than-life bosses. In Destiny, six players have had to band together to take down a giant Hive god in Oryx and free-fall down cathedral depths to shoot a giant space dragon in Riven, among others. This is actually where many other action games have suffered in their raids, having to rely on human combatants as their bosses. But like its grand catalog of incredible settings, the Marvel universe also has a plethora of crazy villains that Marvel’s Avengers can pull from for some boss encounters on a grand scale.
3. Unique Encounters and Mechanics
With the focus on team combat and defined roles for Warzones, Marvel’s Avengers should not be afraid to lean into that and create boss fights and encounters that have unique mechanics. A big part of what makes raids compelling in Destiny 2 is that players have to solve the puzzle of how an encounter works. Players have to work together to discover new mechanics they have never seen before in the game and work them out. Many of them force players into specific roles, like being a runner or a player who gets teleported away to do something different than their teammates. This seems like the perfect fit with Warzones’ focus on team composition and role play.
2. A Challenge
The other part of the formula with encounters and mechanics unique to a specific part of the game is the challenge that is associated with them. While Crystal Dynamics said that Warzones is not necessarily an endgame activity and the developer is trying to balance to experience to allow for lower-leveled and less-geared friends to jump into the activity and still participate, making the missions challenging so teams are required to work together is key. If too much challenge is taken out of it, it could result in more of a horde mode or take away the necessity for players to work together or worry about playing roles and just powering through the mission.
1. Exclusive Rewards
At the end of it all, the grand carrot on the stick of raids in Destiny is the raid gear. Raid gear is exclusive to the activity and some of the very best in the game. A loot-based game is all about the loot and if Marvel’s Avengers wants to further incentivize players to jump into a challenging 4-player co-op mode with Warzones, there should be some really good gear that can drop only in those activities.
Marvel’s Avengers releases May 15, 2020 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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