The next expansion for Crystal Dynamics' Marvel's Avengers video game will take us to Wakanda where players will get to suit up and play as Black Panther. While we got our first look at the War for Wakanda expansion last month, it was revealed today that Christopher Judge will be providing the voice work for the popular character.
Judge is most famous for voicing Kratos in the God of War video game franchise, and is now set to bring life to King T'Challa in the Marvel's Avengers video game.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Judge admitted that he had originally turned down the role. "There's many Black Panthers, but I really didn't believe that anyone should ever do T'Challa again [after Boseman]," Judge explained. "The actual talks proceeded and, basically, I wound up doing it because my mother and my children said if I didn't do it, they would disown me."
Judge admitted that he was "fearful of being compared to what Chadwick had so wonderfully done. The only way I could really wrap my head around it was to not even attempt a voice match, to let my performance stand on its own. I put all that into it and hopefully people like it."
While Chadwick Boseman's performance as King T'Challa in the Marvel Cinematic Universe helped elevate the character into mainstream culture, it's important to note that the version we see and play as in Marvel's Avengers will be quite different than the one we saw on the big screen. Let's face it, no one can replace what Chadwick Boseman brought to the character in the MCU, but like the Avengers and other Marvel characters we've already met in the game, this Black Panther has his own unique story within the context of the Marvel's Avengers A-Day story.
"I want to double down on the idea that this is its own iteration of the Black Panther mythos," added Evan Narcisse, the Marvel Comics' Rise of the Black Panther writer who served as narrative consultant for War for Wakanda. "Even if you know the comics and can quote the movie by heart, there are still going to be some surprises."
A quick background recap sets the stage for what players can expect as far as story in War for Wakanda:
T'Challa's kingdom was in negotiations with Steve Rogers to ally with the Avengers, but with Cap's death brought a change of heart for the most technologically advanced nation on earth. They closed off their borders to the rest of the world once again. In the DLC, however, T'Challa has no choice but to enter the fray when the corrupt corporation A.I.M., headed by Dr. Tarleton (a.k.a. MODOK), hires Ulysses Klaw to procure vibranium.
Hannah McLeod, the DLC's narrative lead, detailed that the King T'Challa in Marvel's Avegers is in a different place than the version of the character we know from the MCU. "He's older and a little bit more wisened," McLeod explained. "We're not coming into T'Challa's story at the beginning. He hasn't just lost his father. He hasn't just become king. He's been in this role for a while."
Comparing the Boseman's version of Black Panther to the iteration written for the video game, Narcisse explained: "Chadwick's performance was somebody who had more questions about how to perform the role of Black Panther and king. This version doesn't have those questions. He already thinks he has all the answers. I think one of the cool things in this expansion is there's tension between him and Shuri like we haven't seen before about how best to move Wakanda forward."
The War for Wakanda DLC will feature a single-player campaign that runs more than 25 hours and include new characters to fight (including two central villains) and locations to visit, new missions, and, of course, the new playable character in Black Panther. Marvel's Avengers Black Panther - War for Wakanda is slated to launch this August 2021.