Video Game / Guardians of the Galaxy (2021)

Kickstart my heart!

"Ain't none of us perfect. It's kind of our thing."

— Rocket

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy is an Action-Adventure Space Opera game based on the Marvel Comics property of the same name, made by Eidos Montreal and published by Square Enix. Similar to Spider-Man and Marvel's Avengers, the game is an original story set in its own world. It was released on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S on October 26, 2021, with a cloud streaming version of the game released for Nintendo Switch on the same day.

In the game, you play as Peter Quill / Star-Lord, the leader of his titular Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, here consisting of Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Gamora, and Drax the Destroyer. Set some time after the so-called Galactic War opposing Thanos and Chitauri to the rest of the Galaxy, the Guardians struggle to save the galaxy as they face a cult of religious wizards, the queen of a planet of monsters, and some hefty legal fees. The game has a Choice-and-Consequence System involved, as well as a plethora of licensed music that will be used and heard in a variety of contexts.

E3 2021 reveal trailer.

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"Trust me, troper! We got this!"

• '80s Hair: Peter’s “Bad-Lord” outfit changes his hairstyle to a mullet, resembling his appearance as a teenager from the flashbacks.
• 11th-Hour Costume Change: The penultimate mission sees the team don matching white and gold uniforms commissioned by Rocket.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: Two particularly potent abilities are unlocked very late into the game.
  • Peter's final element for his guns (fire) is unlocked in the 2nd to last chapter of the game. It's particularly powerful against "large" type enemies like the Church robot priests.
  • Groot's ultimate ability is unlocked in the final chapter. It allows him to automatically revive Star-Lord if the latter goes down, or revive the entire party on command.
  • Storywise, at the end of the game due to extended possession by Magus as well as being in direct contact with the Soul Stone, Nikki develops superpowers. Which she uses to help the Guardians during their battle with Magus.
• Action Commands: Filling up the Momentum meters against certain enemies will cause a prompt to pop up with the triangle button. Hitting hit will start a Call-to-Action where one of your allies will jump at the enemy and do massive damage to them or cripple their ability to fight back.
• Adaptational Backstory Change: Fin Fang Foom is mostly just a particularly infamous fearsome beast. His planet is a frozen Death World with no real technology. The dragon himself may not be entirely sentient (it's never made clear), and displays none of the telepathy or other more fantastic abilities he does in the comic. He also has no history with planet Earth or Iron Man.
• Adaptation Amalgamation: The Guardians are a mix of their comic and Marvel Cinematic Universe versions:
  • Peter's backstory is similar to his backstory in the movies: Rather than becoming an astronaut after his mother died, he was kidnapped on the same day by aliens and raised among the Ravagers as a child. He also shares his movie self's obsession with 80's music and pop culture, and is more unscrupulous mercenary than space cop. However, like in the comics, he's the half-Spartoi son of Spartax royalty, and his mother was killed by aliens rather than by cancer. This version of him also has less attachment to Yondu and the Ravagers, and is a war veteran (with his role in the Galactic War serving as an analogue to his comic self's involvement in the Phalanx Conquest).
  • Drax, like his MCU self, is an alien rather than a reincarnated human. However, he retains the part of his comics backstory in which he was made into a weapon against Thanos by Mentor and Kosmos, and his family was killed by Thanos rather than by Ronan the Accuser. His personality (and appearance) are also closer to that of his comic self; see Adaptational Personality Change.
  • Rocket retains his MCU origin of being the result of painful imentation, but grafted to this are details of his comic background on Halfworld.
  • As Gamora's MCU version is already pretty close to her comic version, the version in the game is little different. She does retain the film version's complicated history with her adopted sister Nebula, while retaining the comic version's previous involvement in intergalactic war and history with Richard Rider.
  • Based on an optional conversation with Gamora, this version of Thanos publicly professed a desire to "balance the universe", similar to his MCU counterpart's Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist motivation. This was all a front, however, and he secretly shared his comic book self's motivation of wooing Lady Death. Gamora discovering this is what prompted her to betray Thanos and join the Resistance.
  • Mantis here is an alien, like her MCU self, but retains her comic book status as the Celestial Madonna, her full suite of telepathic and prophetic abilities, and her skill in martial arts.
  • The game's version of the Chitauri draw primarily from their MCU counterparts, but are mentioned to be genetic offshoots of the Skrull, as in the Ultimate Marvel continuity.
  • The backstory of the world itself gets this. The Galactic War is a clear stand-in for the Annihilation War and Phalanx Conquest that kickstart the modern cosmic era in the comics, with a similar effect of destroying the Nova Corps, leading to Thanos' (supposed) death, and leaving intergalactic society war-weary and politically and socially unstable. However, in order to simplify the War and make it easier to explain, the Annihilation Wave and Phalanx and their complex plots were subbed out in favour of galactic conquest by the Chitauri.
• Adaptational Personality Change: As per Adaptation Amalgamation, several characters are a mixture of both their MCU and comics selves, with their personalities ending up distinct from either:
  • Like in the movies, Peter is goofy and has elements of being a Manchild, such as being preoccupied with 80's culture. Like in the comics, however, his morality is fairly straightforwardly heroic despite his past as a Ravager, and he's overtly concerned with being a good leader and maintaining the team's cohesion. He also has more history with the galactic community as a whole, is a war veteran like in the comics, and has more emotional baggage.
  • Gamora is far more open and friendly than her movie counterpart, having had the benefit of years of character development that her comic self had and her film self did not. She's also quicker to joke around and trade quips than either her movie or comic version.
  • While Drax shares his MCU version's literal mindedness and associated inability to understand metaphors and proverbs, he is more insightful and intelligent, similar to his post-2004 comics self. He's also depicted as a far more spiritual and tragic figure than in the movies or the comics, not only still grieving his lost family, but being deeply affected by them supposedly being denied his people's afterlife.
  • Mantis is portrayed as a Genki Girl, in contrast to her confident comic book self and the naive Womanchild of the MCU. Her prophetic abilities are also played up, making her something of a Non-Linear Character.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • In the comics, Star-Lord never has any sort of relationship with Ko-Rel, but in the game, they're former love interests to one another on either side of the law.
  • In the game, it's established that Mantis was a key figure in Gamora's emotional development after breaking away from Thanos and regards her with lots of respect, a bond that they don't share in the comics.
  • Gamora also shows no particular interest or attraction to Adam Warlock, unlike her comic counterpart.
  • Inverted with Peter and Gamora. Unlike the movies, Peter and Gamora are not an Official Couple, and don't even really get any Ship Tease. However, this is actually a reversion of the movies' initial Adaptation Relationship Overhaul; in the comics, Peter and Gamora were never romantically involved (until the movies came out and they hooked up in the comics for synergy).
• Adaptation Species Change: Mantis is portrayed as an alien, as in the MCU, but rather than retaining a more human skin tone, she's portrayed with bright pink skin. Similarly, Drax maintains his Adaptation Species Change initiated in the movies, named Kathatian this time around.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: Adam Warlock has this down to a language. If he gets on a roll, he will throw in some rhyming. Though rhyming is more of Magus's thing compared to Warlock's.
• An Adventurer Is You: Each of the Guardians matches up with a common RPG character archetype. Gamora is a typical high DPS short-range fighter who fights with one big attack, Drax is a tank based around incapacitating enemies, Groot is a support character who can boost the damage his allies do and heal them, and Rocket specializes AOE blast attacks. Quill himself is also something of a support character based around aiding, ordering, and buffing his allies, similar to a bard from Dungeons & Dragons.
• Age Lift: While Nikki's age in the comics varies and depends on the specific universe she's from, she's generally not portrayed as a child like she is here.
• Air-Dashing: Peter's rocket boots let him boost himself slightly forward or backward while in mid-air. This is perfect for getting to platforms just out of reach or dodging enemies trying to swipe you down to the ground.
• Alas, Poor Villain: After the Guardians defeat Grand Unifier Raker, you can’t help but feel bad for him before he dies since he was deceived by the Magus and the Promise into seeing his son alive again. He even dies thanking Nikki for fulfilling the promise, with his word choices implying that he's seeing his deceased son again— but only because he himself is at death's door, and he dies still deluded that everything he did was Worth It in the end.
• Alternate Continuity: The game is not set in any existing Marvel continuity, and its story liberally takes elements from multiple different iterations of the Guardians of the Galaxy.
• All for Nothing:
  • The plot is initially kicked off by the Guardians sneaking into a Nova Corps quarantine zone in order to find, capture and sell an elusive rare monster for Lady Hellbender, an avid monster lover, only for the plan to go off the rails, the monster getting killed by a mysterious entity, and the Guardians getting arrested by the Nova Corps and slapped with a huge unit fine they have to pay in 3 cycles or get sent to Prison. Adding insult to injury, when the team come up with a backup plan of selling either Groot or Rocket to Lady Hellbender instead to get the necessary units, they discover that she has a whole swarm of the 'rare' monster already. One of the dialogue options actually has Quill discuss this, pointing out that if the original plan has gone off without a hitch, then they would have gone through all that effort for nothing, but instead, having to improvise a suitable replacement has allowed them a chance to still get paid for their work in the end.
