Black Panther will be coming to Marvel's Avengers as a post-launch content character, but his reveal will have to wait for at least a little while longer.
Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics had originally planned to reveal Black Panther as a playable character during today's War Table livestream but decided to postpone the announcement out of respect for the late Chadwick Boseman, who portrayed the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Crystal Dynamics revealed the character's icon at the beginning of the stream and held a moment of silence in honor of Boseman, who passed away on Friday after quietly battling colon cancer for years. They followed it up with a message that read: "Marvel's Avengers fans, out of respect for a fallen true hero, we have altered what we are showing today. We know you understand and are with us in commemorating him."
In lieu of Black Panther, Crystal Dynamics instead revealed Kate Bishop as a future playable character.
In addition to T'Challa, recent data-mining of the PC beta files included references to Wakanda as well as Klaw. We know post-launch characters will come with their own story missions and villains, so it's possible Black Panther's story could take us to Wakanda. The files also referenced "Klaw Raid," suggesting the game's first raid could be set in the Wakanda region.
IMeanwhile, data-miners have discovered files for other Marvel characters, including Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange, Falcon, Mar-Vell, Quake, She-Hulk, Vision, War Machine, Wasp and more. This doesn't necessarily mean that all of these will be playable characters, however, as they could just appear in the story. At launch, Marvel's Avengers will feature six playable heroes: Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow and Kamala Khan.
Marvel's Avengers officially releases on September 4 for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. However, early access to the game is now available to those who purchased a special edition version of the game.