Marvel’s Avengers: Ninja Archer

Marvel’s Avengers has been out since September without much in the way of new content. Now, if it had just been a 15 hour or so single-player game that obviously wouldn’t be an issue. However, Marvel’s Avengers is supposed to be a game that theoretically you play for months, possibly even years and that’s hard to justify without a steady flow of new content.

This wasn’t initially the plan, of course. There was set to be a pretty significant content drop seemingly once a month with a new hero and new storyline content to go with it. First up was Kate Bishop, the successor to original master Archer Hawkey aka Clint Barton. Unfortunately, that got pushed all the way back to well, now and players have been mostly spinning their wheels. I mean maybe you got everyone to max level and finished that one really high-power level HIVE mission, but what else could you do?

Well, Kate may have been fashionably late to the party, but she’s officially arrived and if her content is any indication, as long as Square Enix can get a pipeline of regular story content going, there’s definitely a reason to keep checking in with Marvel’s Avengers regularly.

The story itself is pretty interesting and does connect well to the events in the single-player campaign. I do have some minor issues with it, namely that Kate and Kamala don’t have a scene where they are officially introduced to each other and there’s a new evil scientist introduced but instead of using any of the dozens of evil scientists that already exist in the Marvel universe they just use some new random dude, but it’s still a fun tale that leaves more to look forward to.

Additionally, Kate Bishop is just incredibly fun to use. It was definitely a worry that she might come off as just Black Widow with a bow, both highly trained martial artists with a distance weapon that has ammo. But she not only feels different to play because her bow works differently, but her teleport ability is also incredibly fun and makes traversal just a joy to try out. The only downside I’d give is her special attacks aren’t super unique, but on the whole, Kate might be my second favorite character to play in the game thus far right behind Kamala Kahn.

Part of that appeal is definitely Kate Bishop’s personality, expertly played by Ashley Burch in the few hours of story content we get. She’s able to trade witticisms with Tony Stark easily and is a fun counterpart in their scenes together.

The “Taking Aim” DLC shows more of what people liked about Marvel’s Avengers from the start. The writing is pretty strong with a fun fresh character to play front and center. Unfortunately, it is only a few hours long but for what should be the first of hopefully regular frequent DLC content drops that’s fine. It’s just if we have to wait another 2–3 months (or more) for additional significant content that it becomes a real issue. I’m still having fun max leveling my characters and Kate gives me a reason to play a little longer.

If you haven’t picked up Marvel’s Avengers yet now is a pretty ideal time as most places have it on sale for $30 and you’ll definitely get your money’s worth there even if you only engage in the story content that’s currently available.

That’s all for now, see ya real soon!