Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: Encore Edition is now available on Nintendo Switch 2, bringing Eidos-Montréal's 2021 take on the cosmic team to a new platform. The game puts players in the jet boots of Star-Lord and surrounds the Guardians with a large roster of characters drawn from Marvel Comics. The Encore Edition launched on November 5 for $39.99, and Nintendo of America spotlighted it yesterday. Check out the official post down below:
The Switch 2 version includes the full game and its previously released digital content, plus 5 new outfits that dress Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Groot in 1980s glam rock looks.
The Guardians Lineup
The game's team is built around 5 Guardians, each reworked for an original story:
- Peter Quill / Star-Lord (Jon McLaren): A Terran-Spartoi hybrid and the team's self-proclaimed leader, designed as a "time capsule of 1980s culture"
- Gamora (Kimberly-Sue Murray): The adopted daughter of Thanos and the "deadliest woman in the galaxy," dressed in full tactical body armor
- Drax the Destroyer (Jason Cavalier): Known across the galaxy as the killer of Thanos, with tattoos that chronicle events in his life, including the death of his family
- Rocket Raccoon (Alex Weiner): A former bounty hunter, weapons specialist and inventor
- Groot (Robert Montcalm): Rocket's partner and the last of his species, wearing a harness Rocket built for him
Eidos-Montréal worked closely with Marvel so that these versions of the characters would stand apart from both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the comics. The origins of each Guardian were reinvented to fit the game's backdrop of a massive intergalactic war. Unlike the films, Gamora is not Quill's love interest, as the team felt a romance would take away from her own identity. Montcalm recorded 1,630 lines for Groot, all of them "I am Groot," with each line carrying its own meaning in context.
A Deep Bench Of Comics Characters
The developers made a point of including lesser-known characters from the comics. Lady Hellbender (Sarah Levesque), the ruler of a planet of exotic beasts, had never appeared outside the comics before the game. The main villains are the Universal Church of Truth, led by Grand Unifier Raker (Andreas Apergis), and the Lethal Legion, a group of bounty hunters hired by Lady Hellbender that includes the Blood Brothers and Captain Glory.
The supporting cast includes:
- Ko-Rel (Judith Baribeau): A Nova Corps Centurion and Quill's former lover
- Nikki Gold (Romane Denis): Ko-Rel's daughter and a teenage Nova Corps cadet
- Mantis (Emmanuelle Lussier Martinez): The "Celestial Madonna"
- Cosmo the Spacedog (Alex Ivanovici)
- Adam Warlock (Brent Skagford)
- The Xandarian Worldmind (Robert Montcalm and Leni Parker)
- Meredith Quill (Mylene Dinh-Robic): Peter's mother
The Guardians also face the Dweller-in-Darkness and the dragon Fin Fang Foom.
The story begins with the Guardians taking a job to capture a rare monster for Lady Hellbender. Inside a Nova Corps Quarantine Zone, Quill accidentally releases an alien entity from a yellow gem, and the team ends up detained by Ko-Rel alongside Raker, who was searching the zone for his church's "golden god." Despite the comedy, grief and loss are central themes, told partly through flashbacks to Meredith Quill, who was killed when Quill was a child.
The Encore Edition On Switch 2
Eidos-Montréal developed the port in-house with Marvel Games. It adds mouse controls for menus and aiming, gyroscope support for flying the Milano and moving Peter in zero gravity, and TV, Tabletop and Handheld modes. In TV mode, Quality targets 30 fps at 1440p and Performance targets 40 fps at 1080p on 120Hz TVs, while Handheld mode targets 30 fps. Studio Creative Director Jean-François Dugas described the release as "giving the Guardians one more night on stage, this time on Nintendo Switch 2."
The game first launched on October 26, 2021, and won Best Narrative at The Game Awards 2021. Several of those comics characters were introduced in cinematics before launch, as covered in MARVEL'S GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Cinematic Introduces Grand Unifier Raker And The Universal Church Of Truth and MARVEL'S GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY: New Cinematic Introduces Cosmo The Space Dog.
Eidos-Montréal released the Switch 2 announcement trailer:
Which Marvel character from the game would you most like to see in the next Guardians of the Galaxy story?
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