It is the second LEGO Adaptation Game based on Marvel's superhero properties, but is separate from LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, which was based on the Marvel Universe more broadly.
Not to be confused with Marvel's Avengers.
Warning! Given how various details from the adapted movies (along with Agents of Shield and Ant-Man for the DLC) are fully represented in character movesets and gameplay mechanics with the assumption that the player knows them already, there are many unmarked spoilers up to Age of Ultron. As such, please proceed with caution.
LEGO Marvel's Avengers provides examples of:
- Action Prologue: The prologue of the first Avengers movie, adapted into the second level, not only is rather low-key on action, the only Avenger involved is Hawkeye. To better give the player a taste of what's to come, it pulls an In Medias Res and puts the Action Prologue from Age of Ultron as the first level, which gives all founding members of the Avengers a chance to shine early.
- Adaptational Badass:
- Characters that never fought in their source material become capable of kicking some major plastic butt.
- The Quinjet the Avengers bring to the Battle of New York gets to shoot down a few Chitauri fighters before Loki brings it down.
- Adaptational Context Change: The final scene of Avengers changes the lines of the couple being interviewed, so that rather than saying they don't feel safe knowing aliens are out there, they say that they do feel safe.
- Adapted Out:
- Nick Fury's bringing down the rogue jet with a bazooka (though a Fury with bazooka is still playable).
- Nearly all of Loki and Tony's pre-fight speech-off is excised, including the "we'll avenge it" line.
- All of Erik Selvig's role in the final battle. He's still present, but all his lines are excised.
- The Stinger for Avengers is retained, but all The Other's lines are removed.
- Darcy is excised from "Lost in the Aether" entirely, as is Malekith killing Frigga.
- The after-party argument from Age of Ultron is massively shortened, such as Thor's grumbling at Tony, and Tony's lashing out at the other Avengers.
- Wanda and Pietro's first meeting with Ultron is massively shortened, including their story about the death of their family.
- The early mention of Wakanda in Age of Ultron is excised.
- Klaue's losing an arm to Ultron is excised. As is Ultron's sarcastic "I wanted to tell you about my evil plan" exchange with Tony, and the "cuttlefish" exchange, which skips straight to Klaue being hassled by Ultron.
- The Hulkbuster fight leaves out the fight through the office building.
- The Barton children, Laura Barton's pregnancy, the naming of her newborn after Pietro, and the Bait-and-Switch of Hawkeye's impending death.
- Natasha and Bruce's mutual angsting at the Barton farm.
- The "pool of sight" plotline from Age of Ultron, and the foreshadowing of the Infinity Stones and Thanos, are excised, including Thor naming Vision. Vision's "I'm not JARVIS, I'm not Ultron" monologue is also removed.
- Ultron threatening Helen Cho's compliance by threatening her staff, and subsequent follow-through when Wanda de-brainwashes her (as is Wanda de-brainwashing her in the first place).
- Vision's creation leaves out Hawkeye and Quicksilver's fighting. Instead, as soon as Quicksilver deactivates the Cradle, Thor shows up and zaps it.
- Ultron's monologue to the captive Natasha, ending with him debuting his final body by killing the previous one mid-sentence.
- Tony and Ultron's pre-final battle meet-up and banter doesn't happen.
- Since Pietro doesn't die, Wanda's Angst Nuke is skipped, and she has no final scene with Ultron, his main body instead being destroyed by Hulk throwing him out of the quinjet.
- Vision and Ultron's last chat is greatly shortened, with Vision's existential views being removed entirely.
- Advertised Extra: The Winter Soldier, Lady Thor and Kamala Khan are all featured on the back of the box, despite that fact that the Winter Soldier only appears in one optional mission, Kamala in two sidequests, and Lady Thor is just a playable character with no storyline focus.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- If you're in cursor mode, you don't have to worry about any enemies harming you due to being unable to take damage at there, so you can continue your task unimpeded.
- The Free Play character select menu includes a list of what abilities each character has to make it easier to figure out who can solve what puzzles. Unless you're playing on the PS3, which doesn't.
- Going through free play now lists the individual segments of each level, as well as which collectibles still need to be found in each segment.
