Developer Eidos Montreal chose to make Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy because it related to the team’s status as a rag-tag crew of underdogs. Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy took players by surprise when it was released to great reviews back in October, with critics praising the game for its humorous writing and an emotional plot that featured Peter "Star-Lord" Quill and his motley crew of space mercenaries coming together to save the universe from a sinister cult named the Universal Church of Truth.
Just like the James Gunn-directed MCU Guardians Of The Galaxy movies, Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy portrayed the titular heroes as a group of flawed but likable individuals who spend as much time squabbling amongst themselves as they do battling their enemies. Each one has a tragic backstory, from Peter losing his mother at a young age to the massacre of Drax's family at the hands of Thanos, and Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy sees them confronting these demons and working to put aside their differences to prove themselves as heroes to the universe at large. Sure enough, most of the intergalactic community looks down at the Guardians at first, seeing them as little more than a band of common thieves for hire rather than the unlikely saviors of the universe the team becomes at the end of Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy.
In a sit-down with Insomniac’s Ted Price on the latest episode of the Game Maker’s Notebook Podcast (via MP1st), Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy Senior Creative Director Jean-François Dugas revealed that it was this underdog personality that made the Guardians so appealing to his team at Eidos Montreal. According to him, when Eidos Montreal was first approached with the question of which Marvel character or team it would like to develop a game about, it ultimately chose the Guardians due to their status as outcasts in the Marvel Universe. “We felt that Guardians of the Galaxy was a team of underdogs that was fitting our personality, fitting our studio in some ways as well because I guess every time when we were working on Deus Ex it was like ‘Nah, there’s no chance they were going to make a good Deus Ex, and now Guardians - there’s no chance that Guardians will be good,’" Dugas explained, stating that his team felt like “underdogs” themselves while working on titles like 2011’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution and its sequel Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.
Sure enough, some fans of the old Deus Ex series were skeptical when Eidos Montreal announced it was working on a reboot during the PS3/Xbox 360 era, but Deus Ex: Human Revolution would go on to receive near-universal acclaim - though the disappointing sales of Mankind Divided would put the series on hold from 2016 onward. History would repeat itself with Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy, as expectations for the game were shaky following the divisive release of Marvel’s Avengers, Square Enix’s previous superhero offering.
However, just like the Guardians did on the silver screen in the MCU, Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy overcame the odds with an impressive visual showcase and a tale of unlikely heroes overcoming their differences to save the universe - even winning Best Narrative at The Game Awards 2021 back in December. Developer Eidos Montreal apparently knew the feeling of being an underdog all too well, and managed to channel that feeling into crafting one of the biggest surprise hits of 2021.
Source: MP1st