A new gear perk in Marvel's Avengers' new DLC perfectly captures and shows off the unique and playful personality of Peter Parker as Spider-Man.
After over a year of waiting, Marvel's Avengers players have finally gotten their hands on Spider-Man, and a recently discovered gear perk shows just how much effort Crystal Dynamics put into getting the personality of Peter Parker just right. Released exclusively for PlayStation systems, Spider-Man joins the nine other playable characters currently in the game and can be used in any of the existing modes with the exception of old story missions. While the new DLC did not give Spider-Man story missions in Marvel's Avengers, his story will be told through cutscenes and challenges that make up what Crystal Dynamics is referring to as a Hero Event.
The Hero Event cutscenes are only a small piece of the overall puzzle when it comes to displaying Spider-Man's personality. Marvel's Avengers makes use of emotes, voice lines, takedowns, and triggerable conversations in the Helicarrier or in elevators to help make players feel like they are taking control of the character they love from the films or comic books. These supplemental elements are particularly important when it comes to Spider-Man, not only because he doesn't have any missions to set up his story, but also because Peter Parker is one of Marvel's most prolific characters when it comes to video games. Since Marvel's Avengers and Insomniac's Spider-Man don't share a universe, Crystal Dynamics has to go the extra mile to not only set up its own Spider-Man, but also find a way to set him apart from the well-loved portrayal in the Spider-Man game.
Crystal Dynamics accomplishes this by hiring Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Genshin Impact voice actor, Sean Chiplock, to portray a Peter Parker that had to learn how to be a hero in a world still struggling with the events of A-Day. Chiplock's performance, mixed with Crystal Dynamics' strong character emphasis in Spider-Man's limited cutscenes, conversations, and emotes, really helps to set this version of Peter Parker apart from Yuri Lowenthal's performance in Marvel's Spider-Man. These elements put together have helped Marvel's Avengers' Spider-Man meet PlayStation fans' expectations. However, one of the greatest elements of Peter Parker's portrayal in Marvel's Avengers comes from a rather surprising place - a gear perk.
In Marvel's Avengers, emotes are used purely for social and cosmetic reasons. However, this has changed with a new gear perk that appears exclusively for Spider-Man in the latest DLC. The perk is called Dramatic Taunt and lets Spider-Man use his emote to taunt nearby enemies and reduce their melee defense by 10%. Not only does this new gear perk give players a reason to buy and use new emotes (though unfortunately, Spider-Man's emotes won't drop from Marvel's Avengers' Shipments), it also helps to showcase an important aspect of Spider-Man's personality. As one of the younger and more optimistic superheroes, Spider-Man is often very playful when fighting enemies. He enjoys cracking jokes towards his foes before engaging them in combat, often further enraging them and causing them to make unfortunate mistakes. By not only taunting his foes, but lowering their melee defense, this gear perk brings this playful dynamic into Spider-Man's combat in a significant way, helping players to feel more like the friendly neighborhood superhero by slinging quips as well as webs.
While Marvel's Avengers may not be the best "Marvel's" game that has been released in recent years, nor is it likely to live up to the lofty standards set by Insomniac's Spider-Man, this fun and easy to miss gear perk really helps to bring Peter Parker's unique personality into every combat encounter. Only time will tell if this gear perk ends up being a useful game-changer in many Spider-Man builds, but the effort put into storytelling through this perk is impressive nonetheless. If other playable characters in Marvel's Avengers end up with similar perks, it could help them to stand out from their fellow teammates.
