Dan Abnett’s newly formed Guardians of the Galaxy run, with cowriter Andy Lanning, starting in 2008 was the primary basis and inspiration for the upcoming movie we can’t stop talking about, so when Disney needed someone to write the tie-in mobile game, Abnett was the go-to writer. Marvel has proven pretty unbeatable at the movies, and tapping one of its comics writers for a game is just more great fanservice.
Here’s the trailer for the game, which debuted on various App stores yesterday for $4.99, so why aren’t you playing it right now?
Here’s how Marvel describes the game in case you need to be convinced before paying $5 for a mobile game:
With a completely original storyline inspired by the film in theaters August 1, “Guardians of the Galaxy: The Universal Weapon” is a sci-fi action role-playing game that takes the Guardians and their allies on an intergalactic adventure to recover the five pieces of The Universal Weapon!
Players will initially take on the role of Star-Lord as he rallies his rag-tag crew—Rocket, a gun-toting raccoon with a quick draw and an even quicker temper; Groot, the tree-like humanoid who packs a punch; the deadly and enigmatic assassin, Gamora; and the revenge-driven Drax the Destroyer—through galactic locations and real-time strategic combat. Marvel fans will recruit and train additional heroes, engage in gesture-based team combat, and unlock each piece of the story to unveil the identity of the Guardians’ shadowy nemesis.
As someone who grew up with full price movie tie-in games on consoles that were always, always a let down, Dan Abnett on script duty and the rest of the details make $5 look like a pretty reasonable price for this one. If you’re still on the fence, you can also hear about the game from Abnett himself, who spoke to Newsarama about it and the movie.
When asked how his involvement with the game began, Abnett replied:
Disney approached me directly, because I wrote the 2008 run of Guardians which established the GOTG line up. Movie director James Gunn has been pretty open about that run of the comic being an influence on the film, hence the set visits. I guess Disney wanted to bring in somebody with ‘previous’ on his rap sheet [smiles].
He also sounds about as excited for the movie as we are, saying, “[I’m] very excited. Very VERY excited. I think it’s going to be amazing and I’ve been lucky enough to get a couple of set visits for a sneak peak preview!” Lucky. Us regular people don’t get set visits, so we’ll just have to let this game tide us over.
(Marvel via Newsarama, images via Marvel)
- Nebula (Karen Gillan) and some other villains got character posters
- So did Glenn Close and the rest of Nova
- And here are some of the latest TV spots focusing on Gamora, Drax, and Star-Lord
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