Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite Wants to Be Approachable Yet Complex

How the fighter is trying to appeal to newcomers and the hardcore through elegant design choices.

By Daniel Krupa

Back in 2011, I bought a copy of Marvel vs. Capcom 3, with the aspiration of mastering its systems. Unfortunately as someone who has no real fighting game experience and is inherently lazy, I found it a pretty intimidating experience. In fact, I can still see it on my shelf now as I write this, quietly judging me. So when Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite says it wants to be accessible, I appreciate the olive branch.

I also realise that, for some, a word like ‘accessibility’ has other strong connotations when applied to a genre like fighting games. To the hardcore it might imply a lack of depth, but as Bill Rosemann â€" Creative Director at Marvel Games â€" tells me, that’s necessarily true and it’s something Marvel has a lot of experience with.

“A very key thing to Marvel in everything we create is accessible,” says Rosemann. “Whether you start reading the comics, or you start watching a TV show, or you’re seeing a film â€" we always say this may be their first comic, TV show, or film. It may be Doctor Strange or it may be Captain America: Civil War.

"So we start all of our stories very accessible, but we reward long term fans â€" so the more you read, the more you watch, you begin to make all of these connections. You watch a film, and you see Nick Fury approach another one of these characters and make these connections. The more you read, the more you watch, the more you see that it is very complex and interesting, and we reward you with your time. The game is the same way: very accessible, the more you play, the more you experiment... we’re going to reward all that time you’re putting into it.”

What we’re trying to do is make the game more elegant and simplified but still as complex and hardcore as it’s ever been.

Marvel has the mindset that any issue could be a person’s first, and that approach is informing Infinite. But as with previous games, it can still lead to a feeling, especially among die-hard fans, that their game is being taken away or diluted. I remember a similar conversation hovering around Dark Souls 2, yet that game turned out to be just as demanding as its predecessor. It does, however, make some of its systems easier to understand, which is no bad thing. Dark Souls doesn’t suffer noobs gladly.

“What we’re trying to do is make the game more elegant and simplified but still as complex and hardcore as it’s ever been,” says Mike Jones, Executive Producer at Marvel Games. “But we do want it to be approachable.” Jones stressed this was a new phase in the series â€" hence no ‘4’ in the title â€" and part of that goal is to attract a wider audience but not at the expense of alienating long-time fans.

“Say if you just love these characters and you want to hear a great story and see some great actions â€" it’s completely approachable in terms of how the systems work and in terms of how the controls work, but that depth is there if you want to find.”

Infinity Stones: Elegant Complexity

Even though the team wouldn’t be drawn into specifics, Peter Rosas - aka Combofiend - a former pro-player and an associate producer on the project teased where that complexity is to be found.

“There’s a very heavy technical aspect required to play the old ones,” says Rosas. “MvC2 is very unforgiving if you’re not very technical. But with this one [...] because it’s 2 vs. 2. It’s instantly that much more accessible. What you have is players who can just jump in, pick two of their favourite heroes; they don’t have to worry about assists. They’re not bogged down with all these decisions. Character, character, and your stone.”

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Ryu activates the Power Stone.

The Infinity Stones â€" a recurring plot device in the Marvel Universe and soon to be a huge element in the MCU â€" unlock Infinite’s complexity and depth.

“We understand that three characters has been a staple for the last 16 years or so,” says Rosas. “To that effect we looking at the stones, and we were looking at a third character, and when you think about how teams were in the older games: what you had were two characters and then a third character who was a function, whether it be some type of pick-up or just for their assist â€" they weren’t picked because they were necessarily liked. They were picked for their functionality.

“So then taking that into account we thought what if we used the stones as functionality. What if we applied the stones to the team and then you modify the team entirely. So now you have the stone acting as a third character but also more than as the third character. The stone modifies the team in a way that really lets a player to create their own identity.

“Say I play a team of Ryu and Captain Marvel, and he plays the same, and he plays the same. But I play the time stone, and he plays with the power stone, and he plays with the mind stone. Suddenly, our tactics are very different. Our strategies are very different, and now we’re having a discussion which team is the best? What is the best way to customise the team? What’s the best strategy? It begins this discussion now. There’s much more customisation. There’s much more depth.”

While the specifics weren’t forthcoming, each stones seemingly applies a team-wide buff, which can be used to either compensate for a fighter’s weakness, amplify one of their strengths, or add an element they lack entirely.

“So you see with Ryu [in the trailer] he uses the power stone to knock Captain Marvel against the wall,” explains Rosas. “So suddenly characters who didn’t have that ability have a way to extend combos or knock the opponent back. There are multiple uses for them. In addition to that, there’s a final effect we’re looking into.”

The Infinity Stones unlock thousands of different permutations to play around with. Or as Rosas describes it: it’s “for guys who want to sit in the lab and discover things through endless possibilities.”

>

Captain Marvel uses the Time Stone.

In the Marvel Universe, the Infinity Stones are among the most powerful objects, and in a neat move Infinite is applying that story logic to the fighting genre.

“They allow you to break the rules of the universe,” says Jones. “So thinking about it through a fighting game lens: what rules of fighting games would the Infinity stones allow you to break? So we’re looking at attack, mobility, vitality, space control â€" all those things where we’re adding tool to a character’s toolset that they might not have otherwise.”

“So with Captain Marvel [in the trailer],” says Rosas. “You saw she activated the time stone. All her attacks were extremely fast. She broke the law of time.”