- As Himself:
- Stan Lee makes the obligatory cameo with the recurring mission "Stan Lee in Peril".
- Lou Ferrigno is also an unlockable character.
- Ascended Meme:
- The final mission to unlock Lou Ferrigno? Fighting a bear.
- The third trailer for Age of Ultron spawned jokes about Hulk looking like he's taking a selfie in the scene where the team is lunging towards HYDRA in slow motion
. Cue the game having an entire string of "Hulk selfie" side quests. Ironically, he doesn't take a selfie in the recreation of said scene. - One of Maria Hill's briefings involves over the top ranting about how Coulson will be avenged by the Avengers, paying homage to a famous outtake from the titular film.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: The Other prepares to send several runaway Chitauri back to Thanos for a Fate Worse than Death, only to be distracted by the sound of an ice cream truck.
- Bears Are Bad News: A mission with Bucky has him facing off against President Bear.
- Bloodless Carnage: In full effect — whilst characters are dismembered, the characters are still plastic Lego pieces.
- Bowdlerization:
- During Thor's vision in Age of Ultron, Heimdall's line about his eyes is altered so that he simply says "they see you leading us", leaving out the last word (Hel).
- Maria Hill recites Tony Stark's line from Avengers, when he asked Banner about his method of keeping calm, only to change the last option to "a huge bag of jelly beans".
- Loki's act in Stuttgart leaves out the Eye Scream moment. Instead, Loki's just dancing around being a nuisance when the Avengers find him. Also, the Quinjet doesn't unfurl its BFG at him.
- Tony Stark's answer to Captain America's "Big man in a suit of armor, take that off and what are you?" is "Genius billionaire philanthropist," omitting the word "playboy." (Although he is getting a massage from two female SHIELD agents.)
- The "performance issues" line is removed. As is Nick Fury telling the World Security Council that he's elected to ignore their "stupid-ass" decision.
- Bottomless Magazines: Everyone that fights with a firearm follows this. Hawkeye lampshades it at one point as he carts around a wheelbarrow full of arrows.
- …But He Sounds Handsome: A variant. The narration for the Dark World level is apparently from Odin, who's an even bigger Jerkass than he was in the movie, taking time to repeatedly call Thor stupid and useless, while praising Loki at every opportunity. Three guesses who "Odin" actually is.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: As usual, visual shorthand is involved so you know what you need to use for a puzzle. Silver objects have to be blown up with explosives, gold objects require intense heat to melt, etc.
- Comedic Sociopathy: Half the fun is going around beating up NPCs and destroying random objects.
- Conspicuously Light Patch: Being made of LEGO bricks is a sign that it can be destroyed or interacted with.
- Could Say It, But...: Maria Hill's briefing for the level "A Loki Entrance". Because the SHIELD facility where it takes place is top secret, she can't say that they're studying the Tesseract there.
- Creator Cameo: The obligatory Stan Lee appearance.
- Crippling Overspecialization: The "Igor" Iron Man armor is designed for strength. It can't fly or shoot lasers or missiles, it just smashes stuff.
- Darker and Edgier: Compared to Marvel Super Heroes, being based directly off the movies and all. It shows in ways both obvious and subtle. Compare, for example, Maria Hill's mission briefings from one game to the other, or the more sunset-covered Real Is Brown look of New York in Avengers vs. the bright and cheerful daytime New York of Marvel Super Heroes.
- Death by Adaptation: Oddly for a Lego Game, Dum Dum Dugan is actually killed off to justify the train scene in Captain America only featuring Cap and Bucky.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Dying simply respawns you at the last safe spot of ground you stood on, with the only penalty being the loss of a small amount of LEGO studs.
- Deliberately Monochrome: All Agent Carter missions feature a filter that heavily dulls the colors as a representation of them being flashbacks.
- Description Cut: After the scene where Captain America states his certainty about how "Stark's not crazy", it immediately cuts to the scene of Tony telling Banner "we're Mad Scientists".
- Die, Chair, Die!: Destroying all (and we mean all) the level furniture is not only possible and enjoyable and but also distinctly necessary, and generally one of the game series' trademarks.
- Doomy Dooms of Doom: A mission has Arnim Zola proclaiming how the player's every action will lead to their doom. Comfortable, air-conditioned doom, but DOOM nonetheless.
