As Charles Onyett pointed out in his first look at the free-to-play Marvel Heroes, it really is hard to talk about this game without bringing up Diablo. Marvel Heroes' enemies erupt into loot upon death, the camera is in an isometric perspective, you level up and customize your character to suit your play style -- all of it operating exactly like Diablo.
The Diablo influence shouldn’t really be all that surprising, though, as developer Gazillion's President and CEO David Brevik helped found the very studio responsible for the franchise. Instead of trying to hide or obfuscate the influence Blizzard's had on Marvel Heroes, Grevik’s team embraces it. They know it's a fun and addicting genre. Their aim is to introduce more MMO mechanics to the formula and integrate the gameplay into the Marvel universe.
To make it really feel like a true Marvel game, Gazillion is letting you play out your lustiest Marvel super hero fantasies. Unlike other online super hero games that put you in the boots, hooves or bare feet of custom-made characters, Marvel Heroes lets you take control of fan favorites. Some currently announced characters include The Hulk, Iron Man, Wolverine, Deadpool, Black Widow, and Colossus, with many more on the way. Each character has unique powers tailored to match those established by the comics. For instance Iron Man uses his suit to blast enemies with massive shots of energy, while Wolverine rends opponents with his iconic claws. At any given time your heroes can have four powers equipped and rapidly swap them out as you acquire more.
I say “acquire” because powers are just another form of loot. Alongside money and armor, powers will burst out of the corpses of any henchmen stupid enough to step up to you. Leveling up will give you some places to allocate points (the specifics of how this works is still not being discussed), but in general Gazillion wants to keep things simple. Some powers will be acquired simply by leveling, but others -- and their higher ranks -- will be rewarded for slaying bosses or other enemies.
Loot is randomly generated, too, and you only see loot that belongs to you. Each of the characters has many of the typical armor slots, but Marvel Heroes switches things up a bit with your character’s weapon slots. Heroes like Deadpool will find weapons because it makes sense thematically, but heroes like Wolverine or The Hulk, who tend to go to fisticuffs, will find items that augment their innate abilities. The team behind Marvel Heroes is paying close attention to the Marvel lore, and doesn’t want to cheapen things by, say, having Hulk running around with a +20 strength hammer.
The armor pieces you find augment your stats, but they don’t change your appearance. To give your hero a different look you have to find or craft costumes. Costumes are made to look like famous designs from the comics. For instance Iron Man had a sleek looking black stealth suit he could wear instead of his standard red and gold armor. The suits in the Comic-Con demo were aesthetic only, but Gazillion says you’ll find materials called Elements that you can combine with a suit pattern to create a version of the costume with specific stats.
You can play through all of the content with a single character, but Gazillion also wants you to play multiple heroes at a time. How you acquire new heroes hasn’t been disclosed, but if you access to multiple characters you can switch between them on the fly. Each hero has his or her own loot, stats and level progression – which is part of the reason Gazillion doesn’t want leveling up to be this intense process involving a host of steps; it needs to be rich without being intimidating. It’s easy to see how useful character swapping could be if you’re in a group instance, because, while there are no characters dedicated to specific roles like healing or tanking, you might be able to summon another hero who complements your party. Even if you and your friend both play Wolverine, Gazillion assured me that there will be enough customization options to make it so they don’t play exactly the same.
So much of Marvel Heroes sounds great, but on top of the omissions I’ve already pointed out, there’s still much more to be discussed. We still don’t know how Gazillion plans on monetizing it though they’ve said you can play through all the content without paying a dime. Likewise we don’t know if there will be an auction house, player-versus-player combat, or other factions than the “good” guys. Heck, we don’t even have a release window other than “when it’s done.”
For now Marvel Heroes has me cautiously optimistic, but with so much left to discover it’s just too early to know for sure.
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