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Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy has some smart worldbuilding that makes some grander comic storylines and characters a bit more digestible.
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy had the monumental task of building a story that plays into the MCU’s popularity while still being its own unique universe. While fans of the comics were always going to find a lot to love in the title, MCU fans could have easily been alienated with how much the game’s plot diverts from the Marvel Studios films. Luckily, the game builds its world in such a way that fans of all kinds can quickly get immersed in the game’s excellent story.
A lot of this work is done by introducing familiar elements that both MCU and comic fans would be familiar with, while still keeping them unique enough to stand on their own. Within the first few hours of the game, characters like Thanos and Nebula are both brought up due to their connections to Gamora. Thanos being Gamora’s father and Nebula being her sister are two core parts of her character that are usually kept the same throughout different iterations. Beyond just the sense of familiarity between the film, comic and game canon, the way these connections are mentioned is a great example of the game’s worldbuilding.
The backstory of each Guardian is brought up during incredibly natural feeling conversations during missions. While this does mean that players aren’t always given the context to understand these conversations, it does mean that expedition dumping is kept to a minimum. It also helps build just how long these Guardians have been together, such as with how Rocket and Groot’s conversations reflect how long they’ve been friends. In contrast, the team frequently learns new things about the newest and deadliest member, Gamora.
It’s an incredibly natural way to fill players in on the world, especially when it comes to the grander storylines that the MCU can usually only reference. The game actually uses a very similar origin for Peter Quill that the MCU uses, specifically with him becoming a member of Yondu Udonta’s gang. However, one element that the Square Enix game brings from the comics is the Annihilation War, which spans a good portion of Star-Lord’s pre-Guardians of the Galaxy storyline.
The Annihilation War is something that would likely require an entire film to cover. Introducing MCU fans to a major event from the comics by working it into the Star-Lord backstory they would already know makes digesting the game’s worldbuilding much easier. A lot of the comic details in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy are intertwined with things that the Guardians of the Galaxy films introduced. While a lot of major events from the comics are worked in, there are also some characters that get a similar treatment.
MCU fans almost certainly started paying attention when Thanos was mentioned early on in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. He’s only talked about briefly at first, but dialogue between the Guardians just a little bit further into the game reveals that he’s very much dead in this timeline. Another exchange between the Guardians reveals that Drax was the one to kill him. It’s a very quick bit of world-building, but very quickly establishing Thanos being dead makes a certain spoiler-heavy scene in the game’s opening mission all the more interesting for MCU fans.
Thanos’s fate also puts the game’s version of the Guardians in a noticeably different position. The entire opening of the game really does a lot of work to ease MCU fans into how the game is going for its own unique take on the characters, even if there are some similarities. Without directly being told, players can quickly pick up that the game is doing its own thing that isn’t connected to an existing comic storyline or the MCU. Again, it’s a very subtle detail but the way it uses such an important character from the games is perfect for what the detail is trying to do.
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy doesn’t need to do anything dramatic to help ease players into the game’s massive world. This is exceptionally important given that the game’s taking stories from both the comics and the films, meaning there are a lot of different inspirations coming together for players to take in. The very small details that the characters drop in casual conversations with each other not only give an insight into their relationships but also into what can be expected from Square Enix’s take on the Guardians of the Galaxy.
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