Developer Crystal Dynamics has announced that Bucky Barnes, aka The Winter Soldier, will be joining Marvel's Avengers as a playable character on November 29th. Barnes will be voiced by Scott Porter (Friday Night Lights), who previously voiced the character in 2016's LEGO Marvel's Avengers. We'll get a chance to hear Porter's take on The Winter Soldier in Marvel's Avengers when Crystal Dynamics releases the character's motion comic for the game.
The Winter Soldier's moveset will be comparable to both Captain America and Black Widow, but with a larger emphasis on "assault-focused" gameplay. The master assassin excels at dealing damage afar as a ranged marksmarn or up close as an expert hand-to-hand combatant. In the latest blog post announcing Bucky's arrival this month, Crystal Dynamics wrote:
While echoes of Bucky’s past training partners like Captain America and Black Widow can be seen in some of his move-set, he has made them his own and combined them with skills that flow from his Winter Soldier indoctrination and his cybernetic enhancements. Players will find all new animations, a new full skill tree, and heroic abilities all his own when they enter a mission as the Winter Soldier.
The Winter Soldier will come with his own heroic misison chain that "sees the Avengers help him regain his confidence in his capacity for good and deal with the trauma inflicted on him by his captors." Completing this mission chain will reward players with a Bucky's iconic outfit.
Arriving alongside The Winter Soldier in the 2.7 Update is the Cloing Lab Omega-Level Threat. This is an end-game challenge headlined by a climactic showdown with the deraned genius MODOK. As an OLT, Cloning Lab is designed for a team of four high-level heroes, requiring each player have a Power Level of 175 to enter. Successfully completing the challenge and defeating MODOK will reward players iwth new gear and higher-level gear that will push the power-level to 185.
The Winter Soldier is the sixth character to come to Marvel's Avengers since the game launched over two years ago. He joins Kate Bishop, Clint Barton, T'Challa (Black Panther), Peter Parker (Spider-Man), and Jane Foster alongside the game's original characters Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow and Ms. Marvel.
Marvel's Avengers is an action-adventure based on the Marvel Comics iconic superhero team. But despite the potential of such a multiplayer team-up featuring some of the most popular characters, the game was met with mixed reviews. Although the combat mechanics and story were praised, the game's lack of substantial content at launch and technical issues hampered the overall experience.
Even though Marvel's Avengers wasn't a financial success for publisher Square Enix, it's not a horrible game by any means. It's fun in spurts and it's cool to see Crystal Dynamics continue to release new content two years after release.