Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy absolutely needs to have a sequel

Before we get into the main parts of this article, I’m going to let you know that many of the reasons this article is going to suggest a sequel are because of a wealth of things that happen with the ending of the Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy game. Because of this, there are going to be spoilers like crazy in this game. So to say it one more time…

This article contains huge spoilers for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy

Okay, that is out of the way, let’s get into this.

I absolutely loved the Guardians of the Galaxy game. And while it averages about an 81 on Metacritic, a lot of the reason the game lost some points was because of the fact that the game was very linear. But, honestly, that’s why I loved it. I’ve missed linear games.

I’m not saying all games should be linear but I think Guardians of the Galaxy was made better for it. It allowed them to continuously tell a deep story. The constant dialogue  would not have worked as well if you had the option to flit all over the galaxy. GotG was a game that had a story to tell constantly and it did not want to be interrupted while it was reading and sometimes a full-on story dump is nice.

Guardians of the Galaxy was one of the chattiest games I ever played with the characters constantly interacting with each other — even at times when you were walking around the Milano between missions. Flying around the galaxy at random would have either equated to long stints of the characters being uncharacteristically silent or just looping dialogue. Not only that, but it would feel really weird if Star-Lord decided to go off and do optional side missions and put saving his kid on the back burner.

It’s one of the things that throw me off on non-linear games. Like, I love the Spider-Man games. I genuinely do. But something feels really weird finding out that there’s a building under attack that’s the main story point and just letting it simmer while I go and do side stuff. It feels weird knowing there’s a bunch of villains hanging around and waiting for me before they do the particularly nasty stuff.

I want more of this story. And Guardians of the Galaxy opened them up for one fairly well. They took a universe that was already exceptional. A universe filled with psychic dogs, floating god heads (of which we encounter two), super-powered llamas, and a refrigerator door that’s broken; open position is, as Mantis lets us know, a universal constant. They took all that and decided to add more. Fing Fang Foom, Wendigo, Adam Warlock, Ruby Thursday, and a ton of revelations.

One of the biggest revelations comes towards the end where you find out Nikki isn’t actually your kid but Nicholette Gold, a character who in the comics was actually one of the original Guardians of the Galaxy long before Star-Lord. And while the comics’ version had some decent flame powers, this version was able to create a heat shield so damned powerful she literally uses them to protect your team from a planet that was full-on thrown at them.

We never explore this or really even talk about her powers. And by the end of the game, we leave the team with several new members; Nikki, Mantis, and that alliteration addicted idiot, Adam Warlock.

Mantis clearly found something interesting within the mind of the ship’s pet llama. Nikki has the whole deal going on with discovering her powers. And Adam Warlock has such poor control of his dark alter-ego Magus that Magus actually corrupts the ending credits and tries to kill everyone until you jack him up to one of the best 80’s songs ever, turning him back momentarily.

It’s a wonderful place to pick the game up from in the sequel and I’d love to see it. I want to visit this universe where Mantis, Adam Warlock, and Nikki need to have their own rooms built into the ship. I want to see Mantis further taunt Star-Lord with information from alternate timelines she exists in. Specifically when she taunts him about the one where she’s his ex-wife. The timeline she calls “hilarious”.

It also not only leaves the team with new crew members but incredibly powerful new allies. Cosmo and the whole of Knowhere is ready to come to my aid. The Nova Corps owes me big time and knows that I have an oven full of humble pie ready to be served at any time. And best of all, I’ve now got Lady Hellbender as an unlikely ally, which is wonderful as she now flies through space on her noble steed, the famous Marvel dragon “Fing Fang Foom.” The latter being one of the coolest looking things I’ve ever seen in a space-based video game and I crave more of it.

By the end of the game, you have established the Guardians of the Galaxy in the universe and have set your team up for both great things and, in true Guardians tradition, the ability to knock everything down like dominos, and I want to see all that layout.