Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: PS5 Review

Developed by Eidos Montreal

Published by Square Enix

Platform: PS5

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy game knows exactly what it wants to do.

It's not really interested in creating a fuss, or creating something truly complicated for you to dive into. 

In many ways, all it wants to do is a tell a story, with a beginning, a middle and an end, and with characters you already know and are likely to want to spend time with.

And it does stunningly successfully.

In some ways, the game feels reminiscent of a TellTale adventure, with plenty of dialogue choices, and options to chat away to the team. But that's no bad thing, and while at times it may feel like some of the game's dialogue choices feel a little rote and unwilling to swerve from the final destination, what it does do is make hanging with Star-Lord and his pals a lot more appetitising than a simple open world shoot and explore ethos.

In Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy you are Peter Quill aka Star-Lord and get to guide your newly-formed ragtag bunch of misfits across 16 chapters of space-spanning action. It's at the relatively formative years of the Guardians that you take hold of things, and it's wise with the dialogue options for developer Eidos Montreal to have seeded in a debate about leadership and whether you as Quill are up to it.

Loosely the plot is best left unspoiled, but the elements are there from the start when you begin in Quill's past, and then zip to the Milano out exploring a region where it shouldn't be before the authorities catch up to them, and the adventure properly begins.

It's as the game gets going that it starts to develop its branches much like Groot's sinewy tree-arms, and you begin to realise what Eidos Montreal is doing. They don't just want to make a Guardians' game, they want to make a Guardians' experience - and that's a key difference.

Here, it's about developing depth and character involvement as you navigate the team's quirks and looser edges. In combat, you can choose a Huddle at a key moment in the battle, pull Gamora, Drax, Groot and Rocket in close and make a decision on how you inspire them. The wrong decision demotivates the team, the right one delivers a perk to all - it's a cunning touch that shows Eidos Montreal is about the team game rather than the individual players.

Combat wise, you get to use all of the others' perks to take down enemies. Whether it's Gamora's splice approach or Rocket's weapon arrays, it's a thrilling way to involve them - even if after a while, it does feel repetitive.

Repetition is perhaps the one criticism that can be levelled at parts of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy - some of the fights feel too familiar after a certain number of chapters, and at times, some of the team responses can suffer the usual overplay of the same words. 

Graphically, the game soars. Early on, shots in space appear to have endless depth, with Star-Lord peering out over the edges into a never-ending vista of space - it's a small touch but it ironically grounds the game in its universe and makes the most of the hardware to create something stellar.

Whether it's the quips from the team, or the space edges, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy feels like a great step into the rest of the Marvel universe of games. Its storytelling may not be massively deep at times, but it takes the heart of what makes the Guardians of the Galaxy beat and breathes major life into it before running off and taking you on the journey as well.