Capping off a troubled launch year, Marvel’s Avengers has jumped into the forests of Wakanda, adding its most ambitious story content yet and its most anticipated hero, the Black Panther. With the twisted Ulysses Klaue infiltrating Wakanda on behalf of AIM, the Avengers come to Wakanda’s aid to protect the nation’s priceless supply of Vibranium.
War for Wakanda is certainly an ambitious expansion for Marvel’s Avengers and easily represents the best aspects of the troubled live service game. Unfortunately, much of the expansion’s best efforts are hindered by the same flaws that have held the game back since its launch.
Black Panther Forever!
All the hype has been real: Black Panther is easily the best character the game has introduced yet. At once instantly familiar and refreshingly different, this T’Challa is a more restrained, closed-off leader who isn’t afraid to push back against those around him. There’s genuinely a lot of intrigue in T’Challa’s character, and Christopher Judge’s powerful performance perfectly accentuates it. Judge isn’t phoning it in, and it shows; his T’Challa is a fully realized, unique take and one of the best versions of this popular character we’ve seen yet.
Bringing this to the forefront is War for Wakanda’s stellar writing, a brilliant piece of collaboration with Rise of the Black Panther scribe Evan Narcisse and the team at Crystal Dynamics. Marvel’s Avengers has never slouched in its single-player story content, and the job they’ve done realizing the world of Wakanda and its inhabitants is genuinely remarkable. And all that’s before you even get into T’Challa’s gameplay.
Black Panther is almost overpowered, frankly. His primary gimmick involves building up intrinsic energy through skilled use of the game’s existing blocking and parry mechanics, which can then be spent in a massive area of effect attack, Percussive Blast, that also provides an offensive buff. However, later upgrades allow you to trickle this energy out and use it to enhance certain attacks for more damage.
It’s not just Percussive Blast that makes him so good, though. His heavy charge attack is a fierce pounce that lets you tackle opponents to the ground and wail on them, with later upgrades allowing you to pounce on even bigger enemies with built-up Intrinsic Energy. The pounce is perhaps the best move the game has introduced yet; when we were able to land one on an Exo-Mech, Black Panther could handle one almost entirely solo. He also has one of the better Ranged attacks in the game, Devastating Daggers, which applies a debuff to enemies and can be upgraded to finish with a homing dagger.
Despite being well-rounded, though, Black Panther definitely feels like a character meant for a Support Class. His Support, Kimiyo Beads, starts out as a solid ability for stunning enemies, but early upgrades allow it to recover willpower and deflect projectile attacks. Bast’s Chosen, his ultimate ability, is the game’s only self-revive, allowing players a second chance even when their AI teammates have wandered away. There’s a massive toolkit available here, and a skilled Black Panther can make any team better.
The Klaue Company & New Encounter Types
The Wakanda biome itself is massive and stunning, and the world is a treat to explore. It’s also packed full of new enemies and encounter types...which is where the whole thing begins to derail. Though you’ll still run into several enemies from the base game, the new Klaue Company are the primary enemies you’ll encounter. They wind up filling many of the same roles as the other enemies, though they’re equipped with new Sonic weapons and debuffs. Sonic, unique to War for Wakanda, is a dizzying array of debuffs meant to be countered with the new Vibranium gear type.
There are also two new encounter types, both of which are a fun change of pace -- in the right conditions. Early in the operation, you’ll encounter the FUSE, a giant drill Klaue is using to frack nearby Vibranium sources. The first FUSE is a ton of fun, consisting of multiple weak points you must shut down as you scale the massive machine. However, the problems arise later when the game asks you to do the same fight surrounded by even more enemies in an enclosed area, where the camera won’t allow you enough range to pan up high enough. Holding out against waves of enemies only to die to a laser turret just off-screen enough that you can’t get it in your field of view hurts.
The second encounter type is a wave-based tower defense game, where you’re tasked with defending three points as enemies of increasing strength enter the arena. This, too, falls prey to some of Avengers’ ongoing problems, namely the AI. This sequence is a lot of fun, but in both encounters, two of the three points ultimately fell because our team’s AI was impossible to coordinate. It often seemed as if they would focus on an enemy far away from a point that was being attacked, all while we ran back and forth to defend points solo.
Difficulty Issues & the Continued AI Problem
Unfortunately, Marvel’s Avengers continues to rely on the same old tricks. In a game where maintaining vision on enemies is essential, Avengers relies on making it impossible to see. Enemies swarm or hide in the distance, all while a new class, Disruptor, hits you with a sonic cannon that blurs the entire screen. There are still just too many encounters where we’re seeing heroes fall because of things off-screen or that we couldn’t have possibly foreseen. We’ve beaten the drum since launch that the lack of any form of enemy radar hurts Marvel’s Avengers, but in War for Wakanda, it may be more evident than ever.
The operation’s final encounter is something of an endurance test of nightmare encounters. After the second FUSE fight, it’s another defense wave, although this one is much larger -- so much so that wrangling your AI teammates to aid you is nearly impossible. Further in the area are turrets hidden just out of sight, waiting to blast you before you even realize they’re there and a series of chambers filled with instant death zones and timed platforms. If you can survive all that, you’ll make it to the final encounter with Klaw and Crossbones is an exhilarating enough fight, though sometimes it’s not entirely clear what caused your game over. The game’s final moments truly do test everything you’ve learned about Black Panther so far, but we too often failed that test because of things that we couldn’t control.
The War for Wakanda’s Aftermath
War for Wakanda ends on an odd note, too. While the story wraps up satisfyingly, with T’Challa formally joining the Avengers and Shuri named Queen Regent of Wakanda, that’s just it -- an ending with no setup for the future. Given the previous operations set up the next story element (even the Cosmic Cube Event had a coda teasing more to come), it feels jarring that War for Wakanda ends on such a sudden note with no sign of what the next threat is. Of course, this could be explained if the next hero, as expected, is Spider-Man, and the developers didn’t want to tease the storyline for a character not available to the entire player base.
Ultimately, War for Wakanda is hands-down the best overall expansion Marvel’s Avengers has gotten yet. The new elements, story and stellar writing and performances elevate it to a level the game has only hoped to reach so far. Unfortunately, it doesn’t address many of the same long-term problems that have held Avengers down since launch and may just leave players still wanting for something more. Regardless, for anyone interested in diving in, Marvel's Avengers is available now for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC and Google Stadia. War for Wakanda, including Black Panther and the Wakanda biome missions, is available across all platforms at no additional charge.