  • Another example is optional. For one reason or another, it’s possible to lose a bit of the units scammed off of Lady Hellbender on Knowhere. As there are no other means of earning units in the game, this means the scam was pointless, as the resultant funds are less than the 7,000 to 9,000 unit fine.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: In Chapter 12, the Church of Truth take over Knowhere and the Continuum Cortex with it.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: One of the main unlockables for this game are alternate costumes for the Guardians based off their Marvel Cinematic Universe counterparts as well as others based on their appearances from various comics.
• Anti-Escape Mechanism: One of the best uses of Groot's abilities is to pin down enemies, whether by entangling groups of them in branches or just knocking them on their backs.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Peter is indignant when Drax suggests the Universal Church is using sorcery to steal the faith of alien planets. You'd think he'd learn his lesson after finding out that aliens, seers, and ghosts were real.
• Arbitrary Weapon Range: The laser-fire of the Milano randomly stops at a certain range, forcing you to get real close to hostile interstellar spaceships to destroy them.
• Arc Words:
  • "Promise".
  • "You're a valued member of the team". It's almost Quill's Catchphrase throughout the game, which he uses multiple times both in mandatory and optional conversations with the Guardians. It begins as a somewhat awkward reassurance, then largely devolves into a platitude highlighting Peter's flaws as a leader (namely his fear of confrontation and toxic positivity) and towards the end of the game it becomes a genuine shared sentiment of the whole group.
• An Arm and a Leg: If Star-Lord lets Gamora pursue Raker and Nikki aboard the Church's ship during their escape from it, she'll ultimately fail to assassinate Raker, but will succeed in slicing off his left arm, which will handicap him during the final battle. He's still very capable of giving them a beast of a fight as the Final Boss and beating Adam Warlock in a straight fight without it though.
• Armor of Invincibility:
  • The Blood Brothers wear suits of high-tech armor that render them immune to all harm. Fortunately, the armor only activates when they're near each other.
  • Star-Lord gets this as his fourth and final ability after metaphorically facing his fears and standing against the all-consuming Magus shadow inside his nightmare, being able to render his shield ability fully-charged for a brief period and taking no damage whilst active in combat. This represents his Character Development, becoming more assertive and willing to force his less-cooperative teammates in line when the need arises for the greater good.
• Artificial Brilliance: In the very last level, your AI companions finally learn to automatically clear the obstacles tailored to their specific abilities without having to wait for your orders. This is a neat bit of Gameplay and Story Integration to show the group has grown as a team and learned from Peter's leadership.
• Artificial Gravity: All the ships in the game naturally have gravity for the sake of simplicity, but the does actually acknowledge that the gravity is artificial when the Guardians sneak aboard a malfunctioning Nova ship. The whole thing has zero gravity that leaves the Guardians floating around, with only Peter able to move thanks to his rocket boots.
• Artificial Insolence: After a particularly harsh argument with Rocket about whether to pay a Nova Corps fine, he'll ignore your command to unlock a door in order to criticize Peter again for his in-story decision making.
• Artistic License – Space: In the Battle for Sacrosanct, the game doesn't even bother to explain how Lady Hellbender can talk, or Foom and her bestiary can fly in total vaccuum.
• Asteroids Monster: The large purple voxiplodes are just as harmless as their smaller relatives, except when they die, they shoot out for of those small voxiplodes for you to stomp.
• Atrocious Alias: At one point, the Guardians run afoul of Captain Glory and the Lethal Legion. Rocket finds their names less than intimidating.
  Rocket: [sniggering] Lethal Legion? More like Loser Legion.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: There are many optional dialogues that can result if the player has Peter explore the environment for components that are located off the beaten path, often mocking him or poking fun at his apparently compulsive need to run off and look for something interesting when the team should have more important matters on their mind.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: Whenever you use the game’s “Huddle Up” mechanic (regardless if it’s successful or not) Peter will play a random song from his mixtape, which replaces the background music for the duration of the fight while reducing the cooldown for the Guardians strongest abilities to almost nothing for a short time.
• Auto-Revive: If you die in combat in the endgame, Groot will automatically use his mega-ability to heal everyone on the team, bringing you back to life. However, he can only use this ability once per combat and only can get it back if you call a huddle.
• Badass Adorable: Cosmo is the security chief of one of the most dangerous places in the galaxy and capable of single-handedly defeating the Guardians with a thought. He’s also a cute dog easily distracted by tennis balls and the neediness of his puppies.
• Badass Normal: While Peter does have alien ancestry to an extent, he doesn’t seem to have any physical enhancements because of them. Outside of his special Spartoi blasters, he’s more or less a normal human who manages to keep up with the rest of the Guardians with his skills and some quick footwork. His activated abilities reflect this, being limited flight with jet boots, overcharging his guns to spam shots for a while, throwing grenades around himself and overcharging his shield ability.
• Barred from the Afterlife: A large part of Drax's grief is the knowledge his wife and daughter can't be in his people's afterlife, Ultath, due to suffering meaningless deaths. Those who don't complete full lives are kept from Ultath.
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: The Guardians encounter an Acanti Space Whale in the quarantine zone. The critter is built up to be the first boss of the game, getting a flashy intro cutscene, Boss Subtitles and a health bar. Then it gets attacked and unceremoniously killed by a third party, leaving the Guardians with nothing to fight.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Per comics tradition, as Lady Hellbender rides atop Fin Fang Foom during the climactic space battle.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Mantis is cryptic, perky, easily distracted, and straight-up weird, but she also has no trouble knocking Drax on his ass.
• Big Damn Heroes: If you chose the right dialogue options during the story and convinced the Worldmind to doubt their logic in fleeing the galaxy, and successfully helped Cosmo break free of his Promise, both will return to help the Guardians during the final battle. Cosmo uses Knowhere as a giant laser to destroy a dropship the Guardians were menaced by, and the Worldmind weakens a massive amount of Inquisitors to the point that they can be defeated easily with Quill's guns.
• Blob Monster: One of the alien creatures is this, resembling gelatinous cubes with a solid, shapeshifting center. The goo acts as a shield blocking attacks until its destroyed, leaving the very agile core defenseless until it can regrow its gelatinous guise.
• Bloodless Carnage: You can tear humanoid aliens apart with grenades, swords, and laser fire, but don't expect to see a single burn or blood wound.
• Boss-Arena Idiocy: The Dweller-in-Darkness would be able to crush the Guardians under it's tentacles unopposed if the battleground wasn't filled with puddles that Quill could freeze to trap and shatter it's tentacles.
• Boss-Only Level: Chapter 15 and 16 don't have any normal levels or enemies, just two big boss fights and some story stuff.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: The Promise makes people this. Drax succumbs to it eventually, forcing the rest of the team to seek a way to bring him back to reality.
• Break Meter: Some enemies have a Stagger Bar which fills up as they take damage. When it gets full, the enemy becomes staggered, leaving them defenseless for a time.
• Brick Joke:
  • Early in the game, we learn Rocket let Groot fill the paperwork registering the Guardians of the Galaxy as heroes for hire with the Nova Corp, but Groot instead named them the "Gardeners of the Galaxy", forcing Rocket to file an addendum to fix the name, which has yet to fully process. Several chapters later, the guardians meet the Nova Corp Worldmind. Guess what it calls the team with a straight face?
  • A log in Rocket's room aboard the Milano at the start of the game mentions gold-plated uniforms that Rocket had commissioned, and only wanted to have golden embroidering. Guess what outfits the crew dons for the final boarding?
  • If Quill doesn’t pay the Nova Corps fine, in the Stinger, the device activates and disables the Milano.
• The Bridge: Most cutscenes in-between levels will take place upon the bridge of the Milano, with Peter in the captain's chair making decisions while getting intel and criticism from his crewmates. This scenes often are told from a first-person perspective to put you in our captain's shoes.
• But Thou Must!: The choice to hear out Drax, Rocket, or Groot's plan to earn a ton of cash doesn't matter, since no matter what, the team will always elect to go with Groot's plan.
• Call-Back: When faced with an uncrossable gap in a late level, Rocket suggest the group throw him over to set down the bridge on the other side. This calls back to when he threw a fit at the idea (or the act, if you so choose) of being thrown by Drax, while also showing how he's come to trust his teammates.
• The Cameo:
  • While traveling between dimensions to reach the Hala’s Hope from Knowhere, Hulk and Captain America’s voices can be heard through one portal, and someone yells "Look, It's Spider-Man!" from another. Thanos can also be heard laughing from yet another portal, as well as appearing in Drax' mindscape.
  • Jack Flag, (a hero from Captain America‘s mythology as well as member of the Guardians during Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning's run of the comics), briefly appears as a prisoner on the Rock. You can accidentally jettison his cell into space.
  • Ruby Thursday, (a somewhat obscure villain from The Defenders), also makes a small cameo as the sole survivor of a camp destroyed by Fing Fang Foom.
  • Peter owns a poster of the musician Dazzler.
  • The Collector’s Emporium pretty much exists just for this (and to sell you a Guardian Collectible for Gamora), being a collection of artifacts from across the Marvel Universe. It also includes a nice tribute to Stan Lee.
