Marvel’s Avengers, the game not the movie series, had a bit of a rough launch, the game was mechanically sound, but folks just had issues with some of the structure of missions, but the developers took all that to heart and kept on creating new content. Since launch we have received both Kate Bishop and Clint Barton, both Hawkeyes and while Spider-Man is swinging around somewhere, the next addition to the roster is the king himself, Black Panther and Square Enix were kind enough to showcase the game to me, ahead of the release next week.

What they were willing to show were the first two missions from the story part of the expansion, along with some gameplay from the Birnin Zana Outpost, but even with the hours’ worth of stuff we saw, the developers stated that we didn’t see all of it and of course, the rest of the story is still waiting to take place. The story here will add to the main games total and bring it up to just over 25 hours of full story based content, so those who have had their fill of the main game, can now jump in here for more. While I won’t dive into story spoilers here, you can experience those for yourself, I will say that the story, from what we got to see, has a solid foundation and of course the addition of the Black Panther, could easily make it more entertaining.

The expansion starts out by giving you the history of Wakanda and the Black Panther, at least the one here for the game, not the 1987 game by Konami. While the story is a little different, fighting an uncle for the right to become the Black Panther, the main points are still the same, Wakanda became a beacon of technological prowess when Vibranium fell from space. Where things get a little more unique is that the story of Wakanda, from the expansions starting point, is reacting to the events of the main game, so when Captain America is presumed dead after the Helicarrier explosion at the start of the main game, the borders of Wakanda are closed. But a new threat is emerging from the shadows, following in the wake of Ulysses Klaue and they are not above using Vibranium for their own ends.

Of course, we also got see the missions play out and they look like they are going to be a lot of fun to play, if I had to sum up the Black Panther’s playstyle in a single sentence, I would say he has the moves of Captain America, with the technology of Iron Man. In a fight he gets in close and likes to punch, flip and claw at his enemies, but should the enemies attempt to flee, you can throw daggers at them, or make use of a special and summon a spear. While the early fights were against men, soon after entering a secret tunnel, only known to the Black Panther, or those who have the truest potential to become one, like Shuri, the combat swapped to focus on a newer and more agile enemy, which required more flexibility and it also made use of the supers.

Speaking of them, we also got a full breakdown of the skill tree for Black Panther, from the range of light and heavy attacks to the smattering of ranged options and beyond. One of the attack that I liked, from the light category was the Kokou Kicks, I had seen it in action during the gameplay portion but didn’t realise it was an upgrade you need to unlock. This attack can only be used when sprinting, which as a panther you will do a lot of, and then a triple tap of attack, sends the Black Panther kicking and spinning into the target, it always looks cool. While the light and heavy attacks are just what you would expect, it is the Intrinsic section that will help define your Panther and it all starts with a block. Much like the Black Panther movie, if you have seen that, while blocking the more hits you take, the more your intrinsic meter builds and once you have it full, you can make use of it how you want. A common use is likely to be at the end of combo attacks, basically if you pull the right trigger before you start your combo, the final move of it, will send out a burst of kinetic energy, increasing the damage and range. Intrinsic energy though can be used in other methods as well, for example you can just trigger it to explode out of you, handy for when you are surrounded by many enemies, the entire system seems to be built around letting you discover what works for you and I am on board with that.

The final thing we need to highlight is just how badass T’Challa sounds in this, much like the main game, where they went with a different actors for some of the roles, here we have Christopher Judge stepping into the black spandex of the motion capture suit, along with providing the voice. Over the years we have had actors like James C. Mathis III and Phil LaMarr voice the character and of course Chadwick Boseman is known for portraying the character on the big screen, but Judge has manages to cement himself as the Black Panther, within the opening moments of him speaking. Fans of this work will of course know him as Teal’c and gamers will recall him from the recent God of War as Kratos and while there were some lines where you can hear his normal voice peaking through, they are rare, but again you have to remember, this is only from the opening moments of the game.

War for Wakanda isn’t looking to break the mould for Square Enix’s Marvel’s Avengers game, but rather enhancing what makes the gameplay so tight. Now as we didn’t get to play the content, playing it could be completely different, but given just now nice everything looked and played, I doubt that will be the case. If you are keen to jump in as the Black Panther and save Wakanda, you won’t have to wait long as the expansion is dropping in just a few days.