With the arrival ofMarvel’s Avengersnewest update, the Hawkeye-focused “Operation: Future Imperfect,” launching tomorrow (3/18), we had a chance to chat with the team behind the eagle-eyed archer to see what makes him tick and find out what sorts of tricks he has up his sleeves. And in his quiver… and his scabbard. Yeah, Clint Barton has a lot going on when it comes to both ranged and melee combat, but he’s also a rather accomplished battlefield manager, combo-stringer, and support player. All that goes a long way towards distinguishing Hawkeye from similarly styled Kate Bishop.
I had a chance to speak withNicole Martinez(Senior Narrative Director for theMarvel’s Avengerspost-campaign at Crystal Dynamics) andScott Walters(Senior Designer on theMarvel’s Avengerscombat team at Crystal Dynamics) about just that. They shared insight on what makes Clint Barton’s Hawkeye stand out from the otherAvengers(especially Kate) and what part he has to play in the team and their story.
There’s a lot of arrow and ability tech available to Hawkeye players, some of which was teased by Martinez and Walkers, with more revealed inCrystal Dynamics' most recent War Table for the new update. Plus,the Square Enix game comes to next-gen platformson the same day as the new update, which Martinez and Walters addressed as well. Our interview follows after the video below.
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Collider: We were introduced to Clint Barton/Hawkeye during the Kate Bishop operation, but now we’ll get a chance to learn more about not just “Young” Hawkeye but Old Man Hawkeye, too. How does Clint’s older, alternate version of himself factor into the story?
Nicole Martinez: Old Man Hawkeye is very important in the Future Imperfect story. You’re going to see a lot of him and a lot of the character development that happens in Future Imperfect revolves around Old Man Hawkeye.
Speaking of Kate Bishop, she has a similar set of abilities to Clint. How did you go about making sure each archer felt unique and distinct?
Scott Walters: When we were developing both Kate and Clint, we were doing it in parallel so we could really see which abilities fit each hero, to sort of match their character. And for Kate, part of that was revolving around the fact that we wanted her to have stolen A.I.M. tech, and to have a lot of quantum abilities that let her teleport and manipulate gravity and space.
For the melee combat, it was pretty easy for us to differentiate that, with Kate being a fencer and Hawkeye being more samurai-like or ninja-like with his Ronin persona there. We were able to differentiate the animation and combat style to make hers more fluid and graceful, more dancer-like, whereas Hawkeye is very deliberate and practiced motions, like you might expect to find with a samurai.
In terms of arrows, we had a lot of different ideas going in on what each of the archers could have. For us, it was figuring out which arrows fit best for the character. One prime example is the Boomerang Arrow. There’s a whole section in the comics where he’s trying to convince Kate how great that arrow is, so that represents itself as something that he has that is unique to his skill set, it’s part of his Intrinsic abilities. He can fire that out, it comes back, and there’s even special moves when you trigger Second Shot as you catch the arrow.
In terms of other differentiators, we looked at the Heroics: Kate’s is very much focused on the quantum tech she has whereas Hawkeye is all about using different arrows with different abilities. So he has the Nightstorm Arrow which rains down elemental projectiles from the sky to control the battlefield. He’s got his Ultimate arrow, which is his Hunter’s Arrow, which fires out and seeks out targets, really emphasizing his battlefield control ability and awareness of his surroundings.
What’s your favorite arrow type from Hawkeye’s arsenal?
Scott Walters: Honestly, while I love the Boomerang Arrow, and I think it has a lot of utility, the Pulsar Arrow, one of his standard arrows that he can shoot, is really fun because you may attach it to a target and let it sit there for a while before detonating it, and if you leave it out, it builds up charge. So you can actually quickly tag like five, six enemies with an arrow, and then just engage in melee combat, and any time one of those other enemies gets close, you can manually detonate it, and it pops the enemy into the air, depending on how much energy has been charged up and how long it’s been out there. You can create a giant chain of explosions with those arrows because you can just fire a bunch of them out there before triggering it. That arrow makes an appearance in a few of his other abilities, so it’s an interesting one to see combo’d into all of his other combat skills.
Nicole Martinez: I also particularly appreciate Recovery Arrow, especially if I forget to level up before going into a mission. Just having that… basically, you fire it at the ground and it can heal you and your teammates. It’s so useful.
Scott Walters: There’s a really good version of that when you start upgrading that, it’s along the linear path, but if you’re going into any mission where they have, say, Siberia, and everyone’s shooting you with ice weapons, you’re able to actually drop that down and it removes and prevents all status effects for you and your party. So if you get annoyed at getting frozen solid, you can use that to break out of that or prevent that from happening.
Same question, but for Hawkeye’s costumes?
Scott Walters: There are a lot of good ones. I think, when we were doing the development, we would frequently put on the Ronin one when we were testing out his sword combat, just to really fulfill that samurai ronin fantasy. I would say that one got a lot of use while we were developing his combat.
Nicole Martinez: I really like his t-shirt, the purple t-shirt when he’s got the bandages all over his face. It’s kind of his classic casual look and I love using that one.
What would you say to anyone who questions Hawkeye’s ability to take on the Hulk, a.k.a. the Maestro?
Scott Walters: He’s constantly being challenged with the fact that he doesn’t have superpowers, you know? His greatest strength and abilities are preparing for a fight and using his archery skills. That’s one of the things that we leaned into with his trick arrows, making sure he had a large variety and that they all felt really good to use and had that same impact you might expect when you see him fighting alongside any of the other Avengers. That’s how he stands out, right? He’s definitely showing his ability, both with the bow and the sword, but also his ability to plan out the fight and come prepared with all of these cool gadgets.
Nicole Martinez: Clint has an arrow for everything, including Maestro. I think he has had to deal with the fact that he doesn’t have superpowers, so he has to be smarter, he has to be more prepared, he has to train more, and I think that’s why he ultimately is the one who is able to take down Maestro.
Hawkeye’s story tells us more about his personal journey, but how does it progress the overall story ofMarvel’s Avengers?
Nicole Martinez: Everything we release post-campaign inMarvel’s Avengersis all leading up to the Kree Invasion that we saw at the end of “Taking A.I.M.” So Clint’s story is very much another chapter leading to that. It’s kind of a double-feature with Kate. But all of it is looking towards that future event and trying to progress the story forward. It all ties in.
Marvel’s Avengersarrives on next-gen systems the same day as the new Hawkeye operation. What advantages do the next-gen systems bring to the game for both new and returning players?
Scott Walters: Couple of features: We have the graphic fidelity, so increased frame-rate, improved resolution, higher fidelity VFX for the Heroics and armor destruction, a lot of visual presentation upgrades on the next-gen platforms. I think the two things that players will really gravitate towards though is specifically the load times, so much faster load times, so when you’re hopping between the social spaces or the biomes or between different War Zone missions or going from campaign mission to campaign mission, there’s less downtime. That’s definitely a big improvement on the next-gen platforms.
Another feature we’re really proud of is the haptic feedback and the adaptive triggers on the PlayStation 5. It gives us a new outlet to make each skill and ability feel unique and give it additional feedback for the players to put you more into the shoes of that hero and make each one feel unique.
How good a doggo is Lucky?
Nicole Martinez: Such a good doggo.
Scott Walters: The best.
Nicole Martinez: You better give him pets when you see him.
Marvel’s Avengers next-gen update and new free DLC “Operation: Hawkeye - Future Imperfect” arrives tomorrow, March 18th.
KEEP READING:‘Marvel’s Avengers’: Ashly Burch on How a Deadpool Moment Influenced Her Performance as Kate Bishop