  • While looking for evidence of what happened to Ko-Rel in the Nova Corps database, you'll find files and mugshots of several characters from the cosmic side of Marvel who don't appear in the game, such as Moondragon, Quasar, Darkhawk, Ronan the Accuser, and Richard Rider.
• Camera Lock-On: You have two options to lock on to enemies with the controller triggers. The normal lock-on simply lets you follow the enemy and fire on them as you wish, while activating Guardians Mode automatically locks onto and enemy and slow down time while you decide which ability to use.
• Caught Monologuing: Grand Unifer Raker goes on a grand speech on the glory of the Promise and the need for the Guardians to join him only to be interrupted by Rocket Raccoon firing on him. His shield blocks the blast and after a quick pause, Raker continues on like nothing happened.
• Central Theme: Fear of confrontation and coming to terms with your past and present. The whole team has problems they run away from which cause problems in their internal life and relationship. The Big Bad preys on this in the entire galaxy by exploiting people's grief and resentment, trapping them in fantasy mindscapes.
• Chain Lightning: The element gun's lightning setting allows you shoot a blast of electricity that jumps from the target to anyone nearby and paralyzes them for a moment.
• Changed My Mind, Kid: At first The Worldmind just wants to up and leave the galaxy in order to escape the Promise, seeing no way to beat it. But if you convince them that there's a flaw in their logic, they'll come back at the last minute to save you from a room full of giant, incredibly frustrating robots, along with bringing the rest of the Nova Corps to join the space battle outside.
• Charged Attack: Star-Lord can charge up his blasters to fire a much more powerful shot than normal.
• Chekhov's Gun: The Space Llama/Kammy that the Guardians pick up in the quarantine Zone has a habit of chewing through anything on the ship, which eventually proves instrumental in allowing Peter to escape his room once Drax succumbs to 'the Promise' and seals the Guardians in their rooms whilst he steers the Milano towards the church. Depending on your choice early in the game, either she'll have eaten a hole into Peter's room that's coincidentally covered up by one of his rock posters, giving him a way out to free the rest of the team, or you play a minigame where you need to lead her to the wires connected to the doors so she can chew on them via singing.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • Mantis seems to be an initial one-off cameo appearance when she first appears, but it later turns out that her odd sayings to Drax are a result of her ability to see the future and help the Guardians in their adventures. Her prophecies trick a brainwashed Drax into coming to her planet, where she subdues him and helps the Guardians free him of the brainwashing.
  • Lady Hellbender herself ends up being another example. Initially set up as the main antagonistic force against the Guardians, with her threat being rapidly eclipsed by the Church of Truth's once 'The Promise' starts rapidly infecting multiple lifeforms. However, once the Guardians have exhausted all other options, Quill has a "Eureka!" Moment when realizing lower-intelligent creatures like Hellbender's monsters are the best army around immune to the Church's brainwashing.
• Choice-and-Consequence System: Similar to the Telltale Game, the group will get into disagreements and leave it to Quill to make the final call, leading to different dialogue and paths based on the decisions you make. Decisions that change more than dialogue generally come with a red box in the corner of the screen describing the change. Examples include:
  • With the "huddle-up" mechanic available in each fight, Star-Lord's speech buff the team or leaving them more confused.
  • When the player is detained by Nova Corps, the Guardians can either hide some of Rocket's illegal weaponry or the space llama they acquired in an off-limits area. Each choice affects your fine, the weaponry of your ship later, and how much the llama can help you in a late-game escape sequence.
  • If you defend Nikki in her argument with her mother, she'll slip you a key you can later use to freely access her room.
  • If you let Drax throw Rocket over a pit, you won't have to explore the are to find a way across, but he'll pull a gun on Drax before the next pit and force you find a new solution. If you don't throw him, you have the option of throwing him over the second pit or you could respect his wishes and find the other way across.
  • The most consequential choice in the game is which Guardian you decide to "sell" to Lady Hellbender: Groot or Rocket Racoon. If you pick Groot, Hellbender will buy it and you'll go through a stealth mission to rescue your friend. Pick Rocket and she'll see through the ruse and send you into a level fighting off waves of enemies while robbing your way through her palace.
  • If you successfully guess the words to a song a drunk pirate is singing in Knowhere, he'll give you a free ticket to the Collector's emporium. Otherwise, you'll have to spend more than half your cash to get in.
  • If you distract Raker successfully, Rocket will be able to hack one of his drones and immediately find a route for the Guardians to flee from him. If you don't, the player will have to manually check ten or so doors to find an exit.
  • At one point, Gamora rushes after Raker alone and you have the chance to stop her. Letting her go after Raker will make his climatic boss fight much easier.
  • The player's late-game conversations with the World Mind and Cosmo all involve three choices between two arguments to persuade them to the Guardian's side. If you pick two out of three of the right answers, they'll be convinced and aid you later on. Fail, and you'll never catch wind of them again. Well, the brainwashed Cosmo will trap you in a mental prison a bit later, but one of his puppies will quickly save you.
• Cold Ham: Adam Warlock. Every sentence that comes out of his mouth is alliterative and melodramatic, yet he delivers them all with restraint and gravitas.
• Colony Ship: The Sacrosanct was once a massive mining colony retrofitted into a spaceship to spread the good word of the Universal Church of Truth. Because of its size, it has Artificial Gravity even on the outside of the ship to allow for the colonists to make repairs easily.
• Combatant Cooldown System: Having one of the Guardians use their abilities will make it so you can't have them use another one for some time. The more powerful ability, the longer the cool-down.
• Combination Attack:
  • Hitting an enemy while one of your fellow Guardians is nearby causes them to do a special team-up attack alongside you. This almost always kills the enemy in one go.
  • Building up the Momentum meter in a fight with certain enemies gives Star-Lord the opportunity to call upon his friends to cripple the target. Star-Lord will generally shoot them and they follow up by ripping apart a part of their body, like a tail or an arm, limiting their abilities and dealing a ton of damage.
• Coming in Hot: There's a good chance in any given mission that the Milano will end up crashing rather than landing. Whether because of terrible thunderstorms, enemy fire, or constant meteor showers, Quill can never really catch a break and by the end of the game, the Guardians just laugh off their latest deadly crash landing.
• Composite Character: Nikki becomes the Matriarch of the Universal Church of Truth.
• Cooldown Manipulation: There are two major way to bypass the cooldown on Guardian abilities:
  • The most significant way is to use your Huddle ability, which you unlock in the first level and can then use after gaining a certain amount of momentum in combat. Upon successfully huddling, all the Guardians will have their cooldown ended and for a short duration, the cooldown of any of their abilities will be dramatically reduced.
  • The other way to manipulate cooldown is only available for the last level (and New Game Plus), Groot's mega-ability. Using it will end the cooldown of every character and even restore their mega-abilities. However, this ability doesn't affect its own cooldown, so you can only use it once per combat (unless you Huddle).
• Corralling Vacuum: Rocket Raccoon's "Gravistick Grenade" causes all enemies within a huge radius to be drawn into a single point and stunned for a short time. This makes them easy pickings for Peter, especially since stunned enemies take double damage.
• Corrupt Church: The Church of Universal Truth is a massive cult bent on brainwashing people into feeding all of their "Faith Energy" to the church's priests so they can gain more powers and brainwash even more people. Those who do give up Faith Energy in this way die from the process, and those who refuse to give up their energy are killed. The Guardians frequently refer to them as scam-artists and vampires. Their resemblance to any real-life churches is pretty downplayed, only the Grand Unifier really uses any religious language and even then his Motive Rants have more in common with a generic necromancer's than any real-life sermon.
• Cowardly Boss: Captain Glory's cruiser will warp to a new position every time you destroy one of its exhaust ports. For added frustration, it will drop mines in the space it just vacated.
• Criss-Cross Attack: Gamora's final ability, Executioner, sees her zig and zag through an enemy while cutting through it with her blade. It does more damage than any of her other abilities and those of just about any Guardian.
• Critical Status Buff: One unlockable perk makes your laser blasts more powerful when you're low on health.
• Cult Colony: The colony of the Sacrosanct was filled with diseased and dying miners who were saved by the healing powers of Adam Warlock. After this, they came to worship him as a god and shifted their purpose away from mining to spreading the worship of Warlock and hopefully using his powers to restore all the dead to life.
• Cuteness Proximity: When the Guardians find a Space Llama in the prologue, Groot calls the strange animal adorable (according to Rocket) and picks it up to cuddle with. Rocket doesn't agree, calling it "more matted than an Asgardian goat".
• Cutscene Incompetence: Right after the Guardians take out (and kill) Fin Fang Foom they’re all defeated by Lady Hellbender and her beasts. Possibly justified with them being exhausted from a difficult fight, however, as well as Peter keeping his focus on the greater goal they need to accomplish and intentionally not attacking or antagonising their opponent more than they have already.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: In cutscenes, Star-Lord can use his rocket boots to leap massive distances and outright fly. In gameplay, you can only use your boots to give you a brief double jump or float in combat. If you want to cross chasms, you have to rely on Groot to build you a bridge.
• Damage Over Time: The final upgrade of your Element Guns lets you charge up a shot that not only does a whole bunch of damage up-front, but also gradually hurts the target over time. This makes it perfect for taking down the bulky brutes that you have to fight in the game's last levels.
