MARVEL'S GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

Banter, ’80s bangers, and not a microtransaction in sight

- Fraser Brown

NEED TO KNOW

RELEASE October 26

DEVELOPER Eidos Montreal

PUBLISHER Square Enix

LINK bit.ly/3qIOmf6

With the Avengers already doing their thing, Square Enix is giving us another superhero group to muck around with, this time from Deus Ex studio Eidos Montreal. These heroes are pretty different from Adam Jensen, however, who you’d never see hanging out with a murderous raccoon. Yes, it’s the Guardians of the Galaxy.

A roguish band of space adventurers might sound like a good fit for yet another co-op live service affair, like Marvel’s Avengers, but Eidos Montreal is thankfully sticking to what it knows: a single-player game with a narrative bent. It’s a linear misadventure that will see you jetting off around the galaxy as Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord.

Senior creative director Jean-François Dugas tells me that playing against expectations was a big “driving force” for the team. Games are increasingly trying to drag us back in with events and season passes and new things to grind, but Guardians of the Galaxy isn’t looking to swallow up your life. “We weren’t looking at trends, to be honest,” adds senior gameplay director Patrick Fortier. “When we started sitting down, we were just looking at what do we like to do? What are our strengths with the franchise? How do we give our own unique spin to this?”

Beyond the fact that it’s always nice to see a big game that’s a traditional single-player romp, it also makes a lot more sense for the story that Eidos Montreal is trying to tell. It’s all about the Guardians and their relationships, which would be undermined if you had to spend hours every day queueing for missions with xXIAMGROOTXx.