Highlights

  • Playing solely as Star-Lord reduced the interactivity and engagement with the other Guardians in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.
  • A turn-based RPG approach could allow each Guardian to flourish with unique abilities and play styles, but the likelihood of a standalone game for the team is low nowadays.

Somewhere along the way, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy underperformed despite a huge outcry of players claiming to have adored it. Its story was bolstered by similar beats and comedy found in the MCU’s own iteration of the Guardians of the Galaxy—for better or for worse—but its gameplay being a point of contention is also valid since it was largely on-rails and had repetitive combat.

Playing purely as Star-Lord was a fair choice, for instance, but reduced an ensemble into an individual and arguably lacked adequate interactivity for the other four Guardians in the meantime. Again, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy taking a Mass Effect-lite approach was commendable, but a spiritual successor or sequel could find far more fluidity and engagement in a full party system taking advantage of iconic turn-based RPG mechanics.

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Star-Lord as a Sole Protagonist Needed to Have Engaging Gameplay

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Guardians of the Galaxy May Be Inseparable from Its MCU Branding

Star-Lord may be a fine protagonist when the likes of Chris Pratt are portraying him, but Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy’s iteration falls short and doesn’t quite know how to be unique enough to have him seem authentic. Overall the portrayal of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy’s Peter Quill and every other Guardian was fine, but they never truly get out from under the shadows of their individual MCU counterparts.

That’s a recurring issue that the game has—relying a little too much on what made the group popular in the first place, which arguably does it no favors when going in the opposite direction of each character could’ve made it stand out. Regardless, Star-Lord being the sole playable protagonist then tasks him with an unenviable role in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.

Because he’s an ordinary human with dual blasters and boot jets there isn’t a whole lot players have in the way of a mechanically diverse character, and controlling the other Guardians in combat is as uninvolved and ungratifying as spamming buttons once one character’s ability is free from a cooldown window. If the other Guardians had more interactivity then it could’ve been excusable that Star-Lord was their leader and that’s why a turn-based Guardians of the Galaxy RPG would be a no-brainer.

A Turn-Based Guardians of the Galaxy Could Let Every Character Flourish

The beauty of a turn-based RPG is it allows for each character available in an ensemble to thrive and get all the time in the world to be independently developed. Persona 3 Reload’s phenomenal SEES ensemble is only the latest example, fleshing out a handful of companions while the protagonist avatar is a vessel for the player more or less.

Star-Lord couldn’t be back-burned entirely, but seeing a Guardians of the Galaxy story that finally doesn’t pedestal Peter over others would be spectacular. Gamora, Groot, Drax, and Rocket all deserve as much attention to detail in gameplay as they had in the story, and a turn-based RPG could give them each abilities, gear, weapons, and more that create particular play styles and affinities in combat.

Why a New Guardians of the Galaxy Game is Unlikely

Unfortunately, because Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy apparently wasn’t the hit that it needed to be and the MCU has recently disbanded its popular iteration of the squad, there is a high unlikelihood that the team will be given another opportunity in a standalone game for the foreseeable future.

Guardians may continue to appear in various quantities in other ensemble Marvel games, and hopefully they do since Groot and Rocket would make excellent roommates in a Marvel’s Midnight Suns 2. Still, a full-fledged turn-based RPG for the Guardians of the Galaxy alone is deserved.