• Darkest Hour: Ko-Rel is dead, Nikki is now Matriarch of the Universal Church of Truth, who has grown and overtaken the Nova Corps and the galaxy to such as an extent that the Worldmind is taking Xandar and leaving the universe behind, Lady Hellbender and her forces won't stop hounding the Guardians, their latest ambush has left the Milano trapped in the middle of nowhere, raising team tension to their highest, and finally Drax has been converted by the Church. Fortunately, a revelatory nightmare coupled with, ironically, Drax's conversion (and Mantis fudging with his directions earlier) helps lead the Guardians to the one thing that will help them save the galaxy.
• Dash Attack: Using your jet boots to dash forward causes your melee attacks to do more damage and knock your enemies farther back. There's even an upgrade, the Super Quill Punch, that heals you for killing an enemy with this move.
• Decomposite Character: Based on mythology established in the game, it seems Drax's late daughter Kamaria and Moondragon are distinct entities.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Fin Fang Foom happily fights alongside the Guardians after they kill him.
• Defector from Decadence: In one of the games optional conversions Peter reveals that the reason he left left the Ravagers and sold out Yondu to the Nova Corps was because Yondu starting kidnapping and trafficking children.
• Deus Exit Machina: Super-powerful Adam Warlock jumps out of the Guardians ship as soon as they near the next level so that he doesn’t defeat all the enemies before the player can have any fun. He then gets kidnapped so he doesn’t interfere with the next two levels.
• Dialog During Gameplay: The Guardians talk. A lot. This can range from casual banter while exploring a world to insults flung at enemies (or each other) during fights to hints on how to solve puzzles if you take too long.
• Dialogue Tree: Used in dialogue scenes.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: When facing down Magus, The Guardians can select dialogue options that insult him (and Warlock), such as sarcastically clapping to mock him or insulting him when he rhymes. Doing so is actually how you beat him, as Magus eventually loses patience with the Guardians after their insults throw him off and are implied to allow Adam Warlock to start Fighting from the Inside, resulting in him attacking them in a blind range and getting close enough that the Guardians can seal him in the soul stone again.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
  • The Guardians manage to take out Fin Fang Foom in a straight fight and actually end up killing him. Even more impressive since they actually intended to take him in alive and are forced to quickly revive him before Lady Hellbender massacres them in return.
  • The Final Battle has the Guardians facing off with Magus, Adam Warlock's Evil Counterpart and a being that outclasses them in every category. Rather than actually fighting him directly, however, the Guardians instead just blast through the waves of shadow monsters he spawns to attack them whilst he casually lounges back and watches from afar, and use the intervening 'break periods' between waves to insult Magus, eventually making him lose his focus, which is also implied to allow Adam Warlock to start Fighting from the Inside, resulting in Magus attacking the Guardians close-range and allowing them to seal him back in the Soul Stone.
• Die or Fly: Quill unlocks his various elemental charged shots through needing to make a split-second shot to affect the environment when either he or his teammates are in mortal peril. He explains to Rocket the first time it happens that he can't control when he unlocks the various modes, though he’s able to make full use of them in combat afterwards on demand.
• Disc-One Final Dungeon: The game seems like it's building towards its climax on the Guardians' trip to the Sacrosanct, the massive spaceship lair where the Church of Universal Truth is slaughtering millions to gather more power. You end up facing the game's hardest enemies in bigger droves than ever before, the game gives you a a ton of materials to upgrade your gear with, and Peter even has an option to give a It Has Been an Honor speech as the Guardians climb up an elevator into the Church's main chamber. However, since the player still can't unlock the Guardian's final abilities or Peter's last two elemental shots, it becomes pretty obvious there's still quite a bit of game left after this run at the Sacrosanct.
• Ditto Aliens: When the Blood Brothers corner Peter to collect the bounty on his head, Peter tries to bluff his way out by claiming that all "Earthers" look alike and that they've got the wrong guy. The Blood Brothers, who themselves look identical apart from their beards, agree with Peter on this point, but point out that he's wearing a jacket with the words "Star Lord" emblazoned on it, so he's definitely the guy they're looking for.
• Dramatic Space Drifting: One dead Nova Corps soldier is seen floating in Quarantine Zone, which was sealed off with gel and force field to prevent munitions and debris from affecting interstellar travel.
• Don't Explain the Joke: A late-game mission has Drax make a joke. Rocket, knowing Drax to be Literal-Minded, questions whether Drax was being serious. Drax readily admits that he was making a joke to create levity. Gamora actually seems to find this amusing.
• Double Jump: The main way you're going to use Star-Lord's rocket boots is to briefly boost yourself upwards mid-air. You can only use it to outright fly in a specific-story section and with an in-combat rechargable ability.
• Dual Boss: The first boss of the game is a pair of predatory Slakebeasts. Later, Star-Lord must take on both Blood Brothers at once.
• Eloquent in My Native Tongue: As befitting his usual depiction, Groot is said to be very eloquent in his own language, though as Peter doesn't speak it, we have to take Rocket word for it.
  Groot: "I am Groot."
  Rocket: "Groot said some mushy stuff, let's pretend I said it too."
• Enemy Scan: An upgrade to the visors allows you to scan enemies to get a paragraph spelling out their identity, tactics, and the best way to kill them. Thankfully, using the visor slows the gameplay down, so you have plenty of time to read the intel before they can knock off your reading glasses.
• Equipment Upgrade: Rocket can upgrade your guns, shield, visor, or jet boots at work benches you find throughout the games’ levels and in the ‘’Milano’’. To do this, you need to spend an designated amount of scrap metal that you collect can by going off the beaten track in most levels.
• Essence Drop: Defeating enemies will result in them dropping green orbs that heal you. This is the only way to recover your actual health.
• Event Flag: The game will often give the player two options of what Star-Lord can say in the middle of mid-gameplay banter. This'll change the course of the conversation and will often result in characters saying different things and taking on different moods in later conversations.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: One of the first major hints that Magus has overtaken Adam Warlock's body is that Kammy spits in his face when she sees him. Later on, to confirm that Adam is back to normal, she licks his face instead.
• Experienced Protagonist: Each Guardian is already a veteran of some kind and it’s clear they’ve worked as a team for at least a few missions already judging by their conversations and some codex entries, though it's in this game that they fully and firmly form their unity as a team.
• Everyone Has Standards: Rocket is extremely self-centered and is generally the least empathic of the group, but even he has his limits. He reacts with shock when he sees the converted Nova Force executing those who resist. He’s also in disbelief when the Worldmind refuses to save the innocent people from the conversions and even rants that, as much as he dislikes the Nova force, they would never abandon innocent people and the Worldmind is just being a coward. He's also ultimately willing to face his phobia of water to save the team.
• Face Your Fears: Rocket's arc is about confronting his own insecurities and trauma, especially as manifested through his hydrophobia. He even rushes through a flooded tunnel to save the Guardians, unlocking his mega-ability and getting over his fear.
• Failed a Spot Check: The Guardians don't learn why Ko-Rel is near the Quarantine Zone (read: to investigate within the QZ field) because the second they end their parting call with Ko-Rel, the other Guardians are busy glaring at Peter and Peter himself is too busy trying to placate them to notice the Hala's Hope turn and fly into the opening in the QZ containment field. It's not until they revisit the Hala's Hope and view a helmet cam of Ko-Rel's team inside the mining ship that they learn where she went.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Should the Guardians decide to present Rocket to Lady Hellbender instead of Groot, no matter what option Star-Lord chooses during the ensuing negotiation, the end result will always be Rocket flying off the handle and the team being forced to immediately fight their way out of the fortress.
• Fake-Out Fade-Out: Twice:
  • During Quill's Promise, where he saves his mother and lives a peaceful life on Earth with her and the Guardians. It cuts to a plain white-on-black credits, but then immediately offers the player a choice to reject the fantasy, pushing the story forward.
  • After the Guardians of the Galaxy defeat Raker and Warlock absorbs Magus back into his body, the team ride away in the Milano as the credits roll. Except, some of the credit names are randomly replace with "Magus"... eventually, it's revealed that the Magus is not gone, leading to the game's True Final Boss.
• Fantastic Religious Weirdness: Drax gives a lot of insight into the religion of his people throughout the game. It's pretty standard Proud Warrior Race stuff with a Valhalla-like afterlife you can enter into by performing great deeds, with the mythology around Maklu IV being the most fleshed out example of their mix of piety, bloodlust, and science-fantasy goodness. Here, an exiled criminal decided to face the dragon Fin Fang Foom alone and died in a battle that made him and his sword famous, making him a saint and inspiring an interplanetary pilgrimage where outcasts would go and die facing Foom so they could die gloriously and go to the afterlife.
• Fantastic Slurs: Rocket angrily calls the other Guardians "sons of chogs" if Quill allows Drax to throw him over a chasm.
• Fastball Special: Drax suggests throwing an unwilling Rocket over a chasm impeding the Guardians progress three times, with the rest of the team outright refusing the third time around. The fourth time around, Rocket is the one to suggest it, since he's grown to trust his teammates - only this time Drax throws a regular object, citing that Rocket is a valued member of the team, not a tool for tossing around.
