Available to download as of today, the new mobile game Marvel Avengers Academy takes a very different look at Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, putting many of Marvel’s iconic heroes and villains in a "What if?" college setting.
Mixing together elements of action -- including combat training to go along with your regular classes and sports -- and social life (there’s dating as well), the game features a notable voice cast, including Priyanka Chopra (Quantico) as Ms. Marvel, Alexandra Daddario (True Detective) as Wasp, Colton Haynes (Arrow) as Thor, Bella Thorne (Scream: The TV Series) as Tigra, Kiernan Shipka (Mad Men) as Spider-Woman, Dave Franco (Neighbors) as Tony Stark, Alison Brie (Community) as Black Widow, rapper A$AP Rocky as Falcon and WWE superstar John Cena as Hulk. Other characters in the game include Loki, Hawkeye, Vision, Ant-Man, War Machine, Captain Marvel, Winter Soldier, Black Panther, Enchantress and Taskmaster.
At a recent kick off event for Avengers Academy, we spoke to some of the cast about taking part in the game.
Marvel Avengers Academy cast gallery:
As Colton Haynes recalled to IGN, when he got the offer to join Avengers Academy, his quick response was, “Of course!"
Said Haynes, who appeared alongside Daddario in last year's San Andreas, “Marvel has such an amazing fanbase and I was super stoked to get to work with Alexandra [Daddario] again. The cast is incredible.”
Kiernan Shipka, whose other voice work includes The Legend of Korra's Jinora, said that when it came to becoming a Marvel superhero in the game, “It’s a pretty neat feeling and it’s a pretty cool project to be a part of. I’ve always loved voice work and Spider-Woman is a super fun character. I had a total ball voicing her.”
Shipka described the Avengers Academy version of Spider-Woman as, “A little bit sassy, in kind of the best way possible. She’s really good at heart, I think, and she’s also an intimidating person and can do some pretty cool stuff. I was just watching [some of the game] and she’s pretty incredible. She’s kind of the best of both worlds. She’s a real definition, I think, of that classic superhero but she’s also super lovable. She’s the whole thing.”
The Wasp retains her comic book fashion obsession in Avengers Academy, with Alexandra Daddario explaining, “She’s very lighthearted and into clothes and just very fun for a superhero, but also tough. It was great to voice that sort of lighthearted, youthful version of myself."
Alexandra Daddario ("Wasp")
Said Haynes, of the Avengers Academy take on Thor, “He's still definitely very confident, but he's not as cocky. He's very funny." Haynes revealed the game producers let him riff while recording lines, adding that Thor in the game, "has a really quick wit.”
When it came to how Avengers Academy combines superhero elements with a college scenario, Daddario remarked, “Not to get too deep, but I think one of the reasons we embrace superheroes and this world is that these are just normal people that have incredible powers that are relatable in some ways - in that we don’t have great super powers but there’s strength within us that we can utilize in our lives. Ultimately, they’re just normal people with problems. I think this game is fun because they’re young adults, in school; they’re students. You can play around with their social lives and dating and all that stuff, along with the epic fights and battles they encounter.”
Kiernan Shipka ("Spider-Woman")
Regarding the Avengers Academy scenario, Shipka remarked, “It was such a fun, unique concept behind this game, in that we’re these characters that we all love, but they’re together, interacting as young adults, which is really cool.”
Said Haynes, “The fact that they can go back and play as students has me really excited. They're learning their powers for the first time so you're seeing clumsy versions of them. It's the rebirth of these characters. But also the cast that they have is so insane and so cool that I'm freakin' stoked that I get to be a part of it.”
Colton Haynes ("Thor")
One element of voicing a game character is needing to record a lot of different, seemingly random, lines based on different strand-alone scenarios that can occur and Shipka noted, with a laugh, “There’s a lot of that involved. At the end, you have to record a bunch of reactions and noises and a lot of getting punched and falling. So it’s just a bunch of “Ugh! Ooh!” for five minutes, which was really funny.”
“Voice over work, I really enjoy," said Daddario. "I don’t get to do too much of it, but I’ve been doing more lately and I like it, because you get to do a bunch of options, one after the other, and you can go as big as you want or as small as you want and you don’t think about it sometimes. A line delivery will come out that you didn’t anticipate and it’s cool because you just get to play.”
Marvel Avengers Academy is now available to download on the App Store and Google Play.
Additional reporting by Joshua Yehl.
Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @TheEricGoldman, IGN at ericgoldman-ign and Facebook at Facebook.com/TheEricGoldman.