“I have no regrets.
We did everything we could.”
“I think it’s a great ride.
It has a lot of qualities,” said Guardians of the Galaxy senior creative director Jean-Francois Dugas.
“Is the game perfect?
Like any game, no, I don’t think it’s perfect.
It can always be better.
“But is it a great ride?
And is it something this year or last year that you played that is unlike everything else?
And is it worth spending your time on?
I honestly think it is, from a game standpoint.”
Dugas continued: “I have no regrets.
“It’s like anything.
This is something senior narrative director Mary DeMarle echoed.
“For me, it’s all about creating the game,” she said.
“We make games to touch people, we make games to hit an audience.
But could “forward” still mean “sequel”?
On this, the team was keen not to rule anything out.
“Never say never, and never say anything,” he joked.
Meanwhile, DeMarle was equally coy.
“I don’t like to give anything away for the future,” she dodged.
And we were sad to say goodbye when they were finished.
But you know, now we’re seeing what happens out there in the world.”
It was to be separate from the MCU and separate from the comics.”
DeMarle said this was all done by simply coming back to the heart of the characters.
“Marvel was really supportive of that,” DeMarle said.
“They said, ‘We want you to create your version of the Guardians.
see to it that the essence of these characters remains the same.
But you could create your own backstories you could make your own looks for them and everything.'”
“The first thing we did as a team was immerse ourselves in everything Guardians.
So obviously, we’d seen the movies and we watched them again.
And then we read tons and tons of comics [thus the Guardians’ expletive “Flark!”
came to be], and even looked at the anime television show series,” explained DeMarle.
“We started to see that every single incarnation of [Guardians of the Galaxy] has a core.
The characters each have a core to their being, but yet they’re all different.”
“One of the biggest things in this game is the theme of grief and loss.
And it’s about redefining family and finding a new family,” said McLaren.
“The flashbacks with [Meredith Quill, Star-Lord’s mother] build Peter’s character.
“But by the end, I think they really do bond as a group.
They come together, and they redefine what family is to them…
I think they’d make perfect parents by the end.
At that point, they’re ready and they’re solidified as a group.”
However, this scene almost didn’t make it into the final cut of the game.
But I said ‘no, we cannot cut that scene.
It needs to be there.
It encapsulates everything we need it to’.
It is not just Star-Lord who sees emotional growth throughout the events of the game.
Gamora reveals she is suffering from depression, while Rocket opens up about his experiences being experimented on.
Similarly, Drax discusses how his wife and child were killed by Thanos.
But many of the scenes revealing more of these backstories can be easily missed on any given playthrough.
One such scene plays out between Peter Quill and Drax.
And what of Gamora?
“I think, [a love story] would have detracted from Gomora as a character.
But we still really wanted her to be every bit a part of the team as everyone else.”
“He was experimented on and he’s very, very different,” Weiner said.
Our director gave me the freedom to play with that… “I ordered UberEATS and they left it for me by the door.
So, I went outside and there was a raccoon eating it.
I just had to say, ‘that’s fine’, like good for him.”
Don’t believe him?
Well Star-Lord has the pictures to prove it.
“It’s true!
He sent me photos,” McLaren laughed.
