Avengers livestream details MODOK, customisation, War Zones

An Avengers livestream last night confirmed the game’s villain as MODOK alongside an in-depth look at War Zones, character customisation and more.

We’ve got the full livestream and trailers below, with information grouped according to theme. Watch to your heart’s content.

First, the full livestream:

MODOK in Avengers game

First, MODOK has been confirmed as the title’s big bad after his inclusion was leaked via the game’s Achievement and Trophy list earlier in the year. MODOK — or Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing — makes sense; he traditionally serves as the overlord of the previously established antagonist group, AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics).

“People around the world have turned their backs on the Avengers. Ms. Marvel must reassemble her role models while facing AIM’s leader, George Tarleton, who has his own vision for the future,” a description for the trailer, below, reads.

Avengers War Zones

Playable solo or with up to four total players, War Zones are described by Crystal Dynamics as “an expansive, explorable space loaded with side content including concealed caches to uncover, powerful bounty enemies to defeat, AIM depots to take over, faction allies to rescue, and hidden loot to claim.”

“War Zones are accessed via a War Table, which can be found in outposts, Quinjets, and the bridge of the Chimera Helicarrier. The Helicarrier becomes your home base and can be repaired and upgraded over time. It has personal quarters for each Super Hero, storage for your extra gear, fabrication machines for turning blueprints into new outfits or other cosmetics and more,” a deep dive on the PlayStation Blog reads.

“War Tables keeps the pulse of all AIM activity worldwide and allows players to launch directly to where they are needed most. Players can initiate their next Reassemble Hero Mission or jump into any unlocked War Zone Mission depending on their mood.”

Missions will scale automatically according to the number of co-op players who are present. This obviously differs from single-player only Hero missions.

War Zone mission types on offer include Iconic and Faction Missions, Drop Zones, Vaults, Hives and Villain Sectors. Iconic Missions serve to add to the game’s narrative, Faction Missions involve rebuilding Avengers allies, Drop Zones are “short missions with a single objective,” Vaults are riddled with hidden caches to improve the player, Hives seem the closest to a Horde mode, and Villain Sectors conclude with a big boss fight.

Customisation inside Avengers

A host of customisation options were also detailed in the livestream.

“The more difficult the content, the rarer the reward, which can be collected through enemy drops, exploration, puzzles and for completing missions or challenges,” Crystal Dynamics said of the customisation system, which offers unique gear, resources, artifacts and cosmetics.

Gear can be equipped into ont of 7 different slots, buffing ranged or melee attacks and more. Resources, like Uru, can be found through exporation or come through vendors and can be used to upgrade existing Gear. Resources can also be traded with vendors to purchase new Gear.

Artifacts are “specialised gear” that “comes in two flavours,” though not much else was said about the items (we’d equate them to be something like Destiny‘s Exotics?). Finally, the game will also feature cosmetic items like outfits, emotes and nameplates.

“Additional unique cosmetics can also be unlocked through accomplishing challenges on Hero Chase Cards, which have tiered reward paths tied to completing challenges. We’ll have more details on Hero Chase Cards in our future Marvel’s Avengers War Table streams,” Crystal Dynamics advised.

Avengers heads to Windows PC, Xbox One, PS4 and Stadia on 4 September and will head to Xbox Series X and PS5 upon their launches. A free current- to next-gen upgrade will be offered alongside cross-saves and platform-specific cross-play.