- Downloadable Content: Several DLC packs are available, adding characters and settings from movies released since the main game was developed, including Ant-Man and Captain America: Civil War.
- Drop-In-Drop-Out Multiplayer: Per LEGO games, a second player can drop in or drop out at any time.
- Early-Bird Cameo: MCU characters who had yet to make their solo film debuts — namely Baron Zemo, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, and Captain Marvel — received DLC missions that are instead based on their comics incarnations ("The Masters of Evil" for Zemo, "All New All Different" for Strange, "Classic" for the latter two) so as to prevent their films' plots from being spoiled or predicted.
- Exactly What I Aimed At: During the attack in "Helicarrier Havoc", Hawkeye shoots an arrow into the breeze and leans back confidently. The other brainwashed agents just shake their heads in disappointment when the arrow seemingly misses due to the wind...then it ricochets all over the place, including through their Quinjet and straight for the Helicarrier turbine...only to hit a bird...which then falls into and jams the turbine.
- Flying Brick: Several characters have super strength, can fly, and are either Nigh-Invulnerable or at least have a Healing Factor. The Vision, The Sentry, Blue Marvel, America Chavez, and Korvac among them.
- Flying Car: Lola, Coulson's car from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., is one of the unlockable vehicles. She is capable of both road and air travel in the full game but only the former in the handheld version.
- Follow the Money: The usual holographic stud trail is utilized to lead you where you need to go, while the old version with actual studs is represented by a sidequest (referred to as a "retro" system in a Mythology Gag to both older games and Marvel Super Heroes, which had the same kind of sidequest) where gold studs lead the right way while silver studs lead the opposite way. Part of the notes the quest giver reads for why it was discontinued is how if you collect the studs without paying attention, you could get lost, a common problem with the use of collectables as directions.
- Gone Swimming, Clothes Stolen: Happens to Gorilla Girl in her side mission. She turns into her gorilla form to preserve her modesty when her clothes are hidden around Barton's farm, but she needs them back to go back to base.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Certain characters can be unlocked by getting into fights with them. The fights don't come with any explanation, they're just there.
- Ground Pound:
- Any character with a melee weapon can do this.
- This is required by bigfigs or super-strong characters to break floor-mounted cracked walls.
- Idle Animation: Everyone has them, and there's actually quite a bit of variation. Characters will scratch their head, point their weapon, or twirl around. Some even do unique things. Scarlet Witch, for example, pulls out blocks and plays with them using her powers.
- Idiot Ball: In Anger Management Quicksilver is defeated by Thor tricking him into trying to grab Mjolnir while in flight, three times.
- In Medias Res: The Story Mode begins with the assault on Castle Strucker from the opening of Age of Ultron, then heads back to the first Avengers and proceeds chronologically through both films from there.
- Joke Character
- Egghead, who has no real abilities other than throwing eggs.
- Butterball, who is physically invulnerable, but his attacks are all him tumbling over himself and he runs in a awkward waddle.
- The Mk 1 Iron Man suit, which moves slowly and can't fly. This is somewhat Downplayed as it can still deal damage and use flamethrowers.
- Kneel Before Zod: During his boss fight in Free Play Mode, Loki swears the player characters will kneel before him when the day is through.
- Lampshade Hanging: The job of Canon Foreigner Agent Williams is to poke fun at the game's mechanics, and developments in the storyline.
- Landmarking the Hidden Base: A Hydra base can be found under the Washington Monument.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: As early as the second level you will see a HYDRA symbol appear under SHIELD terminals after the first use, immediately giving a good idea of there being something amiss behind the scenes with SHIELD.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- When he's getting surgery done on him in the middle of the game, Hawkeye jokes that he's going to be made of plastic.
- One idle civilian chatter in Manhattan is a guy commenting "the city's changed in the last couple years", making a meta-joke about how the city had some geographic restructuring between Marvel Super Heroes and this game, such as replacing the X-Mansion with the Avengers HQ, which are only a few years apart.
- Lethal Joke Character: Squirrel Girl at base isn't one to really see as noteworthy in moveset, except for the fact she has a set of hulkbuster armor.
