After months of speculation following her short appearance in the game’s first trailer, Square Enix announced Ms. Marvel a.k.a Kamala Khan would be joining the roster of playable characters in the upcoming Marvel’s Avengers.
In a private demo for members of the press, Square Enix not only confirmed that she would be a playable character, but that she was even the game’s main protagonist. Like her comic counterpart, this version of Kamala Khan is a massive fan of the Avengers who is given extraordinary shapeshifting abilities after being exposed to particles from a Terrigen crystal that ignited her Inhuman abilities.
As the protagonist of the main campaign, Ms. Marvel is key to the narrative of the game, which opens with the Avengers disbanded following the tragic events of A-Day that left San Francisco destroyed and thousands dead. It’s those same events, however, that allowed Kamala to gain her powers, and launches her on her quest to get to the bottom of what really happened on A-Day. Through her adventures, she’ll meet up with the previously announced characters like Iron-Man, the Hulk, Thor, and Black Widow.
In a private demo of the pre-alpha version of the game, we were able to get hands-on experience playing as Ms. Marvel and were extremely surprised at just how fun she is to control. Her ability to change the size and density of her body at a whim makes for a white variety of attacks both close range and from afar. “Seismic Slap,” one of her special powers, in which she smushes enemies with her hand like a bug, is an especially creative use of her abilities that is extremely gratifying when pulled off. Her super special power “embiggen,” which allows her to turn into giant-size a la Scott Lang in Ant-Man & The Wasp, is a little overpowered but nonetheless a rewarding payoff that allows players to decimate all enemies in their way.
Square Enix also uses Ms. Marvel’s abilities to make traversal and platforming more streamlined, with Kamala stretching her arms out to catch ledges then catapult herself forward. Kamala feels more apt to platforming segments than nearly all the other Avengers save for the Hulk and moves more fluidly than most of the other characters we were able to get our hands-on.
Ms. Marvel first appeared in Captain Marvel #14 in 2013. Created by Sana Amanat, Stephen Wacker, G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona, and Jamie McKelvie, Kamala Kahn was the first Muslim-America character to get her own ongoing series with 2014’s Ms. Marvel. Disney is also developing a Ms. Marvel series for their Disney+ streaming platform.
For our impressions on the rest of the playable Avengers, check out our hands-on demo impressions here. For all your NYCC 2019 news make sure to keep checking AiPT!
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