Marvel and Crystal Dynamics seem to have a long game plan for Marvel’s Avengers, as a datamine of the game’s ongoing beta has given us an idea of potential playable heroes that could be on their way to the live service game.
The full list came as part of two data mines, which revealed a total of fifteen upcoming characters. These will all be coming after Hawkeye, who is set to be the first DLC character shortly after the game launches on September 4. Among them was also Spider-Man, listed by his real name Peter Parker. Spidey hasn’t been shown in promotional material beyond being an established PlayStation exclusive character, along with other cosmetics and unlockables that will be only available on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. The full list of possible downloadable characters reads as follows:
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Captain Marvel
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She Hulk
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Kate Bishop
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War Machine
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Peter Parker
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Ant Man
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Wasp
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Vision
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Black Panther
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Dr Strange
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Falcon
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Mar-Vell
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Mockingbird
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Quake
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Winter Soldier
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Scarlet Witch
The first five of these were discovered through looking at the data files for Challenge Cards, which are present for each playable character in the game. So while these characters aren’t playable yet, there’s already files in the game that hint that they will have their own Challenge Cards, thus will be added to Marvel’s Avengers at some point.
The other ten are more simply referred to as unlockable characters in the files, but given that these Challenge Card files aren’t present for them, they might be a bit further off than characters like Captain Marvel and She Hulk.
Should these files really be pointing to the characters Crystal Dynamics has planned, there are at least 21 playable characters in the works to be rolled out between now and however long. As no official announcements have been made beyond Hawkeye and Spider-Man at this point, some of these may be subject to change, and given that there are so many, some of these characters might not even show up until 2022 or beyond. So we’ll have to wait and see if Crystal Dynamics releases some kind of content roadmap in the next month to get a sense of how far apart each character launch might be. They could be coming out monthly, for all we know at this point.
Whatever the case may be, I’m a little disappointed to see there are no Guardians of the Galaxy characters here. Yes, they’re technically not Avengers, but Marvel has more or less used that banner for all its crossovers in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including Star-Lord and company, who are my personal favorites in Marvel these days. So I was hoping Peter Quill might sneak his way in somehow. Well, beyond the X-Men, but Marvel hasn’t been acknowledging them as much these days.
Marvel’s Avengers is coming to PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on September 4. PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X versions are also in the works, with plans to let people who own the game on previous consoles upgrade for free when those systems are officially out in the wild.