• Final Boss Preview: There’s a brief fight with Grand Unifier Raker in Chapter 8 where the Guardians barely manage to break his shield. He flees and they don’t get a proper rematch until the endgame.
• Finger Gun: Pusing the attack button on your first trip to Knowhere will cause Peter to make some finger guns and make "pew pew" noises.
• Flashback Effects: In the run-up to the second flashback to Star-Lord's last day on Earth, the camera slowly zooms in and in on a side-profile of Star-Lord walking on and on as his friends voices become more distant and drawn out. The camers eventually moves past him to the background and then cuts to the flashback.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Early on, when exploring the Milano whilst preparing to enter the Quarantine Zone, Quill can find a data log in Rocket's room that mentions some team costumes he commissioned from a source on Knowwhere to make the team look more legitimate and badass than the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits they actually are. The Guardians get to actually wear these uniforms as the final unlockable outfits for themselves during the final assault on the Church of Truth.
  • On the first trip to Knowhere, you can ovehear one tourist telling another about an amazing radio frequency spreading across the galaxy with an amazing message. He seems really eager for his friend to listen to it. He has accepted the Promise of the Universal Church of Truth, which they're using to brainwash the universe.
• Freeze Ray: The Ice element turns Peter's guns into a single blaster that fires blue beam that freezes any water, gelatine, energy sheild, or person it touches into a big ice cube.
• Funny Background Event:
  • While in the fog caves of Lamentis in Chapter 10, the mystical fog is capable of creating enemies based on whatever the Guardians speak of. At one point, Peter tries to give an inspiring speech to the Guardians which only ends up creating enemy duplicates of them all for a Mirror Match. While this is happening, the rest of the team is completely oblivious, save for Groot who can be seen looking around, getting more and more nervous as each new enemy spawns in.
  • During the final fight, as the guardians speak, Kammy the space llama can be seen floating through space in the background.
• Gameplay Ally Immortality: Allies that you have no control of (like Mantis and Nikki) generally have no health bar and can’t be killed or incapacitated by any enemies.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Despite being experienced fighters who have gone on multiple missions already, all of the Guardians start off with only one skill and Peter has no equipment upgrades. Justified, however, since this game sees the team become far more tight-knit as events threaten to destroy them.
  • The Blood Brothers are able to recognize Peter because of the Star-Lord decal on the back of his jacket even if he's wearing an alternate outfit that doesn't have the decal.
• The Ghost: Richard Rider who, despite being mentioned several times throughout the game, never shows up in person. It’s revealed that he went AWOL shortly after the Galactic War, with his helmet left behind in the Collector’s Emporium.
• Good Powers, Bad People: Uniquely for video game enemies, the Church of Unified Truth use Faith Energy to fly, heal their allies, reduce any harm that can be done to them, and even create defensive barriers to dissuade attackers. This only plays into their hypocrisy, since they only have these powers because they brainwashed people into participating in Human Sacrifices to steal their genuine faith and use it for the Church's own purposes.
• The Goomba: The voxiplode is a sentient, spiky soccer ball that can only attack by jumping at Peter from close range. All it takes is one swift kick to kill it, making it the weakest enemy in the game. It also happens to be the most common enemy in the game’s first level.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: A lot of swear words are replaced with some other words that are common in Cosmic Marvel: "D'ast" for "damn", "scut" for "shit" and "flark" for "fuck".
• Go, Ye Heroes, Go and Die:
  • Pick the wrong dialogue option during a Huddle and Peter will give his teammates a tone-deaf speech that leaves them more confused or annoyed than inspired.
  • When Mantis is directing the Guardians through the dark caves to cure Drax of the church's corruption, her farsight abilities and spacey attitude mean that she cheerfully informs the Guardians of the various ways in which they could/will die in the caves in alternative timelines, especially Rocket, who apparently suffers multiple deaths by drowning, which makes him even more irritable than usual.
• Great Offscreen War: The game takes place twelve years after the Galactic War and that the Universal Church of Truth is gathering followers by promising to restore everything that was lost during the war.
• Guest-Star Party Member:
  • Mantis technically joins the Guardians for a chapter, journeying alongside them as they navigate a dangerous area and braving multiple combat encounters with them. The "technically" part comes in because Mantis is using her mental abilities to keep Drax pacified during his Brainwashed and Crazy state, and can’t join in combat using him due to the mental strain that would put on him shattering her control over the unstable berserker, as well as being unable to use Drax's great strength to bypass obstacles in the Guardian's way, forcing them to find alternative methods to proceed without Drax's aid.
  • During the game’s final battle against Magus, a Soul Stone-empowered Nikki joins as an uncontrollable guest.
• Half-Breed Discrimination: Peter learns from Gamora and Drax that the Kree Empire has very strict laws regarding Kree of "impure" lineage, with Drax noting that one possible case would be a mother and child "hanging from a wall" by the Accusers. That possible case is in regards to Ko-Rel and Nikki, with the Accusers demanding proof of Nikki's heritage on account of her Disappeared Dad, whom the Guardians think is Peter. While this isn't the case, this does put Ko-Rel's near-overprotectiveness of Nikki under a whole new light.
  • Nikki's epilogue text reveals that she appeared before the Kree Purity Council and proudly displayed her flaming-orange hair to them, which would be an obvious sign of her non-Kree nature, if not her heritage. The text makes no mention of the Council trying anything in retaliation, instead touching on Nikki telling the Accusers where they can stick their warhammers and joining the Guardians of the Galaxy.
• Happily Adopted: It’s revealed that Ko-Rel adopted Nikki to protect her from the Kree empire's purity laws. At the end of the game, the Guardians adopt her as well.
• Harmless Freezing:
  • Subverted. Quill first unlocks his Elemental charged shots when he, Rocket, Groot and Drax fall into a pool of the strange jelly substance that various monsters have been attacking them with, which threatens to suck them under, starting with Rocket, the smallest. Quill is able to activate his guns to freeze the Jelly just as Rocket sinks to his chin, but he's adversely affected by the cold even if he's no longer drowning and needs to be quickly broken free of the now-solid substance by Groot to save him.
  • There are also certain Ice-type enemies that can freeze and immobilise the Guardians like they got hit with Quill's Element Blaster's Ice mode, requiring him to smash their icy restraints via Pistol-Whipping, with no negative repercussions to the Guardians after they're freed.
  • Averted with foes frozen by the Element Blasters' ice mode - they become Literally Shattered Lives if defeated.
• Healing Boss: The Dweller-In-Darkness can re-fill the health bar for each of his tentacles by putting in some goop. The thing is, his attempt to do this is the perfect opportunity for Star-Lord and Gamora to chop off said tentacle, permanently removing it from the fight.
• Heaven: Drax tells Peter on Knowhere about the afterlife his people belief in, Ultath, where those who completed good lives go to enjoy rest forever. Peter mentions in the same conversation that he thinks his mom is in Heaven, while Drax continues to happily talk about Ultath whenever a good opportunity for death comes up.
• Hero of Another Story: The Nova Corps database alluded to unseen adventures taken by characters like Quasar, Moondragon, and Richard Rider, with the latter in particular conspicuously MIA in-universe.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Star-Lord ultimately dies resealing Magus in the Soul Stone. It doesn’t stick, as Groot quickly revives him after everyone gets back on the ship.
• He's Just Hiding: Invoked. Despite seemingly killing him in the Galactic War, Drax is convinced that Thanos is somehow still alive. This ends up majorly influencing his mindscape once he's enthralled by the Promise. The ending suggests that he may actually be right.
• Hopeless Boss Fight:
  • The fight against the Blood Brothers starts out this way. Star-Lord is alone, against two super-strong aliens whose armor is completely impervious to his attacks. The most Peter can do is stay out of their reach until help shows up, at which point the fight becomes winnable.
  • Grand Unifier Raker is fought initially upon the Guardians first being captured by the Church of Truth and brought before the Matriarch/Nikki and subjected to 'The Promise". Upon most of them snapping out of the Lotus-Eater Machine and negatively affecting Nikki in the process, Raker fights them whilst the fanatics escort Nikki away. He's got three health bars whereas most enemies up to this point only have two, and whilst the Guardians can damage his health, they won't be able to fully drain it before he creates a trident out of Faith Energy and knocks them down with it.
  • Drax's mental projection of Thanos is an In-Universe example, stemming from Drax's sincere belief that he didn't actually kill Thanos during their apparent Duel to the Death and thinking he's still out somewhere in the galaxy.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Rocket Raccoon and Gamora's attempt to sing are more like yelling than anything actually musical. They are so bad that the resident llama is actively repelled by their voices.
• Holy Hand Grenade: The church uses faith energy to power their technology and weapons. The fact they use it to forcibly convert... okay conquer the Galaxy means that everyone stands a chance of dying from holy relics.
• Idiosyncratic Combo Levels: It goes from Fantastic to Incredible, to Uncanny, to Amazing, and finally to Marvelous.
• Implausible Deniability: Peter tries his best to convince two bounty hunters that he isn't Star-Lord despite wearing a jacket with "STAR-LORD" embroidered on the back in bright and bold lettering.
• Interface Spoiler: The game lists the controls for each of the elemental shots from the beginning of the game, even though Peter doesn't learn that he has the capacity to control the elements until the third level and doesn't unlock the final element until the penultimate level.
