Ever since the Iron Man movie was released in 2008, we’ve watched Nick Fury and Agent Coulson accumulate a strike-force of the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. We’ll finally get to see them in action together when The Avengers movie is released on May 4, 2012. Now Playdom is offering gamers a chance to become S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and recruit their own team of heroes with Marvel: Avengers Alliance, a combat/strategy RPG in the vein of classic JRPGs.
“The depth of the combat system is huge,” said Josh Billeaudeau, Senior Designer at Playdom. “I would equate it to some of the collectible card games out there, depth wise.”
Marvel: Avengers Alliance begins with a global event called “The Pulse.” Fragments of a mysterious alien energy source begin falling to Earth, which Marvel U’s big brains Reed Richards and Tony Stark dub “Isotope 8.” Iso-8 grants new powers to whoever possesses it.
Like Nick Fury and Agent Coulson in the Marvel movies, gamers will recruit and guide the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Their mission: undo the damage done by Iso-8, which is already falling into the wrong hands.
“It’s a turned based-game, similar to the Final Fantasys of old,” explained Billeaudeau. “The player plays as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. You get to fully customize the gear load-out that they bring with them, but the best part is you get to customize who your strike-teams are. You get to slowly build up a group of heroes over time and create your own alliance.”
During combat, players choose from a variety of defenses and attacks, like the menu-driven fighting of old school JRPGs. Each character has their own strengths and abilities. Wise players will field a team whose abilities compliment each other.
“Spider-Man’s a great example,” said Billeaudeau. “He can do these web slingshot attacks, doing massive damage and pummelling left and right. He has his web shot that he can use to slow down his enemies, which makes them easier to hit. Other heroes can come in and take them out, so you set up the combo for the one-two punch. If you want him to be a more defensive type of character, he can use his spider-sense. If the enemy comes in to hit him, he’ll have a high evasion, dodge it and instantly get a free turn afterwards.”
Billeaudeau says that mixing up the heroes and their moves will allow you to “come up with tactics that maybe no-one’s thought of before.” And although the game is “Avengers” Alliance, there are recruitable characters from all over the Marvel Universe, with more to follow.
“Some people may choose the Hulk family: the Hulk and She-Hulk,” said Billeaudeau. “Some people may just love the true core Avengers and [go with] Thor and Iron Man. Others may go the X-Men route with Colossus or Kitty Pryde. We’re going to start out with around 28 different heroes you can recruit, and as the game goes forward we’re going to introduce more and more characters you can recruit into your team.”
Avengers Alliance will be packed with content, including 100 Marvel characters overall, appearing in an epic story.
“For most players, I could just see them going for a year easily just wading through the content,” said Billeaudeau. When crafting the plot and setting of the game, the dev team drew a lot of inspiration from the Marvel movies and the 616 continuity, though the game is an entirely original Marvel creation.
“Iso-8 and The Pulse are from new Marvel fiction that they wrote, that they are allowing us to bring specifically to this game,” said Michael Rubinellie, VP of Studio Operations at Playdom. “I think that is a tremendous, tremendous credit to the development team.”
“We actually have one of Marvel’s writers, Alex Irvine, who has helped tremendously in this game,” added Billeaudeau. “It’s turned into this huge awesome tale that’s not only going to serve as a Marvel 101 for the new players, it’s also going to be this new, deep rich story for people who are already familiar with comics and even the small nuances of obscure C-list characters. It’s going to include everyone.”
Now for the twist. Marvel: Avengers Alliance is not a game for the Xbox 360/PlayStation, or the DS or PS Vita. It’s a Facebook game.
Still with us, hardcore gamers? Speaking with Billeaudeau and Rubinellie, we got the impression that Playdom was working very hard to avoid the Farmville-ization of Facebook games.
“When everyone else was doing non-games or viral marketing activities or applications, Playdom said ‘Let’s get a more mainstream, core audience license and try to build a different kind of game on the platform,’” said Rubinellie. “That’s what they did.”
To that end, Playdom has used Facebook’s social media aspects to create some interesting multiplayer features.
“Let’s say you’re going up against Whiplash,” said Billeaudeau. “Maybe he’s broken into Empire State University trying to steal a cache of Isotope 8. You get in over your head with your team. You can send out a distress call to your other friends who are playing the game and they can either send their own customized agent, or a hero from their group that you don’t have in your roster yet. ‘I’m going to send Thor to help your team out.’ Or, ‘I’m going to call your S.H.I.E.L.D. agent to come in and help my group out.’ It’s a lot of sharing back-and-forth.”
“It’s up to the player and all of their friends,” said Billeaudeau. “They’re recruiting each other to try to combat this new threat on Earth. They’re going up against some of the Marvel Universe’ biggest bads: Doctor Doom, Loki, Magneto…”
Incidentally, since your primary character is your custom S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, you might be worried about their ability to hold their own when fighting with some of Marvel’s toughest villains. Billeaudeau says not to panic.
“Traditionally, a hero or villain can just pummel [S.H.I.E.L.D.] agents. We needed a way to augment them and put them on a level playing field. This is where the Iso-8 comes in. Whenever you’re doing research, you’re allocating different research points to acquire new weaponry. Better uniforms and armour. You can augment your agent to be strong and tough like a bruiser. Or be more like an infiltrator, or a tactician.
“If you like to go blades and ninjas and build a new katana, go for it. Sometimes it might be more mystical, like a Doctor Strange kind of thing. If you want to do something more curative and defensive, tech up and do team buffs or heals. So basically, your character becomes like a Maria Hill. Or a Hawkeye or a Mockingbird. Or a Black Widow. They may not have the super crazy powers, but they are on an even playing field. There are little tricks and gadgets that not only help the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, but help boost the entire team.”
Other players can also help your S.H.I.E.L.D. agent level up and become more effective.
“The more allies you have in your alliance, the better you’ll perform in the training sessions and the PvP,” said Billeaudeau. “You’re going to have to do lots of research, teching up and trying to get more gear. We wanted to have a way you can do this with your friends. There are systems where you can trade items back and forth like health packs, grenades, even Isotope 8, which you can socket into your uniforms or even give to your heroes and increase their statistics.”
Billeaudeau said that MAA will be out “pretty soon,” sometime in the first quarter of 2012. They will be updating the game with more content “as often as humanly possible.”
“If a player’s favourite hero is not there through the launch, you can definitely know that they’re coming,” said Billeaudeau. “We have tons of stuff on the back-burner that we don’t want to give out until it’s perfect. Working side by side with [Marvel], we plan on rolling out more missions and more side plotlines that do tie-in to the main over-arching plot. [Marvel has] given us tons of tips on how to architect these arcs in a way that they would approach them. If a player wants to be in on the ground floor, now is going to be the best time to get in.”
When asked about the possibility of special game events to tie-in to real world Marvel events like the release of The Amazing Spider-Man or The Avengers movies, Billeaudeau wasn’t able to confirm anything, saying only “it’s definitely on the radar.”
As to the cost of MAA?
“Absolutely free to play. You can invite your friends in the world and have a wonderful time, or go solo and be the lone wolf. Any play style you want.”
“Not only do we want the comic and movie fans to really love it, we want people who are not so familiar with Marvel to be drawn in,” said Billeaudeau. “This is the one game on Facebook that everyone’s going to be proud to tell their friends about.”
The Marvel: Avengers Alliance Facebook page can be found here.
-Jason MacIsaac