And Jones expects this Infinity Stone system to drive the game’s meta in the long-run:

“You look at the history of fighting games [...] people have their favourites, but ultimately what happens is only five or six [characters] who have the tools surface to the top and are worth playing if you want to be competitive. What the [Infinity stones] allow you to augment the entire roster, and make up for weaknesses or double-down on strengths to create strategies and, hopefully, the metagame discussion we end up hearing is Ryu with the mind stone is OP, or Captain with the time zone is the best thing you could possibly do, but if you do X and use this set-up it’s way better to use the reality stone... or whatever it is. That’s sort of the lab experimentation, hardcore fighting game that we hope emerge.”

Read on for how Infinite is taking cues from Civil War and who we can expect to appear in the character roster.

Continues

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Marvel and ABC’s online series could solve a lot of problems over the midseason hiatus

Every winter, the networks take anywhere from two weeks to a month for a hiatus.

The idea is to not compete with holiday programming, but it also allows the writing teams to take time off and return with new ideas. The midseason hiatus also allows companies to focus on scheduling episodes during “sweeps,” the months in which Nielsen spends more time collecting and reporting ratings. If networks schedule bigger episodes during those months, they can report higher numbers to advertisers.

Networks want to make as much money as possible, so it doesn’t make sense to have the hiatus in the sweeps months of November or February. The networks would lose out on potential advertising deals and face other financial risks. Having the biggest episodes air at the end of November and the first week of December, however, allows the networks to work within Nielsen’s reporting schedule while also getting ahead of the Christmas rush. What’s the point of pitting The Flash against Rudolph, for example?

In recent years, however, networks have started rethinking this strategy as viewership numbers tank. One, ABC, is revisiting its midseason strategy. Last year, ABC kept eight of dramas off the air for 11 weeks â€" with four of those weeks coming during the midseason hiatus. Fox, NBC and CBS brought the majority of their series back around the first week of January, but many of ABC’s shows didn’t return for another week or later. ABC saw huge losses in return viewership, with one of its biggest series, How to Get Away with Murder, dropping 20 percent overall.

The question for ABC â€" and other networks â€" is how to give creative teams their winter break, retain good ratings and not compete with holiday programming?

ABC and Marvel seemed to have found a solution to the viewership problem: a digital series that will air for a limited time.

On Wednesday, Marvel and ABC announced that it will be launching an online-only series, Slingshot, with Agents of Shield star Natalia Cordova-Buckley in the lead as Elena “Yo Yo” Rodriguez. Each episode will be three to six minutes long, and although it’s not a full television show, it seems like it may accomplish its goal: keep audiences engaged while Agents of Shield is off the air.

The idea is so brilliant in its simplicity its a wonder networks didn’t try it sooner. Firsst, It’s cheaper for a big network to make a six-minute web series. Consider some of the biggest, most extravagant web series â€" like RocketJump’s >Video Game High School, which cost the studio around $636,000 an episode â€" as well as some of the smallest â€" like Andy Gets Dumped â€" which doesn’t even come close to that budget.

For a three-minute film using equipment and sets already available to the studio and actors, the costs would remain relatively low, but the show could generate a decent amount of advertising revenue. In a 2015 study from Turner Broadcasting and Horizon Media, researchers discovered that “premium online video from broadcast and cable networks outperforms video content from other publishers,” according to AdWeek. That means advertisers are more likely to give money to networks like ABC, NBC and CBS over other platforms because their content is better. ABC and Marvel teaming up for a web series doesn’t just make sense in terms of appeasing fans hungry for new content, but it also may generate income in the long run.

The other reason â€" one that’s more important to audiences than networks â€" is that it gives back to fans who tune in every week. Gary Newman, co-chairman and CEO of Fox Networks Group, told AdWeek that unless shows are airing on a premium network like HBO or Showtime, it doesn’t make sense to have 10 to 13 episodes in one season and go without a hiatus. Newman added that networks had to start doing more to keep audiences entertained and engaged.

“The alternative is the old-fashioned preemptions and repeats, and let's remember how frustrating that was to the audience," Newman said. "There's no perfect answer, so we're going to still continue to do that.”

Reruns have always been a complaint, but in a pre-streaming world, there wasn’t much that could be done. Now, when services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Video are accessible anywhere for a relatively cheap price, a three or six-week hiatus drives audiences to streaming platforms to watch new shows. Magna Global analyst Brian Hughes told Ad Age in March that fans weren’t necessarily upset with the lack ofnew content on network TV, but they’ve grown accustomed to having more to choose from because of streaming platforms.

“I'm inclined to think any impact the midseason breaks have on audience has more to do with how fans want to watch than being frustrated with a delay,” Hughes said.

Retaining viewership remains the most important goal in planning the midseason hiatus. Keeping audiences engaged leads to higher ratings, more conversation in the press and a generally more enthusiastic fan base. It’s, again, what makes Marvel and ABC’s plan to bridge the midseason hiatus with a new web-only series not only a good decision but also a necessary one.

Agents of Shield is also the perfect show because of its target audience. More than How to Get Away with Murder or Scandal, Agents of Shield appeals to a much younger demographic that is more likely to go online to catch up with a series or start a new one. According to Statista, more than 65 percent of Netflix users are between the age of 16 to 24, the same audience that ABC targets with Agents of Shield.

Whether the series will work the way the network wants is yet to be seen. But it’s the first step in addressing a problem bothering networks for years, and has only worsened in the streaming age.

Slingshot kicks off Dec. 13 on ABC.go.com.

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