Guardians of the Galaxy‘s Twist on the Dad Game Boom Is Surprisingly Heartful

Everywhere you go in AAA play lately , there are pop . They ’re making the game , they ’re having those games be about their fears and hope — fromGod of WartoThe Last of Us , fromHadestoResident Evil Village , the complex emotional tribulations of fatherhood and Father-God figures are ubiquitous . Not even the Guardians of the Galaxy can break loose this style , buttheir latest gameoffers some interesting jukes and jives in its own examination of it .

To say that Guardians of the Galaxy is a story of family line is not precisely original these sidereal day — particularly not in thelong shadow of James Gunn’swork with the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe . His take has shaped and influenced every iteration of the squad we ’ve seen in the comedian , sketch , and now — in Eidos Montreal ’s Guardians of the Galaxy , liberate tardily last month — picture biz as well . The ‘ fourscore - retro soundtrack , the down - and - dirty spunk - rock sci - fi aesthetic , the general premise of a gang of sarcastic lone wolf mother fucker coming together to recover a sense of family relationship as they save the day , much of the DNA that suffused Gunn ’s Guardians movies can be found in this game . But unlike the late Avengers video secret plan , which had to turn toan unconvincing unexampled starto distract from the fact that its assembled heroes feel like their movie opposite number with the numbers filed off , Guardians gives its entire burden unit — Star - Lord , Rocket , Drax , Gamora , and Groot — a unequaled identity linked by this transient video recording game trend in the “ Dad Game ” figure .

Some of this is just because this idea is baked into the Guardians and theirbackstories in the source material . Gamora course has along , wintry relationshipwith her adoptive father , the huffy Titan Thanos . The plot ’s Drax , much like the comics and movies , is still haunt by the destruction of his married woman and child at the villain ’s hands . Rocket and Groot have a kind of sibling vibe that , when the duo clangour with the radical ( mostly Rocket , being the one who can really invariably verbalize his harsh , often mean - spirited musings , in an apprehensible speech ) , it feels like two kids biting their thumb at the actual adults in the way . Then , of course , there ’s Peter Quill himself , who is a walk wound of parental grief . On his father ’s side here , like the comics , he is a small fry of the King of Spartax who vacate him long ago with his mother Meredith . She is also a tragical figure in this Quill ’s life , as she ’s vote down on his 13th natal day by a Chitauri bust squad , part of a larger intergalactic war between the Kree and the foreign airstream that organize the past backstory of Guardians ’ coltsfoot at large fare into the secret plan .

Star-Lord and Drax have a chat at the edge of the universe.

Star-Lord and Drax have a chat at the edge of the universe.Screenshot: Edios Montreal/Square-Enix

But Dad Games and Daddy Issues game , while overlapping in content , are n’t quite the same thing — the latter is more about issuance with our own parents , rather than the enquiry of whether or not our submarine sandwich , or we ourselves , are ready to become parents in crook . Where Guardians plays with the former concept , then , is in introducing an challenging new crinkle in the form of a untested Kree miss name Nikki ( a lax approximation ofNicolette Gold from the comics ) . Early on in Guardians , the team soak up the ire of the Nova Corps for illegally trespassing in a quarantined sector of space , fill with relic from the old Chitauri / Kree war .

Peter in especial depict the ire of the Centurion leading their collar , Ko - rel , who it turns out — in true Star - Lord fashion — is really a former lover . The two defend together and fell for each other 12 years prior in the warfare . Which rarify things further when , as he attempts to negotiate down the Guardian ’s very high-pitched fine with the Nova Corps , Peter crosses itinerary with Nikki , Ko - rel ’s girl … who is roughly 12 years one-time . Multiple times after his first encounters with Nikki , Peter , and the player themselves , are invite to “ Do the Math ” in Guardians ’ limited dialogue option mechanics . Even then , the choice is n’t much of one at all : Peter can adopt that Nikki is absolutely his child , or traverse it and then fundamentally be say by all of his friends that Nikki is perfectly his kid .

But as quickly as Peter is ask to reckon with the reality that he has been , unintentionally , an wanting father , Guardians throws another curveball at its agonist by asking him if he ’s quick to become a singular parent to his “ new ” daughter . concisely after the Guardians race off to assay and take on a mission to get the credits and pay off their Nova amercement , they bring back to Ko - rel ’s cruiser to find chaos left in their wake . A unusual being that was unintentionally unleashed by a small gemstone Peter and Rocket find in the quarantine zone kills Ko - rel in front of Nikki . In her grief , she ’s shaped by the Universal Church of Truth ’s Grand Unifier , Raker , into becoming the religious cult ’s raw Matriarch : a vessel who manipulates the faith vigor of brainwashed convert , lured to “ The Promise , ” a faux - reality claiming to extend the paying back of dead loved ones . Guardians then quickly becomes both a wash to save the galax from being brainwashed into Raker ’s cult , and a race for Peter to make unnecessary his newfound daughter and help her confront her heartache over Ko - rel ’s end .

Screenshot: Edios Montreal/Square-Enix

Screenshot: Edios Montreal/Square-Enix

So far , so Dad Game . But while Guardians does make Peter consider his fears of having become a father , a late secret plan twist order the idea on its mind . finally , you get a line that the gemstone was , of course , the Soul Stone , and the entity that obliterate Ko - rel — and now possesses Nikki — is none other than Magus , theevil phantasma of Adam Warlock . As Peter find out himself flung into Nikki ’s own interlingual rendition of “ The Promise , ” a sliver of Ko - rel ’s soul immobilise within stone reach out out and tells Peter the truth : Nikki is n’t his biological girl , but a Kree war orphan Kor - rel adopted because she faced persecution on her homeworld for not being pure Kree . But it ’s not presented as a hoodwinked gotcha , or that suddenly the joke is that Peter sound through the events of the plot up to this degree for seemingly nothing . The struggles he had work on over the course of Guardians before this avail him grow and mature as a person , leader , and friend to the family social unit forged in the Guardians themselves . He sees the parallels in fatherhood he ’s experienced , discuss , and understood from helping the great unwashed like Gamora and Drax action their own traumatic human relationship as parents and child .

It ’s a social unit that , by the games ’ denouement , is portray with a sincere , jazz connexion between its members , a ascertain folk that is made expert by the healing each of them goes through across the game ’s case . Peter did n’t need to be Nikki ’s sire to go on this path , but the potency of it serving as the catalyst for that growth , rather than it being treated as a burden for him to bear and work through , is what makes his throughline across the game so amazingly earnest and worth rooting for . That Peter go through these connections no matter of his agnate condition is authoritative to his electric discharge as a person throughout the game . By its climax — when Nikki is embraced into the Guardians squad , not as Peter ’s girl , but an ally and hero of her own right — it provides Guardians of the Galaxy with a brisk twist on a variety of story that ’s come to prominence in the major story - based plot of the moment . In doing so , it helps Guardians which , upon its first reveal , did little to imprint that it would be able to mistreat out of the shadow of its cinematic predecessor , stand on its own two feet as a desirable and challenging tailspin on Marvel ’s cosmic supergroup .

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