• Insistent Terminology: Peter insists that the Guardians are "Legally Incorporated Heroes for Hire", not pirates.
• Invincible Boogeyman: A sentry drone in the Sacrosanct can be halted with your Freeze Ray, but is otherwise invincible. You can only run and avoid the instant-death laser wall it pulls behind it
• Irony:
  • Drax spends most of the early game suspecting Gamora of planning to betray the team. Ultimately it's him who does that, though under the effect of The Promise.
  • A minor example in the first chapter: Peter constantly drops pop-culture references, but doesn't see anything out of the ordinary about one of the groups the team's divided into being called "Team Rocket". Why? Because he hasn't been back to Earth since The '80s and Pokémon is after his time.
• It's Raining Men: Befitting his nature as Superman copy, Adam Warlock enters the fray on Knowhere by jumping out of Peter's spaceship mid-flight and straight into the battle in the middle of the city.
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: Chapter 11, "Mind Over Matter," sees the Guardians delve into the depths of Drax's mind. They begin by walking through the blank-black void of the astral plane towards Drax's looming, giant floating head. They then go through a nightmare of his and then proceed into flashbacks of Drax being happy with his family.
• Just Following Orders: One disgruntled tourist you can overhear on Knowhere compares a worker doing his job to a Chitauri foot-soldier committing genocide on Thanos' behalf. The worker takes offense since his father died fighting the Chitauri, and the two bicker on.
• Killer Rabbit: Lady Hellbender is introduced buying a tiny little crab monster. While the Guardians initially take this as a sign that she can be scammed, it quickly proves its merit by shapeshifting into one of Hellbender's giant guard dogs and eating its former owner.
• Kill the Ones You Love: The only way to be free of the Promise is to kill its projections of your loved ones. You as Peter have to shoot his mom three times and kill her to avoid a Non-Standard Game Over.
• Launcher Move: Groot's second special lets him grow a bunch of trees right under a group of enemy and send them flying into the air. This makes them easy picking for Quill's laser fire and other ranged moves.
• Let's You and Him Fight: The first meeting between the Guardians and Adam Warlock devolves into a pointless brawl because Warlock assumes they're working with Raker. He quickly realizes his mistake, but doesn't apologize, souring the Guardians to him even as they team up.
• Long-Range Fighter: Star-Lord and Rocket Racoon are the only Guardians with any means of long-range attack, meaning that the player will probably have to deal with flying and elevated enemies as Peter rather than just spamming the other Guardians abilities to deal with them. They can use Rocket's bombs ocassionally to defeat a distant enemy, but in prolonged fights with elevated enemies, you're going to do most of your damage with Peter's blasters.
• Lore Codex: The catalog organizes information lore you've learned into six categories — characters, factions, monsters, locations, Guardian collectibles, and archives (messages and texts that can be read in the game's levels).
• Lotus-Eater Machine: How the Promise works. It "promises" to reunite someone with their loved ones. Breaking it involves killing said loved ones in the dream, for Peter and Drax, and implied to have been the case for the others.
• Magical Profanity Filter: Rocket and Star-Lord try to curse each other out in an alien prison, only for each of their curses to be replaced by the words "woof" and "bark." It turns out momentarily that they're actually in some sort of trance created by the telepathic dog Cosmo.
• Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: It is heavily hinted that Nova Cadet Nikki is Peter’s daughter from a heated moment of pre-battle passion with Nova Centurion Ko-Rel, then a Kree soldier. Eventually averted - Nikki is revealed to have been a Happily Adopted war orphan, taken in to protect her from the Kree's purity law enforcement after the war's end.
• Meaningful Echo: When Quill makes a very rocky landing with the Milano on Lady Hellbender's planet, he tries to laugh it off with the other Guardians, but they're too upset about the landing (and the situation he put them in) to join in. Much later in the game, when he makes an even more dangerous landing on Fin Fang Foom's planet, they all laugh it off, showing how much they've grown as a group in the internim.
• Mind-Control Eyes: Those who have been corrupted by The Promise have their eyes glow purple.
• Mind Virus: The Promise, a strange psychic signal that causes people to become fanatical soldiers of the Universal Church of Truth by trapping their consciousness in a Lotus-Eater Machine of their loved ones returned to them - while Magus quietly feasts on their Faith Energy.
• Mook Chivalry: If you make the wrong choices, you’ll end up fighting against an endless wave of robotic inquisitors near the end of the game. Thankfully, only two of the robots will fight you at a time, while their allies will happily rest outside the battlefield as you whittle down their fellows’ health bars.
• Mook Medic: The Unifiers have the unique ability to heal the Guardians’ enemies around them and increase their damage output. They can also fly, create shields around themselves, and trap your allies in force fields just to make to harder to stop them from healing.
• More Dakka: Rocket's ultimate ability, Five Barrel Barrage. He whips his entire arsenal of guns out of thin air, using a multi-armed exoskeleton to carry them all simultaneously, and unloads them all in the general direction of his target.
• Morph Weapon: Using the elemental powers of Star-Lord's guns cause them to shift into one gun, with a different design and color based on which element he's using.
• Moving Beyond Bereavement: Throughout the game, everyone is forced to confront their grief with the "Promise." Being given the chance to potentially undo all their pain and suffering proves too much for the galaxy that it gets to a point where nobody is immune. What makes the Guardians become more resistant to it is by confronting their demons and accepting the loss. The villains are so deeply entrenched in the "Promise" that they deem anyone who rejects it a heretic. Peter has to destroy Nikki's illusory birthday party just to be able to talk to her about Ko-Rel's death and Raker dies believing it was Worth It to see his dead son again.
• Multiple Endings: Sorta. During the post credits "Where Are They Now" segment, the length of each Guardian's epilogue depends on how much you invested in building a relationship with them, gaining up to 3 notes.
• Mundane Utility: Peter can direct his teammates to use their talents in non-combat contexts to overcome obstacles.
  • Rocket can fit in small spaces, and tinker (or blast away) troublesome machinery.
  • Groot can extend vine bridges if there's an anchor on the other side.
  • Gamora can hack her way through vines or loose tubes, or anchor her blade in a weak wall as a hand-hold for Peter to relay off of.
  • Drax can heft, budge, or topple heavy objects with his Super-Strength.
• Multiple Life Bars: The Dweller-in-Darkness has five life bars in total: one for each of its four tentacles, and a larger one for its body. All four of the tentacles' health bars must be depleted before the body can be damaged.
• Muzzle Flashlight: In chapter 1, Quill and Rocket end up in a dark room that you're supposed to light up by firing your laser guns. Odds are when you do this, you'll end up hitting a large sack of resin, which happens to unleash a terrible monster who will haunt you throughout the rest of the game.
• Mythology Gag: The game contains a large number of references to Marvel Comics history, particularly the cosmic side of the universe. Particularly noteworthy is The Collector's Emporium Gallery, which displays and explains significant items like Frog Thor, the Cosmic Cube and the Book of Cagliostro. The gallery's entries make mention of even more Marvel staples like Galactus and the gods of Asgard.
  • Other items found The Collector’s Emporium include The Mandarin’s ten rings, a Superhuman Registration Act pamphlet, and Stan Lee’s glasses.
  • During Chapter 13, Mantis expresses surprise upon learning that Quill is half-Spartoi, quickly questioning if her not knowing that information is because it isn’t always the case - such as in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where he's instead half-Celestial.
  • At one point during the endgame, Mantis tries to warn Bug (who was a member of the Guardians in some of the comics) before realizing that this universe’s Guardians have yet to meet him.
  • Rocket and Drax state that legends tell of Fin Fang Foom wearing purple shorts. He actually has a purple underbelly, but the ice armor he wears during the first phase of his boss fight causes it to look like he's wearing shorts.
  • At the end of the game, Nikki Gold absorbs the power of the Soul Stone, causing her to gain Flaming Hair. This in conjunction with her new green jumpsuit gives her the resemblance to her original comic counterpart.
  • Groot uses luminescent spores to light the way in a heavily-darkened area during Chapter 10, just like he did in the Guardians' cinematic debut.
  • In the flashbacks, Peter's unseen childhood friends are named Dan and Andy, after comic writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, who created the 2008 version of the Guardians of the Galaxy (Star-Lord's version, the one the movies and the game were based on).
  • Rocket mentions encountering a Klyntar parasite.
• Named After the Injury: On Knowhere, Peter can run into an alien smuggler who’s missing his lips and claims that they're best friends. Peter has no idea who he is, and the game's subtitles only refer to him as "Lipless". If the player checks the criminal records on Nova Corps' computer system, even the smuggler's criminal record only identifies him as Lipless and mentions that he has no known real name.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Oh no! The Guardians killed a monster they meant to capture and Lady Hellbender is mad enough to hunt them down! Good thing Groot can now revive the recently deceased!
• New Weapon Target Range: Right after each time you unlock a new element for Peter's guns, you'll move onto an area where the ability is required to proceed or is super effective against your enemies.
  • After unlocking the ice element, you'll find yourself platforming across waterfalls you have to freeze and almost exclusively fighting Blob Monsters who can be instantly killed when frozen.