- Lighter and Softer: All the darker details from the movies are either glossed over or outright removed from this game, replaced with higher amounts of gags.
- Mythology Gag:
- Coulson will occasionally reference events from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., such as mentioning scrawling things down, or the possibility of someone losing a hand.
- He even goes beyond that by mentioning the Lip Sync Battle between Clark Gregg and Hayley Atwell... for research.
- Luis narrates the Ant-Man cutscenes, and once again gets distracted by artistic matters (in this case, ballet). And then, at the end of the outro cutscene, mentions he's got to go to the art museum where he learns Sam Wilson's looking for Scott.
- The reward for getting all the minikits in a level is a recreation of a comic cover, but with Lego versions of the movie characters.
- While all X-Men and Fantastic Four related characters are excised, a civilian in New York does occasionally use Beast's catchphrase of "Oh my stars and garters."
- Red Skull delivers a version of his "I have seen the future" line from Captain America: The First Avenger, only it's changed to "I have seen the future, there is no prancing."
- The four superheroines Jewel sends the player to find in her quest were all part of the interview montage in New Avengers.
- Toward the end of the game, when Hulk is flying away inside the stealth jet, he puts in a cassette tape that starts to play "The Lonely Man".
- The Black Panther DLC has the Black Knight working for Klaw, just like he did in the animated miniseries.
- Among the weapons a SHIELD scientist sends you on a quest to collect is a flamingo blade, which comes from the Fetch Quest given by Deadpool in Marvel Super Heroes.
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: One side-mission involves helping Kamala Khan fight off several crocodiles with Frickin' Laser Beams attached to their heads.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: One side-mission involves Beta Ray Bill disguising himself as Thor. Yes, that Beta Ray Bill, horse's skull face and all.
- Pass Through the Rings: Some unlockables are obtainable through races in the open world hubs that task the player to travel through rings under strict time limits.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: As in Marvel Super Heroes, She-Hulk and Red She-Hulk are the size of regular minifigs, but still capable of smashing glowing walls.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: Parts are sometimes changed from the original material to allow two players in what were originally one-man scenes.
- Quote Mine: The voicework in cutscenes is clipped straight from the movies. Many lines are used in the same context as the films — but some, such as "He's adopted", are put into new contexts for comedic purposes.
- Regenerating Health: Ultron and The Vision possess constantly regenerating health.
- Rewarding Vandalism: Smashing anything plastic-y and/or in LEGO form provides Lego studs to collect. Destroying everything in sight is basically required to get the "True Avenger" rank in every level.
- Running Gag:
- Hulk selfies.
- Everyone has strawberry milkshakes at odd moments.
- Pigs outfitted with weapons.
- Spared by the Adaptation:
- A bit of an odd version with Agent Coulson. He still "dies" like he did in the original movie, but we see him open his eyes and wink at the camera while Captain America's back is turned, foreshadowing his appearance in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
- Strucker and Quicksilver survive despite both being killed by Ultron in Age of Ultron. Strucker remains in custody after the raid on the HYDRA base, while Quicksilver is pelted with ice cream cones instead of being shot to death. Although given Quicksilver isn't seen at any point after this scene, and he was on an artificial meteorite which was eventually blown up, his survival is questionable.
- Stock Footage: The stock voice clips from the movies, though Sebastian Stan (Bucky) and Gwyneth Paltrow (Pepper) are replaced by voice actors due to their characters having expanded roles beyond what could be culled from the film audionote .
- Teamwork Puzzle Game: As usual, most puzzles require several characters with different abilities to solve, but this game also has "Avengers Teamup" spots, where two specific Avengers need to be chosen to perform a Combination Attack like you can do with a full combat bar, only Avenger Teamups don't require a charged bar and are specifically used to solve puzzles.
- Villain Episode:
- The hub interlude after completing the first Avengers movie focuses on HYDRA leaders Baron Strucker and Doctor List as they study the Chitauri technology and Maximoff twins, before the Avengers arrive to start the second movie's plot.
- The "Masters of Evil" DLC level revolves around the Masters of Evil villain group trying to enact an Evil Plan involving coating New York in an ultra-glue, with Iron Man and Thor acting as Hero Antagonists.
