LEGO Marvel’s Avengers on Nintendo 3DS will have a “full free-roaming open world hub city,” which is an achievement noted as being a first for the handheld iterations.
That’s according to game director Steve Thornton, who, in an impassioned post, shared how “the design and art teams went above and beyond, pushing for a bigger and better city for players to explore.” It sees the handheld version closely rival its console counterpart, “with no breaks, cuts or loading screens.”
“I’m incredibly pleased to announce that for the first time ever, we have a full free-roaming open world hub city on handheld; a full 1:1 scale rendition of the console Manhattan city hub is playable on both Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita, with no breaks, cuts or loading screens,” Thornton shared on the LEGO video games blog.
“Although capturing the console scale was important to us, we knew we couldn’t sacrifice life or activity, so the handheld city is also fully populated with traffic and pedestrian systems, props and Free Play content. In fact, there are over 100 Free Play objects in the city, connected to 15 handheld exclusive ‘hub challenges’ – a few of which I will reveal in this post, the rest you’ll have to discover for yourself in the mean streets of Manhattan.”
Players can also collect vintage Captain America trading cards, with the Nintendo 3DS version to have an exclusive Free Play storyline that stars characters like Daredevil, Dr Strange and Moon Knight.
Hidden Hydra hideouts – or Hydraways – must be smashed, while the team have worked hard to retain the core features seen in the console experience such as traversal mechanics, a full vehicle driving system, and hub missions that connect the dots in the narrative – “designed to feel like playable deleted scenes.”
LEGO Marvel’s Avengers will release for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS in North America on 26th January 2016, and in Europe on 29th January 2016.