  • You unlock the lightning element in a powered-down spaceship where you can only proceed by shooting electricity into various generators. You also fight a variety of Nova Corpsmen whose shields and jetpacks are shut down by electricity.
  • The wind element is unlocked in an area filled with snipers who you can best be killed by blowing them towards you and is shortly followed by a puzzle where you need to drag plants all over the place with the wind.
  • Lastly, the plasma element is unlocked in the Slippy-Slidey Ice World with plenty of ice to melt and plenty of furry Wendigos that can be roasted alive.
• Next Tier Power-Up: Each of the Guardians earn a Mega Ability after overcoming a significant personal trial in the narrative.
• Nice Girl: While a bit rough around the edges, being a former assassin for an abusive tyrant, Gamora comes across as one of the kinder members of the group alongside Groot. She’s not a Jerkass like Rocket, is generally moral, supportive of Peter (especially when talking about Peter's collectibles and his personal baggage tied to them), and the only time she really loses her cool is when Drax continously accuses her of planning to betray the group.
• No Item Use for You: The last level starts you off fighting waves and waves of enemies without Peter Quill's casette tapes. Without those, you can't use the Huddle abilities to get a bunch of free uses of the Guardians' special abilities.
• Non-Standard Game Over: Picking the two worst options in the game's final Dialogue Tree causes the game to reset you to right before the scene starts. If you tell Nikki Rocket released Magus on a bet or pretend not to hear Ko-Rel at the door, she will give in to the Promise again.
• No OSHA Compliance: Peter questions the lack of railings along chasms in Lady Hellbender's fortress, directly comparing it to the Death Star's poor safety conditions (a reference the other Guardians don't understand).
• Not Hyperbole: When asked how much more dangerous Fin Fang Foom is than a monster that nearly killed the Guardians, Drax responds that Foom is ten thousand times worse. Rocket is quick to point out that Drax is Literal-Minded and thus actually means Foom is more dangerous than ten thousand of those monsters.
• Old-School Dogfight: There are a couple of sections where you play as the Milano and get into a typical dogfight with enemy ships. You barrel roll past their fire, bet a couple hundred feet behind them, and shoot them down from behind.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Drax tossing Rocket over a chasm in Seknarf Nine to activate a bridge, should the player tell Drax to do it. Rocket will be pissed and will even shoot at the Guardians for it, he will always bring it up in arguments where he feels mistreated.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Fin Fang Foom has the body structure and fiery breath of a typical European dragon, but his underbelly is covered in spiracle-like tubes.
• Overheating: Star-Lord's blasters never run out of ammo, but firing them continuously will make them overheat for a few seconds. One perk you have to unlock allows you to quickly undo the overheat with a timed prompt, which will also cause Star-Lord to fire off a single powerful blast.
• Pardon My Klingon: Most characters make liberal use of space swears but Rocket takes the cake, using a new swear every five minutes. It's implied he's making a lot of them up.
• Perfect Pacifist People: The population of Lamentis is made up of monks and scholars who have achieved perfect emotional wisdom, allowing them to totally resist the allure of the Universal Church of Truth. Unfortunately for the Guardians, part of their enlightenment involves the practice of pacifism, so they can't help in the Guardians' battle with the Church outside of supplying a place of refuge.
• Pistol-Whipping: Star-Lord can whack enemies with his blasters in melee combat. It's also played with, as thanks to his Morph Weapon capabilities, Quill can transform the blasters into Knuckleduster-like weapons designed for close-range combat, rather than an improvised method of close-range attack.
• Plant Aliens: On Seknarf Nine, there are aliens which resemble quadrupedal man-eating plants, while Lamentis is home to the ancient Cotati. And of course, there's Groot the humanoid tree.
• Price on Their Head: Lady Hellbender puts out a bounty for the Guardians after they try to swindle her and kill her pet Dweller. As a result, Bounty Hunters like the Blood Brothers and the Lethal Legion come after them several times.
• Punch! Punch! Punch! Uh Oh...: Drax tackles one of the Blood Brothers through the floor and starts punching him in the face. His attacks do hurt at first, but then the other Brother gets close enough for their shared Armor of Invincibility to activate. Suddenly Drax's punching bag stops flinching and starts smirking, at which point Drax realizes that he's in trouble.
• Red Herring: When fighting across the exterior of Sacrosanct, the Guardians mention several times that they would be totally screwed if Raker turned off the artificial gravity. But he doesn’t.
• Regenerating Shields, Static Health: Peter has two health bars, one for his shield and one for his actual hit points. The shield bar increases back to maximum over time, while his actual hit points don't recover unless you collect green health orbs from defeating enemies.
• Related in the Adaptation: Ko-Rel and Nikki are mother and daughter in this game, but in the comics, they're not even from the same reality — Ko-Rel is from Earth-616, while Nikki is from the Guardians' original setting of Earth-691. Downplayed in that Nikki is actually adopted.
• Religious Robot: The Guardians find it very surprising to learn the United Church's giant priests are actually robot priests powered by the faith of their flock.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: Drax tries to impart how impossible it would be for Rocket Raccoon to kill a legendary dragon by asking him if he could kill the ocean with a gun. Rocket says he could and Drax says they should test that theory with earnest curiosity in his voice.
• Rhymes on a Dime: The Verbal Tic of the Magus, contrasting Warlock's Added Alliterative Appeal.
• Running Gag:
  • The Guardians leaving the fridge door ajar. Turns out nobody's leaving it open; the door latch is just broken. And according to Mantis, all of the alternate Milanos she's seen have that door latch broken! This ends up being a hint in one of Peter's nightmares, in which the fridge door is closed. Not even Peter's memories of his pre-kidnapping childhood are safe: there is an ajar fridge in his house's basement.
  • For some reason or another, the Guardians really like using Peter's toothbrush for cleaning purposes emphatically not dental in nature, much to his annoyance.
• Screams Like a Little Girl:
  • Rocket teases Peter about this when he's surprised by one of the ball-like alien creatures inhabiting the Quarantine Zone whilst separated from the rest of the team, his resulting fight being clearly broadcast to the rest of the team through their communicators.
  • Later on, Rocket himself lets out a very pitchy shriek when he sees Space Llama/Kammy has chewed through the Milano's cables.
  • Gamora later pretends to lose her grip on Peter and drop him down a cliff. Peter let's out a very high pitched shriek much to Gamora's amusement.
• Seeks Another's Resurrection: The Universal Church of Truth and their followers feed faith energy to their god in return for its Promise to revive all their dead loved ones.
• Sequel Hook: While the game’s story wraps up nicely, there are a few lingering plot lines that are set up. Mostly noticeably, the fact that it’s incredibly likely that Thanos is still alive and plotting his next move, also an optional conversation with Gamora reveals that he’s in league with Lady Death.
• Series Continuity Error: A meta sort of one. The database lists the first appearance of every character in the comics, and Meredith Quill is listed as first appearing in Marvel NOW! in 2012. In fact, she first appeared (logically) alongside her son in Marvel Preview in 1976, although that version was a much more passive and minor character who really only served to motivate Peter.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Adam Warlock uses a lot of poetic and outdated words in overly elbaorate sentences in order to meet his standard for alliteration. This mostly just confuses and annoys the other Guardians.
  Adam Warlock: My heavenly healing is veiled malignance, a first folly I swore never to repeat.
  Peter Quill: Can someone translate this guy?
  Rocket Raccoon: He said "no."
• Sheathe Your Sword: Drax's projection of Thanos cannot be beaten through normal means. He'll get right back up every time the Guardians knock him down, spawning duplicates of himself for good measure. The only way to move forward is to stop fighting and let him clobber you.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: A whole galaxy full of them after the cataclysmic Galactic War against Thanos's horde. It set the stage for an easy takeover for the Universal Church of Truth, with so many easily falling for The Promise to soothe their trauma.
• Shield-Bearing Mook: Several enemies have energy shields that partially or totally encase their bodies and prevent you from doing damage to them. You can break them by either filling up their stun meter or by freezing the shield with Peter's elemental guns.
• Shrouded in Myth: A good portion of Drax's dialogue is him repeating legends he heard about famous figures like Lady Hellbender that are so ridiculous that they can't be true. Examples include Lady Hellbender defeating a fleet by holding her breath or changing the weather on Seknarf 9 to change her mood.
• Shoot the Medic First: Your fellow Guardians will shout at the player to focus fire on any enemy that's healing or buffing enemies. The enemies are also familiar with this tactic, so healers like the Church's Unifiers mainly focus on evading the Guardians and setting up shields to protect themselves so they can live to support the weaker goons that get their hands dirty.
• Shout-Out:
  • The first few minutes of the game see you deploying a set of sound-producing devices to lure out a large monster that are referred to as [[Literature/Dune Thumpers.]]
  • Peter has a TRON poster hanging in his bedroom. His other posters feature Bland-Name Product versions of the films The Last Starfighter ("The Lost Starwalker"), Gremlins ("Furthings", also a likely Critters nod), and WarGames ("NukeGame"). He also has a bland-name Fighting Fantasy gamebook, which he cheats at with bookmarks.
  • The code the Guardians use to enter the Quarantine Zone is 0451.
  • There is a hidden Shower Scene in the game which is a shot-for-shot recreation of a similar one from one of Eidos Montreal’s previous titles, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.
