Star Wars games are a dime a dozen, but their style and overall quality can vary greatly, partially due to the fact that the IP’s license has been given to so many different developers. There’s a big difference between something like Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi soulslikes and Ubisoft’s open-world Star Wars Outlaws, in other words. This is a positive and a negative, since variety is always good, but the “soul” of Star Wars can be tough to capture with so many different cooks.
That’s why it was so surprising and refreshing when, in 2021, Square Enix released Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, an original story in the Marvel universe that has serious Star Wars vibes. The game, which is a narrative-driven action-adventure with light RPG elements, is a tightly crafted experience from start to finish, distilling the dysfunctional charm of the Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy cast without feeling derivative. Naturally, it’s not Star Wars, but the high-flying adventure of deep space, the camaraderie of the main crew, and the explosive momentum of its carefully devised levels and setpieces make it as good a Star Wars experience as any.
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Tells a Charming, Swashbuckling Tale
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy underperformed at launch, which could have resulted from a number of factors, but one historical detail cannot be overlooked: it released just one year after Marvel’s Avengers‘ flop. Because Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers were both published by Square Enix, and because they both feature an ensemble team, many assumed that it would offer the same underwhelming GaaS antics as its predecessor.
Square Enix may have also pared down its marketing efforts for Guardians of the Galaxy after the widely publicized failure of Avengers.
But Guardians of the Galaxy surprised its audience: it landed as an unexpectedly charming and trim single-player game, with a great story, lovable characters, and unique, visually enticing levels. It follows the main Guardians of the Galaxy crew—Peter Quill, Groot, Rocket Raccoon, Gamora, and Drax the Destroyer—as they enter into a conflict with the cult-like Universal Church of Truth. It also features other iconic Marvel characters, like Adam Warlock, Mantis, and Lady Hellbender.
The Guardians of the Galaxy game is quite like the Guardians of the Galaxy movies in some ways: funny, disarming, and filled to the brim with terrific (and likely expensive) licensed 80s rock and metal music. The story is rich in themes of found family and underdogs, making it easy to root for the heroes as they make their way through all manner of bizarre and flamboyant alien planets. It’s through these locales, varied and memorable as they are, that Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy appeals to fans of Star Wars‘ high-adventure tales.
Guardians of the Galaxy Squeezes All the Juice Out of Its Intragalactic Premise
One of the most common pitfalls of action-adventure games set in space—and Star Wars video games are no exception to this—is an unwillingness to fully embrace the oddities of the setting. When a story features multiple different alien races, fictional economic or political systems, and implausible technologies like warp drives, it should come across as appropriately bombastic and off-beat.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order or Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, while great in many ways, feel hogtied by either realistic or gritty storytelling elements. They can lose the sense of wonder that should be pervasive in a complicated intergalactic setting. Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy expertly dodges such mundanity by being comically expressive, colorful, and, by extension, uniquely appealing. Indeed, whether you’re exploring the neon-lit streets of Nowhere, plotting with Cosmo the Spacedog, or careening through the collapsing wreckage of the Quarantine Zone, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is sufficiently outlandish and swaggering—just what a Star Wars-like space adventure should be.
Is Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Worth Playing Today?
Despite its many strengths, Guardians of the Galaxy has some shortcomings. Perhaps the greatest knock is its combat, which is repetitive and shallow. It doesn’t help that the game lacks both enemy variety and interesting enemy design. Additionally, the game may come across as a little too quaint for some, depending on what they expect out of a triple-A RPG. Guardians of the Galaxy‘s campaign is only about 12 hours long, and RPG-style choices don’t have a significant impact on the story. Additionally, there are very few interweaving game systems, resulting in a lack of depth.
But for a lot of players, these aspects are precisely what make Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy such a breath of fresh air. It’s not trying to be The Greatest Space Game Ever Made, it’s just trying to entertain. In this way, Guardians of the Galaxy is more than the sum of its parts, offering a compelling, hilarious, and intense experience that surpasses that of many Star Wars games.