  • One of the code-phrases Star-Lord can give the Guardians on Seknarf Nine is "sweep the leg."
  • While crossing a chasm, Peter mumbles to himself "Come to the coast... Have a few laughs..."
  • Peter has a cherished toy Chewbacca, which he gives to Nikki while bonding with her.
  • When Peter uses the wind ability to drag an opponent to melee range, he will sometimes yell "Get over here!"
  • Upon picking up the Xatar's Blade collectible in Drax's room, Peter says "Now that's a knife" in an Australian accent.
  • Two of Lady Hellbender's bikes resemble droid heads from Star Wars.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The penultimate level is set on an snowy planet fill with icey walls to bust through, camouflaged yetis to battle, and avalanches to dodge.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Every time after using the “Huddle Up” mechanic, Peter will play a random song from his tape which temporarily replaces the OST. There’s a chance that, even during some of the game’s more climatic battles, songs like “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” or even more hilariously, “Never Gonna Give You Up” will play. Also a chance of Autobots, Rock Out! when more appropriate songs like "Kickstart My Heart" and "The Final Countdown" start playing.
• Space Is Noisy: Explosions, laser blasts, rock music, and even normal conversations can be heard in space despite a total lack of air.
• Space Whale: The Acanti resemble gigantic, spacefaring whales with tentacles and red skin.
• Squad Controls: Star-Lord can order the other Guardians to use special attacks on his current target, such as ordering Groot to restrain an enemy with vines or Rocket to throw a cluster grenade.
• Stat-O-Vision: Like how many games use Aura Vision, this game lets the player see enemies, interactible objects, and your objectives highlighted by activating Peter Quill's visor.
• Stealth-Based Mission: If you sell Groot to Lady Hellbender, the Guardians have to sneak through her palace without bumping into her sleeping guards or breaking any of their many booze glasses. If you do so, a guard will wake up from their drunken slumber, alert everyone else, and give you a Non-Standard Game Over.
• Story-Breaker Power: Mantis' ability to see potential and actual futures is a massive help to our hero that allows her to be just in the right place to save their bacon a few times. Theoretically she could tell them the best thing to do in every scenario, but she doesn't because the writers made it so she confuses different timelines and forgets what happened in this one.
• Stuffed into the Fridge: Lylla, once again killed off in backstory purely to motivate Rocket with a dead loved one, unlike her original comics counterpart.
• Superheroes Wear Capes: Adam Warlock, as a laser-shooting Flying Brick with a dedication to fighting for truth and justice, is the most typical superhero of the group and also the only one to get a fancy cape.
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham: The game liberally references famous space-faring Marvel characters like Nova, Galactus, and the Avengers even though none of them help stop the impending destruction of the galaxy. The Guardians reason the former two must be too selfish to help out in this situation, while dismissing the Avengers as a disorganized mess of a team that can't help them.
• Suspiciously Apropos Music: "Don't Fear the Reaper" is playing on the radio in a dream Peter has about his mother not long after hearing the Church of Universal Truth Promise to bring an end to mortality. Since the dream is created by the Church as it eats away at Peter's soul, it's an ominous hint at Peter's own demise.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: The Dweller in Darkness is a flying boss largely impervious to gunfire in his second phase. This would make it impossible for the Guardians to defeat him, except that he decides to fire bombs at the Guardians that they can knock right back at his face.
• Talking Is a Free Action: The Huddle Up action brings combat to a halt so Peter Quill can give the Guardians a rousing mid-fight pep talk. Whether the enemies are brainwashed space cops, bloodthirsty religious fanatics, or ravenous alien beasts, all of them will politely stand around waiting for the Guardians to finish psyching themselves up.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  • Zig-Zagged: Drax in particular has disdain towards Gamora both for having worked as an assassin for Thanos and having betrayed him. Gamora is standoffish from most of the team. But Peter, Rocket and Groot get along fairly well (The later two in particular). Rocket even expresses a fondness for when it was just him and Groot and Peter, despite his otherwise rough exterior.
  • Played straight as a major subplot is Peter and Rocket having a falling out over Peter's decisions and failure to live up to Rocket's efforts. For a portion of the game Rocket's basically just following Peter because he has no other options.
• Tentacle Rope: Groot can use his vines to restrain a staggered enemy, prolonging their helplessness for a bit.
• Tentacled Terror: The Dweller-in-Darkness is a giant monster resembling a floating, four-tentacled octopus. Lady Hellbender sics it on the Guardians at one point.
• Theme Music Power-Up: After a Huddle Up, whether you pick the right option or not, a random song from Peter's playlist will play to coincide with the temporary boost the Guardians (or just Peter if you flark up) get. This song will last the rest of the battle.
• Throw Down the Bomblet: Rocket Raccoon himself states that bombs are one of his favorite things and his gameplay show it. The first ability you unlock for him is a barrage of a couple dozen grenades. The second? Another type of grenade that pulls enemies in to make them more vulnerable to area-of-effect attacks, like grenades. Okay, what about his third? Oh, it's a grenade that explodes into other grenades. Alright, well, he just hits people for melee attacks right? No, in group combos where everyone else punches the enemy, Rocket throws a grenade at them from point-blank range!
• Tragic Intangibility: Just before the final battle, Ko-Rel's ghost emphasizes the point that she isn't real by letting Peter's hand pass through her.
• Translator Buddy: As per usual, Rocket fulfills this purpose for Groot, as no one else on the Team besides him can understand him. Mantis, and later Adam Warlock can also understand him, but usually leave the translating to Rocket.
• Translator Microbes: One of the optional items you find is a universal translator. Quill has one of his own implanted in his brain (explaing why everyone speaks English here), but collecting it prompts him to ask Groot why he doesn't try to find a translator that will allow others to understand his tongue.
• The Unfought: Despite being set up as a primary antagonist, Lady Hellbender is never actually fought. The Guardians actually have to ally with her against Raker.
• Uncertain Doom: While it’s stated several times that Thanos was killed by Drax during the Galactic War, Drax himself reveals that he has no memory of performing the deed - having passed out during the fight, and waking up in a Xandar hospital with the Nova Corp claiming he killed Thanos. When Drax had pressed for proof, they had, for some strange reason, refused to give any further details, which led to Drax's subsequent "rampage" for answers. He fully believes that Thanos is very likely still alive, and always prefix or suffix people's claims of his killing of the Mad Titan with "allegedly".
• Unnecessary Combat Roll: Peter's dash can see him doing sliding and rolling around on the ground when dodging past enemy fire. If you do so quickly enough, your ridiculous sliding may even cause time to slow down!
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: Despite the fact that Heather "Moondragon" Douglas exists in this continuity, it seems that she’s not Drax's daughter, as he’s no longer the reincarnation of a human but an alien. Furthermore, this Drax had a wife and daughter whose deaths he still grieves to this day. Moondragon's existence is relegated to a single Novacorp log with no mention of Drax in it.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: On the return to Knowhere, the Guardians can find Lipless dead in a back alley. They don’t even comment upon it.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: During the Guardians’ initial mission in the Quarantine Zone, Star-Lord or Rocket accidentally releases the Magus from his prison in the Soul Stone, setting the primary plot of the game in motion.
• Utility Weapon: Each element Quill unlocks for his gun has a non-combat purpose. The ice element can be used to block up gas leaks and create platforms from water, the lightning element can be used to power generators, the wind element can be used to pull handles, and the plasma element can be used to melt ice walls.
• Video Game Caring Potential: The game gives you plenty of opportunities to chat with the other Guardians, ask them about what's troubling them, and even cheer them up in various ways. You might convince Rocket to open up about his trauma from Half-World, improve Gamora's mood by singing a song she likes, or compliment Groot on his work corralling the resident space llama.
• Video Game Dashing: One of the few ways you can use Peter's jet boots out of combat is to give yourself a briefly boost of speed. You can also do this mid-air for platforming or in combat to initiate an Unnecessary Combat Roll.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: When named characters are enthralled by the Promise, it's treated as brainwashing and very serious. However, for all the faceless mooks that are also enthralled by the Promise that the Guardians face, they are treated as weirdo zealots who deserve to be mowed down, with the Guardians making jokes about killing them. Gameplay dialogue does have some Guardians try to talk to the Converted, but they’re chastised by the others, saying that they're too far gone to stop and listen.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: There's one at the end of the credits. Highlights include Rocket building a hot tub in the cargo bay which he uses to hold team meetings (sans towels), Starlord getting the "Key to Knowhere" for saving Cosmo, which he uses to prop the malfunctioning fridge door shut, Drax convincing the team to get Kathatian tattoos to celebrate their victory (which are on everyone's butts, though Groot's healed), Cosmo being the best boy, and Nikki sometimes calling Peter "Dad" to throw him off his game.
• White Magic: The priests of the Universal Church of Truth use Faith Energy harnessed granted by the Matriarch to buff their fellow converted, heal their wounds, and create barriers to block Peter Quill from destroying them.
• Wonder Twin Powers: The Blood Brothers are invulnerable, but only while they're near each other. Splitting them up makes them vulnerable.
• You Will Not Evade Me: The air element allows you to pull enemies from the other side of the battlefield right next to you to smack them upside the head.

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